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Concept
Aos Sí
Summary
Aos sí (iːsɣ ˈʃiː; older form: aes sídhe eːsɣ ˈʃiːə) is the Irish name for a supernatural race in Celtic mythology – daoine sìth in Scottish Gaelic – comparable to fairies or elves. They are said to descend from the Tuatha Dé Danann, meaning the "People of Danu", depending on the Abrahamic or pagan tradition.
The aos sí are said to live underground in fairy forts, across the Western sea, or in an invisible world that co-exists with the world of humans. This world is described in the Lebor Gabála Érenn as a parallel universe in which the aos sí walk among the living.
In modern Irish the people of the mounds are also called daoine sí; in Scottish Gaelic they are called daoine sìth (in both cases, it means "people of the fairy mound"). They are variously said to be the ancestors, the spirits of nature, or goddesses and gods.
In the Irish language, aos sí means "people of the fairy mounds", as "sídhe" means the Otherworldly mounds or hills. In modern Irish, the word is sí; in Scottish Gaelic, sìth; in Old Irish, síde, and the singular is síd.
By the time of the Celtic Revival, when the “Fairy Faith” became a topic for English and English-language authors, sidhe in its various forms, with various meanings, became a loanword into English and took on a variety of, often inaccurate, meanings.
The Sídhe are the hills or tumuli that dot the Irish landscape. In modern Irish the word is sí; in Scottish Gaelic, sìth; in Old Irish síde and the singular is síd. In a number of later, English-language texts, the word sídhe is incorrectly used both for the mounds and the people of the mounds. For example W. B. Yeats, writing in 1908, referred to the aos sí simply as "the sídhe". However sidh in older texts refers specifically to "the palaces, courts, halls or residences" of the otherworldly beings that supposedly inhabit them. The fact that many of these sídhe have been found to be ancient burial mounds has contributed to the theory that the aos sí were the pre-Celtic occupants of Ireland.
Official source
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