General Notes

Don, Goddess of Fertility

Don was known, in the Celtic World, by several similar names: Danu or Anu being the most popular alternatives. She was a
Mother-Goddess, the wife of Beli Mawr (the Great) and considered to be the ancestor of all the Gods, the Tuatha dé Danann, who
found themselves obliged to the reside in the Otherworld when Miled brought the Celts to the British Isles. She still looks down on us
from the night's sky where she appears as Llys Don, better known as Casseopeia. Don was especially popular in Munster, though her
most lasting memorial is a mountain in County Kerry called the Dá Chích Anann or "Breast of Anu". The Dane Hills in Leicestershire are
also named after her and this area, perhaps a major centre for her cult, is where her memory lives on as Black Annis. This hideous old
crone's habit of eating young children was, no doubt, invented by incoming Christians to blacken the name of the Celtic Goddess. In
Christendom, the lady usually took on the guise of St.Anne, however, in order to smooth the path of conversion. This saint's popularity
in Brittany probably stems from the previous worship of the Celtic Goddess there. Don was also the patroness of springs and fountains,
hence the numerous St.Anne's Wells throughout Britain today. Early medieval historians confused Don (alias Anu) with Anna, the
daughter of St.Joseph of Arimathea. In Arthurian legend she probably appears as Annowre, a sorceress who imprisoned Arthur in the
Perilous Forest.