HerbsWater from a healing wellThe work of caring for the sickA record of a remedyBandages burned
Invocation Approach
Tone
Clinical and compassionate
Address
Dian CéchtPhysician of the GodsSwift Sure One
Relationship
The physician who will not lie about the prognosis
Warning
He heals and he also kills what threatens his art
Resonance
Healers herbalists carers those who tend the wounded
Symbols
WellHerb bundleKnifeSilver hand
Mythology Summary
Dian Cécht is the physician of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Cath Maige Tuired: he bathes the wounded in the well Sláine at Achad Abla, chanting with his sons Miach and Octriuil and his daughter Airmed, so that the hurt return to the next day's fighting, and he boasts that he can heal all but the decapitated. He makes Nuada a silver hand with Creidne; when Miach restores a hand of flesh and blood he kills his son out of professional envy, and later scatters the herbs Airmed has catalogued. An early Irish law tract on injury, Bretha Déin Chécht, is attributed to him.
Modern Practice
Called on by healers and carers, at the bedside rather than the altar, with the well and the herb bundle as working symbols. The Miach story is used as a warning about jealousy inside a craft and about the limits of what medicine can restore.