Was Nuada of the Silver Hand Literature’s First Cyborg?

Are we giving Edgar Allen Poe too much credit?

Because the consensus seems to be that Poe thought up the world’s first cyborg:

A battle-worn general who needs to be assembled—arms, legs, chest, eye, palate—before he can start his day.

This was in the 1839 short story The Man That Was Used Up.

But I know a much older story about a battle-worn military leader who suffers a similar (if less extreme) fate:

In the Cath Maige Tuired, or Second Battle of Mag Tuired, which dates back to the 9th century, the Irish High King Nuada needs a hand.

Literally.

The Irish god of medicine, Dian Cecht, famously outfits him with a silver one.

And if you pay close attention to the text, this seemingly ancient prosthetic functions like something straight out of science fiction.

And somehow, from there, the story only gets weirder.

Pssst. You can watch a video adaptation of this essay right here. Text continues below.

The First Battle of Maige Tuired: Nuada Loses a Limb (and the Kingship)

So here’s the lay of the land. 

You’ve got the Tuatha Dé Dannan, who most people think of as the Irish gods.

(That’s a good enough definition for our purposes.)

But they’re not native to Ireland.

And when they arrive, the Fir Bolg, or “bag men” (a previous race of settlers) are already there. 

So, naturally, there’s a battle.

That’s the first battle of Mag Tuired. 

And it’s good news for the Tuatha Dé Dannan as a whole, who win. 

But it’s bad news for their High King, Nuada, who gets his hand lopped off by the Fir Bolg champion, Sreng mac Sengainn.

Now, yes, the hand thing on its own—not ideal.

But what makes things worse for Nuada is that according to the laws of the Tuatha Dé Dannan, their king can’t be disfigured in any way.

So, despite being a war hero, Nuada’s out of a job.

And the half-Fomorian Bres becomes king and that’s a problem because the Fomorians are evil marauders who demand exorbitant tributes from the Tuatha Dé Dannan and Bres now effectively rules Ireland on their behalf.

Dian Cecht Makes Nuada a Silver Prosthetic

But, hey, these Tuatha Dé Dannan are wicked smart, and they hatch a plan.

“Dian-cecht the leech put on him a hand of silver with the motion of every hand; and Credne the brazier was helping the leech.”

Two things.

One. The Irish god Dian Cecht is a giant bloodsucker?

No, leech, in this context, means physician, because ancient physicians practiced leechcraft. 

Two. 

They made a silver hand with the motion of every hand?

So like, it could do everything an actual hand could do?

Everything?

Sorry. I don’t know. 

Maybe Whitley Stokes, whose 1891 translation I just cited, got something wrong.

Maybe Elizabeth A. Gray’s 1899 translation of the Cath Maige Tuired can clear things up:

“[W]ith Credne the brazier helping him, Dian Cecht the physician put on him a silver hand that moved as well as any other hand.”

That’s pretty clear.

This isn’t a lump of metal molded into the shape of a hand, like what we see with Jamie Lannister’s golden hand in Game of Thrones.

Nuada’s silver hand could function like a standard human hand made of bone, tissue, etc.

Meaning it must have had articulating joints. 

Or maybe there was some T-1000-esque liquid-metal physics going on.

Or, you know, magic.

Whatever the case, this works.

Nuada is able to reclaim the kingship.

Although he then willingly gives it up to the young, upstart, god-of-many-talents Lugh shortly thereafter and is ultimately killed by Lugh’s grandfather, the Fomorian warlord Balor of the Evil Eye, during the second battle of Mag Tuired. 

Does Nuada Have a Silver Hand or a Silver Arm?

But hey, Nuada does get a sweet nickname out of the deal:

Airgetlám—“Silver Hand.”

Or is it “Silver Arm”?

It’s both. 

The Old Irish word lám means both arm and hand, so it’s unclear where exactly on Nuada’s arm Sreng struck him. 

At the wrist?

At the shoulder? 

Or somewhere in between?

Because the meaning of the aforementioned passage does change a bit if we’re talking about Nuada’s whole arm being replaced. 

Think about it:

When you hear “an [arm] of silver with the motion of every [arm],” or “a silver [arm] that moved as well as any other [arm],” are you still imagining articulating fingers? 

Or are you imagining the swinging of the arm as it wields a sword, perhaps?

