At least, that is the case in the stories of the Hero and the Fenian Cycles.[5] [5] Everything, on the contrary, in the Mythological Cycle is gifted with life, all the doings and things of nature are represented as the work of living creatures; but it is quite possible that those in Ireland who made these myths were not Celts at all.
What the Irish of the Heroic, and still more of the Fenian Cycle, did make in their imagination was a world, outside of themselves, of living spiritual beings, in whose actuality they fully believed, and in whom a great number of them still believe.

A nation, if I may use this term, dwelt under the sea.

Another dwelt in the far island of the ocean, the Isle of the Ever-Young.

Another dwelt in the land, in the green hills and by the streams of Ireland; and these were the ancient gods who had now lost their dominion over the country, but lived on, with all their courtiers and warriors and beautiful women in a country underground.

As time went on, their powers were dwarfed, and they became small of size, less beautiful, and in our modern times are less inclined to enter into the lives of men and women.