So Cian spoke the befitting spell, cast off his pig’s disguise, and stood before them in his own shape. “You will be obliged to spare my life now,” he said. “We will not,” replied Brian. “Then it will be the worst day’s work for all of you that you ever did in your lives,” he answered; “for, if you had killed me in the shape of a pig, you would only have had to pay the value of a pig, but if you kill me now, I tell you that there never has been, and there never will be, anyone killed in this world for whose death a greater blood-fine will be exacted than for mine.” But the sons of Tuirenn would not listen to him. They slew him, and pounded his body with stones until it was a crushed mass. Six times they tried to bury him, and the earth cast him back in horror; but, the seventh time, the mould held him, and they put stones upon him to keep him down. They left him buried there, and went to Tara. Meanwhile Lugh had been expecting his father’s return. As he did not come, he determined to go and look for him. He traced him to the Plain of Muirthemne, and there he was at fault. But the indignant earth itself, which had witnessed the murder, spoke to Lugh, and told him everything. So Lugh dug up his father’s corpse, and made certain how he had come to his death; then he mourned over him, and laid him back in the earth, and heaped a barrow over him, and set up a pillar with his name on it in “ogam”.[118] He went back to Tara, and entered the great hall. It was filled with the people of the goddess Danu, and among them Lugh saw the three sons of Tuirenn. So he shook the “chiefs’ chain”, with which the Gaels used to ask for a hearing in an assembly, and when all were silent, he said: “People of the goddess Danu, I ask you a question. What would be the vengeance that any of you would take upon one who had murdered his father?” A great astonishment fell upon them, and Nuada, their king, said: “Surely it is not your father that has been murdered?” “It is,” replied Lugh. “And I am looking at those who murdered him; and they know how they did it better than I do.” Then Nuada declared that nothing short of hewing the murderer of his father limb from limb would satisfy him, and all the others said the same, including the sons of Tuirenn. “The very ones who did the deed say that,” cried Lugh. “Then let them not leave the hall till they have settled with me about the blood-fine to be paid for it.” “If it was I who had killed your father,” said the king, “I should think myself lucky if you were willing to accept a fine instead of vengeance.”