Nudd of the Silver Hand. The name also appears in the form of Nodens. There is a third Nuada, Nuada Necht. He is a king who directly preceded Conaire Mór as the High King.

Nudd

[W] Nudd is cognate with Lludd and in this form is clearly identified with Nuada of the Silver Hand. See Lludd Llaw Ereint. A temple to Nodens, by which Roman soldiers in Britain came to know him, was founded at Lydney by the Severn. He is referred to in triad fashion (with Mordaf and Rhydderch) as one of the three generous ones of Britain.

Numbers

Numerology plays a significant and symbolic part in all Celtic myth. Some numbers can be particularly noted. Five, for example. There are five great roads in Ireland, five provinces (cuigi, the word for a province, means, literally, a fifth), five celebrated hostels, five paths of law, five prohibitions for provincial kings. Fionn Cumhail counts in fives, as do the people of the sídhe. There are five masters to each art, Cúchulainn has five wheels painted on his shield, and a medieval tract on language teaches that five words are adjudged to be a breath of the poet.

There is the number nine. It is argued that the Celts had a nine-day week; Medb rides off to Ulster with nine chariots; Cúchulainn has nine weapons; the curse on Ulster is for nine times nine generations; there are the nine judgments of Noidhiu and there is Niall of the Nine Hostages. In Welsh law the ninth day of the month marks the end of the beginning of a period, and a house was considered to have nine components (indeed, in Ireland, Bricriu’s Hall has nine rooms). Three nines, twenty-seven, also becomes significant.

Twelve, too, is important, for kings usually have twelve companions. Seventeen also occurs. Events are listed as taking place after periods of seventeen days or seventeen years; a youth becomes a man on his seventeenth birthday; a druid suggests to Mael Dúin that he take seventeen men on his voyage, and on the fabulous Island of Women they are greeted by seventeen maidens. Lastly, the number thirty-three occurs as a frequent numerical symbol.

Nuts of Knowledge

[I] Nine hazelnuts of wisdom grew over Segais’ Well (sometimes Conlaí’s Well). The nuts dropped into the well, causing bubbles of mystic inspiration. The Well of Segais is said to have formed the Boyne River. The salmon Fintan had eaten of the Nuts of Knowledge and settled in a pool, where the druid Finegas