Nuadha's Tale

Ignorance can be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it. -Thomas Jefferson

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

Nuada
As I was in the midst of carnage
I saw beside me an arm,
On each several finger of the fingers
A ring of red gold like blood

Its heroic proportions, its vast size,
Alas! for him from whom the limb was severed!
Its beauty, its length and its span,
Ruddy and beautiful were the nails.

A sleeve of glossy silk,
And a golden tunic sleeve,
Was around its whole length
Up to the corselet.

I lift it up, it was no small effort,
The hand, both flesh and blood;
I hear it with me, terrible was the distance,
To Druim Ibar of the estuaries.

The Hand of Nuada that I found there,
The High King of the Tuatha De Danaan,
It was seven year in my bird's abode:
There,O Fintan is my story for you!

- A bird to Fintan in an Irish Poem reprinted in The Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom

Now I know where that arm went to. Pesky bird.

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