as brought out, Brian made a quick sudden snatch at
it with his left hand, and drew his sword and made a stroke at the man
nearest him, and made two halves of him. And then he kept a hold of the
skin and put it about himself, and the three of them rushed out of the
court, cutting down every armed man before them, so that not one escaped
death or wounding. And then Brian went to where the king himself was,
and the king made no delay in attacking him, and they made a hard fight
of it, and at the end the King of Greece fell by the hand of Brian, son
of Tuireann.

The three brothers rested for a while after that, and then they said
they would go and look for some other part of the fine. "We will go to
Pisear, King of Persia," said Brian, "and ask him for the spear."

So they went into their boat, and they left the blue streams of the
coast of Greece, and they said: "We are well off when we have the apples
and the skin." And they stopped nowhere till they came to the borders of
Persia.

"Let us go to the court with the appearance of poets," said Brian, "the
same as we went to the King of Greece." "We are content to do that,"
said the others, "as all turned out so well the last time we took to
poetry; not that it is easy for us to take to a calling that does not
belong to us."

So they put the poet's tie on their hair, and they were as well treated
as they were at the other court; and when the time came for poems Brian
rose up, and it is what he said:

"It is little any spear looks to Pisear; the battles of enemies are
broken, it is not too much for Pisear to wound every one of them.

"A yew, the most beautiful of the wood, it is called a king, it is not
bulky. May the spear drive on the whole crowd to their wounds of death."

"That is a good poem," said the king, "but I do not understand why my
own spear is brought into it, O Man of Poetry from Ireland."

"It is because it is that spear of your own I would wish to get as the
reward of my poem," said Brian. "It is little sense you have to be
asking that of me," said the king; "and the people of my court never
showed greater respect for poetry than now, when they did not put you to
death on the spot."

When Brian heard that talk from the king, he thought of the apple that
was in his hand, and he made a straight cast and hit him in the
forehead, so that his brains were put out at the back of his head, and
he bared the sword and made an attack on the people about him.