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Are there any other mythological beings that got a replacement metal arm, other than Nuada, Lugh Llaw Ereint, and Sigurd?

I found these three from the Mythology section in TV Tropes:

  • The Battle of Magh Tuireadh relates how Nuada, king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, lost an arm in combat and received a functional replacement crafted of silver.

  • The same tale is ascribed to Lugh Llaw Ereint in the Welsh mythological cycle Y Mabinogion and may spring from the same Ur-Root.

  • There is a variation of a Norse myth involving Sigurd and his battle with the dragon Fafnir. During the fight his hand is bitten off, but he afterwards receives a fully articulate metal replacement with intricate wiring in place of tendons.

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Malady
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    Do Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker count, or no because it was just the hand? – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Dec 06 '15 at 21:06
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    @LaurenIpsum Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker do not count because they aren't characters from mythological texts/stories, despite whatever Joseph Campbell has said about them. –  Dec 06 '15 at 22:51
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    @Hamlet Point. :) I think Star Trek is in a better position to be presented as modern mythology than Star Wars. It's more internally coherent and directly addresses any number of moral questions. – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Dec 07 '15 at 01:39
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    @LaurenIpsum but what mythology is coherent when you really come down to it. They all have "WTF?" moments, leaps of faiths, and stories that contradict themselves. – Peter Lange Jan 21 '16 at 07:21
  • Captain Hook? – Spencer May 14 '18 at 23:24
  • @Spencer - Not part of an established religion thing, so no. – Malady May 15 '18 at 00:15
  • Pelops got an ivory shoulder. – DukeZhou May 15 '18 at 19:29
  • @DukeZhou - Nice... Better as an Answer though? ... Could go "There were other prosthetic limbs, see Osiris, Pelops, etc, and some even made of metal / silver, but just no arms, other than these 3". – Malady May 19 '18 at 11:09
  • @Malady Except that Pelops wasn't a god properly. But I think limiting it to gods and excluding other types of heroic figures will stunt the overall analysis (depending on what you're trying to do, that is). – cmw Mar 12 '24 at 19:57
  • whilst Lludd Llaw Ereint & Nuada Airgetlám have cognate names (Lludd's original name being Nudd), also cognate with an earlier deity (Nodens), it is important to note that our attested stories about them are late, so it's entirely possible that the metal arm trope never applied to a god, but only after they had been reduced in stature to heroes. And ofc there is no evidence of Sigurd ever being worshipped as a god at all, so if you are looking specifically for metal-armed gods all three examples in the question are dubious at best – Tristan Mar 25 '24 at 12:13
  • @Tristan - Interesting! ... Good thing I said "Mythological Being". Heh. – Malady Mar 25 '24 at 13:30
  • @Malady in your comment on Oliver-Grimm's answer you seem to treat the Maiden Without Hands not being worshipped a god as disqualifying (or at least as reducing her relevance). I am just pointing out that that seem problem applies to all three examples quoted in the question – Tristan Mar 25 '24 at 14:07
  • @Tristan - Ah. Thanks! – Malady Mar 25 '24 at 14:14

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If Grimms Märchen (AKA Fairy Tales) count, KHM 1812/57 #31 “The Maiden Without Hands” can be looked at. In this text, in later versions (1819 and after) the girl asks her father to chop off her hands so that the devil can not take her. He does this and she cries so much on the stumps that she became “pure” and the devil could not get her. She leaves her father and marries a king. He has silver hands made for her. In the first edition of the KHM, her hands grow back when she wraps her arm stumps around a tree three times at the bidding of an old man. Her silver hands are replaced with real ones through God’s Grace of her piety. Of course a lot more happens. Different versions of the text describe it differently.

Oliver-Grimm
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  • Interesting, but she's not worshipped as a god... I'm starting to think "Metal Arm God" is only a thing in (Northern?) Europe for whatever reason. – Malady May 19 '18 at 11:08
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The Indian solar deity Savitr is said to have had both of his hands cut off. He was then gifted with new hands made of gold. Georges Dumézil devoted a chapter of his book Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty to this story.

A version of the myth of Savitr getting golden hands is told in Chapter 23 of the Skanda Purana.

Regarding the myth of Sigurd losing his hand during his fight with Fafnir, it is not attested in any of the Old Norse and Middle High German sources dealing with the Germanic hero. It is likely a modern embellishment.

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Tezcatlipoca's foot, if you count an obsidian mirror:

Tezcatlipoca (pronounced teska-tli-pooka) was the Aztec god of creation and revenge. In certain drawings, he is depicted with his right foot gone and a “prosthesis” of obsidian (black volcanic glass) or a bone. The story goes that Tezcatlipoca lost his foot while battling the Earth Monster during creation.

—Prosthetics through the Ages: From Myth to Practice

He is often depicted with various symbolic objects in place of his right foot, such as an obsidian mirror, bone, or a serpent. This is an allusion to the creation myth, in which Tezcatlipoca loses his foot battling with the earth monster Cipactli.

—Wikipedia: Tezcatlipoca

rek
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  • What I don't count is that feet are any part of an arm. Otherwise I'd be fine with Obsidian. – Malady Dec 15 '23 at 02:59