Anu

Surviving medieval glosses present Anu as a primordial mother-goddess and ancestral source of the Irish gods. Sanas Cormaic records Ana as 'mother of the gods of Ireland', a genealogical/ancestral role that places her at the root of divine lineage in Irish cosmology. Later compilations and folkloric reworkings (modern popular accounts) expand her identity through conflation with other female divinities but do not provide a single cohesive origin narrative.

Medieval and early glossing sources do not provide a consistent physical description for Anu. Place-name evidence (the Paps of Anu/Dá Chích Anann in County Kerry) implies a symbolic 'land-mother' embodiment tied to breast-shaped hills. Later popular and folkloric texts sometimes portray her in generalized Great‑Mother imagery or align her with triadic feminine figures (maiden/crone/war-woman), but these are modern or derivative interpretations rather than uniform medieval attestations.

Primary attested functions in the sources are maternal nourishment and provision—Sanas Cormaic says she 'well did she feed the gods'—and a territorial role conferring wealth, riches and prosperity, particularly in Munster (the name is glossed with meanings of wealth/prosperity). Some later folkloric and popular materials ascribe broader and ambivalent functions (giver of gifts and inspiration; bringer of sleep and darkness), but those attributes are presented in the modern compilation as syncretic extensions rather than core medieval attestations.