According to the old bardic legends, the first man who led a colony to Ireland after the Flood was Parthalon. Next came Nemed and his people; and after these the Firbolgs, who were conquered and succeeded by the Dedannans. The legend relates that the Dedannans, in the course of their wanderings, spent some time in Greece, where they learned magic and other curious arts. From this they migrated to Lochlann, in the north of Europe (see note 6), from which they came through Scotland to their final resting-place, Ireland. From the three queens of their three last kings, Ireland got the three names, Erin, F[=o]la, and Banba. After the Dedannans had held sway in Ireland for about two hundred years, they were in their turn conquered by the last and greatest colony of all, the people of Milèd or Milesius, who are commonly known by the name of Milesians, and who are the ancestors of the leading Gaelic families of Ireland. The Milesians defeated the Dedannans in two great battles: one fought at _Tailltenn_, now Teltown, on the river Blackwater, between Navan and Kells, in Meath; and the other at _Druim-Lighean_, now Drumleene, about three miles from Lifford, in Donegal. In the legendary and romantic literature of Ireland, the Dedannans are celebrated as magicians. By the Milesians and their descendants they were regarded as gods, and ultimately, in the imagination of the people, they became what are now in Ireland called "fairies." After their defeat by the Milesians, they seem to have retired to remote and lonely places; and their reputation as magicians, as well as the obscure and mysterious manner in which they lived, gradually impressed the vulgar with the belief that they were supernatural beings. The notion was that they lived in splendid palaces in the interior of pleasant green hills. These hills were called _sidh_ (pronounced _shee_); and hence the Dedannans were called _Daoine-sidhe_ (_Deena-shee_), or people of the fairy hills; _Marcra-sidhe_ (_Markra-shee_), fairy cavalcade; and _Sluagh-sidhe_ (_Sloo-shee_), fairy host. Of this mysterious race, the following are the principal characters mentioned in these tales. Mannanan Mac Lir, the Gaelic sea-god. In "Cormac's Glossary" (written A.D. 900), we are told that he was a famous merchant who resided in, and gave name to, _Inis-Manann_, or the Isle of Man; that he was the best merchant in Western Europe; and that he used to know, by examining the heavens, the length of time the fair and the foul weather would last. The Dagda, whose name some interpret to mean "the great good fire," so called from his military ardour, who reigned as king of Ireland from A.M. 3370 to 3450. Angus or Angus Oge, the son of the Dagda, who lived at _Brugh_ or Bruga, on the north shore of the Boyne, a little below the village of Slane. Angus is spoken of as the wisest and the most skilled in magic of all the Dedannan race. Nuada of the Silver Hand. (See note 4.)