The Battles of Moytura seem in most ways to be nothing more than the traditional record of a long warfare to determine the future spiritual control of Ireland, carried on between two diametrically opposed orders of invisible beings, the Tuatha De Danann representing the gods of light and good and the Fomorians representing the gods of darkness and evil. It is said that after the second of these battles 'The _Morrigu_, daughter of Ernmas (the Irish war-goddess), proceeded to proclaim that battle and the mighty victory which had taken place, to the royal heights of Ireland and to its fairy host and its chief waters and its river-mouths'.[257] For good had prevailed over evil, and it was settled that all Ireland should for ever afterwards be a sacred country ruled over by the People of the Goddess Dana and the Sons of Mil jointly. So that here we see the Tuatha De Danann with their war-goddess fighting their own battles in which human beings play no part. It is interesting to observe that this Irish war-goddess, the _bodb_ or _badb_, considered of old to be one of the Tuatha De Danann, has survived to our own day in the fairy-lore of the chief Celtic countries. In Ireland the survival is best seen in the popular and still almost general belief among the peasantry that the fairies often exercise their magical powers under the form of royston-crows; and for this reason these birds are always greatly dreaded and avoided. The resting of one of them on a peasant's cottage may signify many things, but often it means the death of one of the family or some great misfortune, the bird in such a case playing the part of a _bean-sidhe_ (banshee). And this folk-belief finds its echo in the recorded tales of Wales, Scotland, and Brittany. In the _Mabinogi_, 'Dream of Rhonabwy,' Owain, prince of Rheged and a contemporary of Arthur, has a wonderful crow which always secures him victory in battle by the aid of three hundred other crows under its leadership. In Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_ the fairies very often exercise their power in the form of the common hoody crow; and in Brittany there is a folk-tale entitled '_Les Compagnons_'[258] in which the chief actor is a fairy under the form of a magpie who lives in a royal forest just outside Rennes.[259]