Nuada of the Silver Hand

Nuada Airgetlám — Nuada of the Silver Hand — is the first king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the divine race who ruled Ireland before the Gaels arrived. His story turns on a single catastrophe: at the First Battle of Mag Tuired against the Fir Bolg, his right arm was severed at the shoulder. Under the sacred law of the Tuatha, a king must be physically perfect — and so Nuada was deposed, replaced by the dubious and eventually tyrannical Bres.

The healer-god Dian Cecht fashioned him a silver arm that moved like a real one, restoring his wholeness and his right to reign. In a later version, Dian Cecht's son Miach grew flesh over the silver arm, making it truly organic — an act that so threatened his father's pride that Dian Cecht killed him in jealousy. The herbs that grew from Miach's grave contained every healing property known to medicine.

Nuada ruled again and led the Tuatha against the Fomorians at the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, the great cosmic conflict between order and chaos. He was killed in that battle by the Fomorian king Balor of the Evil Eye, making way for Lugh — who then killed Balor with a sling-stone through the eye — to carry the final victory. Nuada's silver arm gave him his epithet and his place in the mythological cycle as the noble king undone and restored.