among the hills on that long headland.

From their battlefield they could see the sea on either hand, stretching
far inland northward and southward; across these arms of the sea rose
other headlands, more distant, the armies of hills along them fading
from green to purple, from purple to clear blue. But the De Danaans had
burned their boats; they sought refuge rather by land, retreating
northward till they came to the shelter of the great central woods. The
Sons of Milid pursued them, and, overtaking them at Tailten on the
Blackwater, some ten miles northwest of Tara, they fought another
battle; after it, the supremacy of the De Danaans definitely
passed away.

Yet we have no reason to believe that, any more than the Fomorians or
Firbolgs, the De Danaans ceased to fill their own place in the land.
They seem, indeed, to have been preponderant in the north, and in all
likelihood they hold their own there even now; for every addition to our
knowledge shows us more and more how tenacious is the life of races, how
firmly they cling to their earliest dwellings. And though we read of
races perishing before invaders, this is the mere boasting of
conquerors; more often the newcomers are absorbed among the earlier
race, and nothing distinctive remains of them but a name. We have
abundant evidence to show that at the present day, as throughout the
last three thousand years, the four races we have described continue to
make up the bulk of our population, and pure types of each still linger
unblended in their most ancient seats; for, though races mingle, they do
not thereby lose their own character. The law is rather that the type of
one or other will come out clear in their descendants, all undefined
forms tending to disappear.