Because ultimately, as a warrior, that is what Nuada would need that hand and arm for first and foremost.

So maybe what this story is really saying is Nuada’s silver arm was a big hunk of metal, with a hole in the hand part and they stuck a sword in it and he could swing that arm around just like any other dude.

I mean god.

God-dude.

Miach Goes Organic: How Dian Cecht’s Son Restores Nuada’s Original Hand

But look, if it really was Nuada’s entire arm that got replaced, why did Stokes and Gray both refer to it as his hand instead?

I think a big part of the reason is that it makes more sense in the context of the story for it to be a hand.

Because shortly after Dian Cecht makes Nuada that legendary silver prosthetic, Dian Cecht’s son Miach one ups him.

Miach declares his dad’s “cure” for Nuada’s injury was evil, and that the superior solution would be to reattach Nuada’s severed appendage “joint to joint of it and sinew to sinew.”

So for three days Miach holds Nuada’s severed appendage against his side until a fresh coat of skin grows over it.

Lovely.

Then he holds it against his chest for three days.

Then he blackens some bulrushes over a fire and puts those on there for three days.

And bada bing bada boom, Miach successfully reanimates Nuada’s dead appendage. 

And Miach’s dad Dian Cecht is so proud of his son’s incredible accomplishment that he repeatedly chucks a sword at his head, making deeper and deeper wounds, which Miach must figure out how to cure.

Until finally one blow goes so deep it cuts out Miach’s brain and kills him, prompting Dian Cecht to declare:

“[N]o physician could heal him of that blow.”

Yeah, so turns out the Irish god of medicine is a bit of a jealous prick.

But my bigger takeaway is this: 

Miach’s talk of joints and sinews, to me, hints at the complicated surgery that would be required to reattach a hand.

Not that reattaching an arm is a walk in the park.

And sure, the “joint to joint of it and sinew to sinew” line could refer to a shoulder or an elbow joint.

But to me it reads more like Miach had to line up multiple joints. 

What’s more, when we remember that Miach has to hold whatever it is to his side for three days…

…a hand is a lot easier to hold to your side than an entire arm.

Same with holding it to your chest.

Two Reasons Why Nuada Is Literature’s First Cyborg

All this being said, I’m not sure settling the silver hand vs. silver arm debate is even necessary to my argument.

My argument being: 

Nuada is literature’s first cyborg.

And really, it’s two-fold:

First, as stated earlier:

The silver prosthetic made by Dian Cecht, with the help of Credne, is described as being able to move like the body part it is replacing.

Second: when Miach outshines his father Dian Cecht by reanimating Nuada’s actual severed appendage, there’s no mention of it being functionally superior to Dian Cecht’s design.

It’s better because it’s the original arm—it’s organic. 

The silver prosthetic is inorganic. It’s metal. But fully functional. Or rather, it’s restoring the function that was lost.

And it’s able to move at Nuada’s discretion, meaning there is some kind of integration happening with Nuada’s biology.

Biomechatronic. 

That’s the word I was looking for.

So when Nuada has this thing on, he consists of both organic and biomechatronic parts.

Meaning, by definition, he’s a cyborg.

Nuada of the Silver Hand was the first cyborg in literature. 

Beating Edgar Allen Poe’s The Man That Was Used Up by potentially a thousand years.

That’s if we go with the 9th-century dating based on the language used in the Cath Maige Tuired. 

But if we’re going by extant manuscript date, that brings us all the way up to the 16th century, which is misleading, however, because the manuscript in question (Harleian 5280) is known to be a copy of a 12th-century Middle Irish compilation that was lost.

Regardless, any way you slice it, Nuada of the Silver Hand is still centuries older than Poe’s 19th-century cyborg.

A Real-Life Nuada? Meet Götz von Berlichingen a.k.a. Götz of the Iron Hand

Now, I know what you’re all thinking:

Would the historical German knight Götz von Berlichingen a.k.a. Götz of the Iron Hand qualify as a cyborg based on the criteria I just set with Nuada?

After all, when, in 1504, Götz lost his hand/arm at the wrist courtesy (no that’s the wrong word) of a cannonball, his replacement prosthetic was mechanical.

With it, he could hold a quill. Hoist a shield. Take the reins of a horse.

