This tale is evidently the work of some ancient Irish story-teller who wished to compile from various sources a more or less complete account of how the Gaelic gods obtained their legendary possessions. The spear of Pisear, King of Persia, is obviously the same weapon as the lance of Lugh, which another tradition describes as having been brought by the Tuatha Dé Danann from their original home in the city of Gorias;[126] Failinis, the whelp of the King of Ioruaidhe, is Lugh’s “hound of mightiest deeds”, which was irresistible in battle, and which turned any running water it bathed in into wine,[127] a property here transferred to the magic pig’s-skin of King Tuis: the seven swine of the King of the Golden Pillars must be the same undying porkers from whose flesh Manannán mac Lir made the “Feast of Age” which preserved the eternal youth of the gods;[128] it was with horses and chariot that ran along the surface of the sea that Manannán used to journey to and fro between Erin and the Celtic Elysium in the West;[129] the apples that grew in the Garden of the Hesperides were surely of the same celestial growth as those that fed the inhabitants of that immortal country;[130] while the cooking-spit reminds us of three such implements at Tara, made by Goibniu and associated with the names of the Dagda and the Morrígú.[131] The burden of collecting all these treasures was placed upon the shoulders of the three sons of Tuirenn. They consulted together, and agreed that they could never hope to succeed unless they had Manannán’s magic horse, “Splendid Mane”, and Manannán’s magic coracle, “Wave-sweeper”. But both these had been lent by Manannán to Lugh himself. So the sons of Tuirenn were obliged to humble themselves to beg them from Lugh. The sun-god would not lend them the horse, for fear of making their task too easy, but he let them have the boat, because he knew how much the spear of Pisear and the horses of Dobhar would be needed in the coming war with the Fomors. They bade farewell to their father, and went down to the shore and put out to sea, taking their sister with them. “Which portion of the fine shall we seek first?” said the others to Brian. “We will seek them in the order in which they were demanded,” he replied. So they directed the magic boat to sail to the Garden of the Hesperides, and presently they arrived there. They landed at a harbour, and held a council of war. It was decided that their best chance of obtaining three of the apples would be by taking the shapes of hawks. Thus they would have strength enough in their claws to carry the apples away, together with sufficient quickness upon the wing to hope to escape the arrows, darts, and sling-stones which would be shot and hurled at them by the warders of the garden.