"May all good be thine, O King!" answered Brian. "I knew that I should get a noble reward."
So the king sent for the pig's-skin to measure out the gold with. But, as soon as Brian saw it, he seized it with his left hand, and slew the man who was holding it, and Iuchar and Iucharba also hacked about them; and they cut their way down to the boat, leaving the King of Greece among the dead behind them.
"And now we will go and get King Pisear's spear," said Brian. So, leaving Greece, they sailed in their coracle to Persia.
Their plan of disguising themselves as poets had served them so well that they decided to make use of it again. So they went into the King of Persia's hall in the same way as they had entered that of the King of Greece. Brian first listened to the poets of Persia singing; then he sang his own song:
"Small the esteem of any spear with Pisear;
The battles of foes are broken;
No oppression to Pisear;
Everyone whom he wounds.
"A yew-tree, the finest of the wood,
It is called King without opposition.
May that splendid shaft drive on
Yon crowd into their wounds of death."
"That is a good poem, O man of Erin," said the king, "but why is my spear mentioned in it?"
"The meaning is this," replied Brian: "I should like to receive that spear as a reward for my poem."
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"You make a rash request," said the king. "If I spare your life after having heard it, it will be a sufficient reward for your poem."
Brian had one of the magic apples in his hand, and he remembered its boomerang-like quality. He hurled it full in the King of Persia's face, dashing out his brains. The Persians flew to arms, but the three sons of Tuirenn conquered them, and made them yield up the spear.
They had now to travel to Sicily, to obtain the horses and chariot of King Dobhar. But they were afraid to go as poets this time, for fear the fame of their deeds might have got abroad. They therefore decided to pretend to be mercenary soldiers from Erin, and offer the King of Sicily their service. This, they thought, would be the easiest way of finding out where the horses and the chariot were kept. So they went and stood on the green before the royal court.
When the King of Sicily heard that there had come mercenaries from Erin, seeking wages from the kings of the world, he invited them to take service with him. They agreed; but, though they stayed with him a fortnight and a month, they never saw the horses, or even found out where they were kept. So they went to the king, and announced that they wished to leave him.
"Why?" he asked, for he did not want them to go.
"We will tell you, O King!" replied Brian. "It is because we have not been honoured with your confidence, as we have been accustomed with other
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kings. You have two horses and a chariot, the best in the world, and we have not even been allowed to see them."
"I would have shown them to you on the first day if you had asked me," said the king; "and you shall see them at once, for I have seldom had warriors with me so good as you are, and I do not wish you to leave me."
So he sent for the steeds, and had them yoked to the chariot, and the sons of Tuirenn were witnesses of their marvellous speed, and how they could run equally well over land or water.
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
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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 ", 1 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 Fian****vé, 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
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to their kingdom that they presented him with the cooking-spit, and sent him back safe.
By this time, Lugh had found out by his magic arts that the sons of Tuirenn had obtained all the treasures he had demanded as the blood-fine. He desired to get them safely into his own custody before his victims went to give their three shouts upon Miodhchaoin's Hill. He therefore wove a druidical spell round them, so that they forgot the rest of their task altogether, and sailed back to Erin. They searched for Lugh, to give him the things, but he had gone away, leaving word that they were to be handed over to Nuada, the Tuatha Dé Danann king. As soon as they were in safe-keeping, Lugh came back to Tara and found the sons of Tuirenn there. And he said to them:
"Do you not know that it is unlawful to keep back any part of a blood-fine? So have you given those three shouts upon Miodhchaoin's Hill?"
Then the magic mist of forgetfulness fell from them, and they remembered. Sorrowfully they went back to complete their task.
Miodhchaoin 1 himself was watching for them, and, when he saw them land, he came down to the beach. Brian attacked him, and they fought with the swiftness of two bears and the ferocity of two lions until Miodhchaoin fell.
Then Miodhchaoin's three sons--Corc, Conn, and Aedh--came out to avenge their father, and they drove their spears through the bodies of the three sons of Tuirenn. But the three sons of Tuirenn
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also drove their spears through the bodies of the three sons of Miodhchaoin.
The three sons of Miodhchaoin were killed, and the three sons of Tuirenn were so sorely wounded that birds might have flown through their bodies from one side to the other. Nevertheless Brian was still able to stand upright, and he held his two brothers, one in each hand, and kept them on their feet, and, all together, they gave three faint, feeble shouts.
Their coracle bore them, still living, to Erin. They sent their father Tuirenn as a suppliant to Lugh, begging him to lend them the magic pig's-skin to heal their wounds.
But Lugh would not, for he had counted upon their fight with the sons of Miodhchaoin to avenge his father Cian's death. So the children of Tuirenn resigned themselves to die, and their father made a farewell song over them and over himself, and died with them.
Thus ends that famous tale--"The Fate of the Sons of Tuirenn", known as one of the "Three Sorrowful Stories of Erin". 1
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Footnotes
89:1 This story of the Fate of the Children of Tuirenn is mentioned in the ninth-century "Cormac's Glossary". It is found in various Irish and Scottish MSS., including the Book of Lecan. The present retelling is from Eugene O’Curry's translation, published in Atlantis, Vol. IV.
90:1 Rhys: Hibbert Lectures, pp. 390-396.
90:2 A part of County Louth, between the Boyne and Dundalk. The heroic cycle connects it especially with Cuchulainn. Pronounced M\ŭrthemna or M\ŭrhevna.
93:1 There is known to have been a hill called Ard Chein (Cian's Mound) in the district of Muirthemne, and O’Curry identifies it tentatively with one now called Dromslian.
96:1 Pronounced Pēzar.
96:2 Pronounced Dobar.
96:3 Pronounced Asal.
96:4 Pronounced Irōda.
97:1 Pronounced Fincāra.
97:2 The Hill (cnoc) of Midkēna.
97:3 A mythical country inhabited by Fomors.
97:4 See chap. VI--"The Gods Arrive".
97:5 Ibid.
98:1 See chap. VI--"The Gods Arrive".
98:2 See chap. XI--"The Gods in Exile"
98:3 Ibid.
98:4 Petrie: Hist. and Antiq. of Tara Hill.
104:1 The country seems to have been identified with Norway or Iceland.
105:1 Pronounced Midkēna.
106:1 The other two are "The Fate of the Children of Lêr", told in chap. XI, and "The Fate of the Sons of Usnach", an episode of the Heroic Cycle, related in chap XIII.
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