O'Curry says:--'The term (_sídh_, pron. _shee_), as far as we know it, is always applied in old writings to the palaces, courts, halls, or residences of those beings which in ancient Gaedhelic mythology held the place which ghosts, phantoms, and fairies hold in the superstitions of the present day.'[230] In modern Irish tradition, 'the People of the _Sidhe_,' or simply the _Sidhe_, refer to the beings themselves rather than to their places of habitation. Partly perhaps on account of this popular opinion that the _Sidhe_ are a subterranean race, they are sometimes described as gods of the earth or _dei terreni_, as in the _Book of Armagh_; and since it was believed that they, like the modern fairies, control the ripening of crops and the milk-giving of cows, the ancient Irish rendered to them regular worship and sacrifice, just as the Irish of to-day do by setting out food at night for the fairy-folk to eat. Thus after their conquest, these _Sidhe_ or Tuatha De Danann in retaliation, and perhaps to show their power as agricultural gods, destroyed the wheat and milk of their conquerors, the Sons of Mil, as fairies to-day can do; and the Sons of Mil were constrained to make a treaty with their supreme king, Dagda, who, in _Cóir Anmann_ (§ 150), is himself called an earth-god. Then when the treaty was made the Sons of Mil were once more able to gather wheat in their fields and to drink the milk of their cows;[231] and we can suppose that ever since that time their descendants, who are the people of Ireland, remembering that treaty, have continued to reverence the People of the Goddess Dana by pouring libations of milk to them and by making them offerings of the fruits of the earth. THE PALACES OF THE _SIDHE_