“Great was the jeopardy in which your father was here, O Lugh, when he saw the children of Tuireann, for he was obliged to go into the shape of a pig; nevertheless they subsequently killed him in his own shape.” The body was thereupon dug up and examined. Lugh kissed it three times, uttering words of lamentation, and ending with a mournful lay. “Cian was again placed in the grave after that, his tombstone was erected over his tomb, his dirge was sung, and his name inscribed in Ogam.” And now it will be ill with the sons of Tuireann. Having reached Tara, and as he sat in honourable position next the King of Erin, Lugh looked round on the miscreants and ordered the Chain of Attention of the Court to be shaken, that all present might listen. Of the entire company the children of Tuireann were the best in agility and dexterity; they were the handsomest as well as the most honoured. So Lugh approached the subject of the death of his father and the vengeance due with circumspection and inquiry. Brian denied: “Nevertheless,” he said, speaking for himself and his brothers, “we shall give _eric_ for him to thee, as though we had done the act.” Thereupon, in presence of all, Lugh announced the compensation required, “namely, three apples, the skin of a pig, a spear, two steeds, a chariot, seven pigs, a whelp, a cooking spit, and three shouts on a hill.” A mere trifle this eric may seem, but it turned out afterwards, when the special items demanded were characterised, that there was as much hazard involved in getting any one of them as there was for the youthful David in another Court, and for another king, to get one hundred foreskins of the Philistines. Brian suspected treachery, but he accepted the bill, and with his two brothers went forth to seek the payment. Daring feats of valour have to be faced to get those wonderful apples from the Garden of Hesperides, and the skin of the pig of the King of Greece, and the well-poisoned spear of the King of Persia, and all the rest. But they got a loan of Lugh’s curach to ferry them over the wave wherever they wished, and their sister Eithne, going down to the harbour, uttered a lay over them as the warrior band put out from the beautiful and clearly-defined borders of Eire.