Dian Cécht Restores Nuada’s Arm
Legend by: Irish Mythology
Source: Mythic Tradition
In a lamplit workshop, where shadows minded their manners and tools lay as if listening, the healer-smith Dian Cécht set a silver arm on the bench. It gleamed like water under moonlight. King Nuada sat bare-shouldered, not from shame but from trust.
“Will it be as good as the old?” he asked, not hiding the hope that makes a king and a child kin.
“As good,” said Dian Cécht, “and better where better is needed and not at all where not.”
He worked with a tenderness that would have surprised enemies—fitting tendon to silver sinew, setting joints that knew the difference between strength and stiffness. When Nuada raised the arm, it moved not like a machine but like a memory remembering how to be a limb.
“Hold a cup,” said Dian Cécht. Nuada did. “Lift a sword.” He did and felt how weight sits in a hand that expects it. “Touch a cheek.” Nuada touched his own and found that the silver did not forget gentleness.
The people were glad, for a maimed king is an anxious weather. Those who loved the old ways muttered about metal and men. “This,” said Dian Cécht quietly, “is neither vanity nor sorcery. It is care made visible.”
Later a better graft would be made of flesh, and the story would grow additional rooms. But for a time the silver arm kept its promises and Nuada kept his kingship, and both were handsome to watch.
If you have a wound—of flesh or pride—remember the lesson of the silver arm: a good remedy is one that restores use and remembers kindness. Shine is extra.
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