And while Götz’s iron hand was incredibly sophisticated for its time, I wouldn’t say it “moved as well as any other hand.”

Nor was it truly integrated into Götz’s biology in the same way Nuada’s silver hand was.

Götz famously learned how to swordfight with his non-dominant hand following the injury. 

The implication being: the prosthetic couldn’t give him the necessary grip strength and/or range of motion.

A Jaime Lannister—Nuada Airgetlám Connection?

And if this story beat sounds familiar, George R. R. Martin seems to have borrowed it for A Song of Ice and Fire. 

Specifically, in Book 3, A Storm of Swords, which was adapted into season three of Game of Thrones, Jaime Lannister gets his hand chopped off and receives a golden replacement.

FYI: The show saves Jaime’s golden hand reveal for the beginning of season 4.

Then he trains in secret so he can swordfight with his nondominant hand.

Look, I know in my video on Irish mythology in popular culture, I say that Nuada of the Silver Hand inspired Jaime and his golden hand.

And while I still contend Martin knew of Nuada, based on the work he did on the game Elden Ring, it does seem like Götz of the Iron Hand had a bigger influence on Jaime Lannister.

That’s not to say however, that other, arguably better, fantasy writers haven’t turned to the silver-handed King for inspiration.

Case in point: 

A Celebrimbor—Nuada Airgetlám Connection?

J. R. R. Tolkien’s Celebrimbor, the elven-smith who forges the rings of power, takes his name directly from Nuada of the Silver Hand. 

Because obviously in the Sindarin language Celebrimbor means “silver hand.”

But the more interesting part is how Tolkien came to learn about the Irish Nuada:

As a philologist, i.e. someone who studies language as preserved in historical accounts, Tolkien was brought in to translate an inscription found at an ancient temple in Gloucestershire, England.

The inscription talked about a cursed ring. 

And after researching to whom the temple had been dedicated, the ancient Celtic god Nodens, Tolkien traced Nodens both to the mythical Welsh hero Nudd and to the aforementioned mythical Irish hero, Nuada.

And while Celebrimbor himself isn’t a cyborg, I do think we need to give him credit for kickstaring the whole-smart ring craze.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army’s NINO (Nuada in Name Only)

I’d be remiss not mention that Guillermo Del Toro’s Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, which depicts a universe rife with cyborgs, does have a villain named Nuada but transfers the metal hand to the character’s father, who is named Balor, even though in the Irish myths, those two are not related.  

The best analog for Nuada of the Silver hand in the modern era is, of course, Luke Skywalker.

A Luke Skywalker—Nuada Airgetlám Connection?

To be clear, I don’t think George Lucas relied on Irish mythology when crafting his Star Wars franchise.

But I think just by benefit of him being a student of Joseph Campbell, some of these mythical elements seeped in. 

Thus, the medical droid 2-1B is unknowingly taking on the role of the Irish god of medicine Dian Cecht when it attaches the L-hand 980 model prosthetic hand, produced by Antilles BioGen, to Luke’s arm.

Luke, who famously wields a lightsaber. 

Now seems like a good time to mention Nuada’s sword.

To quote the Cath Maige Tuired:

“From Findias was brought the sword of Nuadu. No one ever escaped from it once it was drawn from its deadly sheath, and no one could resist it.”

In later lore, Nuada’s sword is identified with the legendary Irish sword Claíomh Solais—the sword of light.

Specifically, in the Ulster Cycle epic the Táin Bó Cúailnge, or Cattle Raid of Cooley, the sword is referred to as “Nuadu’s Cainnel,” or Nuada’s torch.

And call me a Fomorian, or nerf-herder, but when I imagine a warrior dude with a fully functional metal hand and a glowing sword that no one can resist—to me you could be describing Nuada of the Silver Hand or Luke Skywalker.

But what do you think?

Am I correct in my assertion that Nuada was the first cyborg in literature? 

Or do you think a different cyborg should be wearing  King Nuada’s crown?

Sound off in the comments below.

And if you enjoyed the video, please leave a like. And one of the best things you can do is subscribe. That really, really helps.

As always my name is I. E. Kneverday, editor of the Celtic fantasy short story anthology Neon Druid and creator of the Irish Myths and Folklore in Film YouTube channels.

Thanks for comin’ out.

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