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Nuada




One of the Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann was his sword, Fragarach , which cut his enemies in half (in other stories Fragarach is the Sword of Manannan Mac Lir ).

Nuada was king of the Tuatha Dé before they came to Ireland, but in the first Battle of Magh Tuiredh , in which they conquered Ireland from the Fir Bolg , Nuada had his hand or arm cut off by the Fir Bolg warrior Sreng (the Irish word ''lámh'' can mean either "hand" or "arm", so the extent of his loss is unclear). Since he was no longer physically perfect he could not continue as king, and so the half- Fomorian Bres became the first Tuatha Dé Danann High King Of Ireland .

Bres turned out to be a tyrant, enslaving the Tuatha Dé, forcing them to pay tribute to the Fomorians and neglecting his duties of hospitality. So Nuada had his arm replaced by a working one of Silver by the physician Dian Cecht and the artificer Creidhne , and he was restored to the kingship, gaining his epithet ''Airgetlám'' ("silver hand/arm"). Later, Dian Cecht's son, Miach , replaced the silver arm with one of flesh and blood; Dian Cecht killed him out of professional envy.

Nuada could not throw off the Fomorian yoke until the multi-talented Lug joined his court. He put Lug in command of the army, and he led them to victory against the Fomorians in the Second Battle Of Magh Tuireadh , but Nuada was killed in the battle by Balor , the Fomorian leader.

He is probably the same figure as Elcmar , and possibly Nechtan .

Other characters of the same name include the later High Kings Nuadat Finnfail and Nuada Necht , and Nuada, the maternal grandfather of Fionn Mac Cumhail . A rival to Conn Of The Hundred Battles was Mug Nuadat ("Nuada's Slave"). The Delbhna , a people of early Ireland, had a branch called the Delbhna Nuadat who lived in County Roscommon .


ETYMOLOGY

This of "acquisitive masculine " (q.v. [http://www.wales.ac.uk/documents/external/cawcs/MoE-PCl.pdf [http://www.indo-european.nl/cgi-bin/query.cgi?root=leiden&basename=%5Cdata%5Cie%5Cceltic]).
  • ''Nōdans'' or '' Nodens ''.


However, another plausible ’s associations with youth, healing, sunlight, warriors and kingship.

  • Noudants'' may also be derived from Proto-Indo-European ---sneudh- "fog" (cf. Avestan snaoda "clouds," Welsh nudd "fog," Gk. nython, in Hesychius "dark, dusky"), suggesting that Nodens was the deification of a weather pattern frequent in the British Isles.



TEXTS



REFERENCES

  • Cross, Tom Peete and Clark Harris Slover, ''Ancient Irish Tales'', Henry Holt & Company, Inc (1936); ISBN 1-56619-889-5

  • Ellis, Peter Berresford, ''Dictionary of Celtic Mythology''(Oxford Paperback Reference), Oxford University Press, (1994); ISBN 0195089618

  • MacKillop, James. ''Dictionary of Celtic Mythology''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998; ISBN 0192801201.

  • Wood, Juliette, ''The Celts: Life, Myth, and Art'', Thorsons Publishers (2002); ISBN 0007640595

  • Proto-Celtic-English lexicon



  Before Bres
  Title High King Of Ireland
  After Lug
  Years AFM 1890-1870 BC<br> FFE 1470-1447 BC