Brian made a sign to his brothers, and they watched their opportunity carefully, and, as the chariot passed close beside them, Brian leaped into it, hurling its driver over the side. Then, turning the horses, he struck King Dobhar with Pisear’s spear, and killed him. He took his two brothers up into the chariot and they drove away. By the time the sons of Tuirenn reached the country of Easal, King of the Pillars of Gold, rumour had gone before them. The king came down to the harbour to meet them, and asked them if it were really true that so many kings had fallen at their hands. They replied that it was true, but that they had no quarrel with any of them; only they must obtain at all costs the fine demanded by Lugh. Then Easal asked them why they had come to his land, and they told him that they needed his seven pigs to add to the tribute. So Easal thought it better to give them up, and to make friends with the three sons of Tuirenn, than to fight with such warriors. The sons of Tuirenn were very glad at this, for they were growing weary of battles. It happened that the King of Ioruaidhe, who had the hound-whelp that Lugh had demanded, was the husband of King Easal’s daughter. Therefore King Easal did not wish that there should be fighting between him and the three sons of Tuirenn. He proposed to Brian and his brothers that he should sail with them to Ioruaidhe, and try to persuade the king of the country to give up the hound-whelp peacefully. They consented, and all set foot safely on the “delightful, wonderful shores of Ioruaidhe”,[132] as the manuscript calls them. But King Easal’s son-in-law would not listen to reason. He assembled his warriors, and fought; but the sons of Tuirenn defeated them, and compelled their king to yield up the hound-whelp as the ransom for his life. All these quests had been upon the earth, but the next was harder. No coracle, not even Manannán’s “Wave-sweeper”, could penetrate to the Island of Fianchuivé, in the depths of the sea that severs Erin from Alba. So Brian left his brothers, and put on his “water-dress, with his transparency of glass upon his head”—evidently an ancient Irish anticipation of the modern diver’s dress. Thus equipped, he explored the bottom of the sea for fourteen days before he found the island. But when at last he reached it, and entered the hall of its queen, she and her sea-maidens were so amazed at Brian’s hardihood in having penetrated to their kingdom that they presented him with the cooking-spit, and sent him back safe.