Commentary
This is a story from Celtic mythology about one of their great healers, Dian Cecht (also Diancecht).  He was the most famous Celtic healer deity, the deity of the Tuatha Dé Danann.  He was the keeper of a blessed spring, in which all wounds and ailments could be healed.  Dian Cecht had two children who helped him heal members of the Tuatha Dé: Airmed and Miach.  The children together were better physicians than Dian Cecht, and out of rage, he killed his son Miach.  The following story is based on the tale of Dian Cecht and Nuada, a king.  Nuada gets wounded in a battle; his hand is cut off.  Dian Cecht replaces the hand, and Nuada is restored to his throne.

    The Tuatha Dé and the Formorians had been fighting for a long time.  So long that even the oldest of both clans could not remember when the fighting began.  Day after day, the bloody fighting continued.  Each evening, members of the Tuatha Dé brought their wounded and their dead back to the healing camp.  Dian Cecht, the god of healing and medicine, waited each evening for the soldiers to come.  With the help of his children, Airmed and Miach, they placed each of the wounded soldiers into Slane, the blessed fountain.  As each man bathed in the waters of Slane, his wounds were healed and he was restored to battle.  While the waters of Slane could go so far as to bring a man back to life, the magic healing waters could not restore some properties.  During one skirmish with the Formorians, the king of the Tuatha Dé himself, Nuada, was wounded.  A Formorian caught him by surprise and cut off the hand which held Nuada’s sword.  Soldiers immediately took their powerful king to Dian Cecht.
    The waters of Slane were indeed powerful, but even the water could not heal the severed hand of King Nuada.  Instead, Dian Cecht took a silver sword and placed it in the waters of Slane to clean it.  He then built a great fire and melted the sword into liquid silver.  With his bare hands, Dian Cecht reshaped the molten silver into the shape of a hand.  With great care and precision, he attached the new hand to the arm of Nuada.  Because of Dian Cecht’s great power, the hand, while not alive, was fully functional.  Nuada was restored.  During this time, however, Bres, the king of the Formorians, took over Nuada’s throne.  He was a tyrant, though, and the Tuatha Dé hated him.  They decided to restore Nuada to his throne.
    Miach, son of Dian Cecht, decided to help the Tuatha Dé restore Nuada.  Bres believed that Nuada was weak because of the silver hand fashioned for him by Dian Cecht.  Miach took it upon himself to restore Nuada – fully.  He found Nuada’s severed hand, and, using powers much stronger than his father’s, he reattached Nuada’s hand.  Nuada and his followers were able to overthrow Bres, and Nuada was restored to his rightful place as king.
    When Dian Cecht learned of his son’s doings, he became enraged.  He found his son, and in his anger, killed him.  Airmed, fearing her father’s rage, ran away and hid from her father for the rest of her days.

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