Dian Cecht Basics

Dian Cecht is attested to in the Dindsenchas, the Coir Anmann, where he is described as the healer of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the son of the Dagda. His name may mean “Swift Power,” but some scholars believe this to be a mistake in translation. Due to pronunciation changes in the old Irish language, his name might have originally meant “Swift Potion,” suggesting medicine.

He is the father of daughter Airmed and sons Cian and Miach. Lugh is his grandson. Many Celtic gods and goddesses are ascribed powers of healing, but Dian Cecht is specifically described as the god of healing for the gods themselves.

During the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, Dian Cecht restored life to fallen Tuatha by bathing them in the Tipra Slaine (Spring of Life) on Achlad Abla (Field of the Apple Trees), a place in Irish myth which is associated with Brythonic Avalon. He famously crafted Nuada’s silver arm, and it to worked just like a functional normal arm, complete with moving fingers. Dian Cecht was able to heal any wound short of decapitation or spinal cord injury!

He cured illnesses using a porridge made of dandelions, hazelnuts, wood sorrel, and chickweed, as well as by singing healing incantations over the sick and wounded. He also once healed a struck out eyeball with a hazel wand. Miach and Octruiul served as his nurses, aiding him in collecting curatives on the Lusmag (Herb Plain) and chanting healing spells.

The healer god is depicted as having a definite dark side, and he is described as having a rather toxic relationship with his children. He killed his son Miach out of jealousy – for having made an even better, flesh like arm for Nuada. Airmed’s mourning tears for her brother caused powerful new healing herbs to blossom where they fell. She attempted to catalogue all of them, but Dian Cecht, in another fit of jealous rage, destroyed her work and scattered the plants, such that humanity would never know all of the healing properties of herbs.

Dian Cecht prophesied that something was deeply wrong with one of the Morrigan’s babies, and counseled that the pregnancy be terminated. After the deed was done, he dissected the baby and found three monster serpents growing in its heart. Had the baby grown to maturity, the serpents would have grown too and brought devastation to the land. Dian Cecht burned the baby serpents and threw their ashes into a river, which boiled as it absorbed them, killing all life within it. This legend was the story behind the Barrow River in County Laois, Ireland. It became associated with healing minerals and another healer deity, Borvo, god of healing minerals and spring water.

The healer of the Tuatha is also petitioned by mortals for help with healing, as attested to by preserved spells and incantations petitioning for his aid. There is also evidence of a religious following of Dian Cecht earlier than Irish mythological literature, which may make him a Formorian or an older deity absorbed by the Tuatha Dé Danann.

ydalir.ca

Thoughts on Dian Cecht

Dian Cecht sang incantations over the wounded to heal them, which echoes the healing magic of Óðin, who with an accompanying choir sings Galdr (singing magic) over the wounded, as in the story of Baldr’s horse. His bathing of fallen warriors on the spring is reminiscent of the Dagda’s and Welsh Arawn’s cauldron of renewal.

Dian Cecht brings to mind Greco-Roman Asclepius, another god of healing, who was also attended to by his children in his healing work. Asclepius was symbolised by his snake-entwined staff, the Rod of Asclepius, an homage to the healing practice of drawing out worms from the body, which has been adopted by modern medicine.

It is interesting that in the lore, a decapitated body could not be healed. Ancient Celtic warriors were notorious headhunters who claimed the heads of defeated enemies as trophies. They were treated with reverence and displayed with great honour. The soul was believed to reside within the skull, and it is interesting to note that even the healer god could not revive someone who had lost their head, and thus their soul.

It would be easy to conclude from Dian Cecht’s child slaying – for daring to compete with his healing success! – that he was playing out modern day pharmaceutical company patent wars. However, the lore was recorded by Christian scribes, and a lot is said about this in the introduction to any scholarly entry on paganism. The Christian authors, as indebted as we may be to their preservation of the lore, notoriously vilified the deities of the Old Ways they sought to replace, in many subtle and not so subtle ways.

This can be seen clearly in the domain of medicine in the Mediaeval period, where the Church dominated medical profession sought to violently exterminate and vilify traditional folk healing practices – such as the slanderous, centuries-long project of turning traditional folk healers into child-killing witches. The Dagda was known to have been doctored up in the texts to be more oafish and buffoonish than earlier tradition seems to suggest. Cernunnos’ image was perverted to represent the Devil of Christianity.

Many pagan deities were stripped of their divinity and re-written to be slain, defeated, and replaced by the new faith. It is certainly possible that Dian Cecht’s strange story, without clear context is an example of vilifying the old pagan religion’s healer and the healing practices of its people.

Cross cultural analysis of similar cultures may shed some light. Greek and Roman myth had considerable influence on the pagan North, and there were broad exchanges of ideas and belief. Celtic mythology and Greek mythology share a common Indo-European root, resulting in many of the same themes, motifs and near-identical characters. In Greek myth, Zeus and Hades punish Asclepius for healing too much, as this would upset the order of the universe. Perhaps having many supernatural healers among the gods would similarly upend the divine order, and Dian Cecht sought to alleviate this issue, and the story was rearranged?

Dian Cecht’s imagery of drawing out worms is an echo of the symbol of medicine. Worms and serpents were synonymous, and the serpent imagery of his heart-serpents story is no accident. Throughout pagan and early Christian Europe, worm and serpent were part of a very broad category – basically anything that had a long body and no legs.  This could mean anything ranging from maggots to dragons! There is a lot of surviving folklore across Europe that shows such creatures could mutate into the other.

ydalir.ca

Signs and Symbols

Medicine, herbalism, and traditional remedies. Potions, springs, baths and spas. Hazel sprigs and wands.

ydalir.ca

Associated Names

Cainte, Canta.