he is, he is no
friend to us." "That is bad for us," said the other two, "for the pigs
belong to some one of the Tuatha de Danaan, and even if we kill them
all, the Druid pig might chance to escape us in the end."

"It is badly you got your learning in the city of learning," said Brian,
"when you cannot tell an enchanted beast from a natural beast." And
while he was saying that, he struck his two brothers with his Druid
rod, and he turned them into two thin, fast hounds, and they began to
yelp sharply on the track of the enchanted pig.

And it was not long before the pig fell out from among the others, and
not one of the others made away but only itself, and it made for a wood,
and at the edge of the wood Brian gave a cast of his spear that went
through its body. And the pig cried out, and it said: "It is a bad thing
you have done to have made a cast at me when you knew me." "It seems to
me you have the talk of a man," said Brian. "I was a man indeed," said
he; "I am Cian, son of Cainte, and give me your protection now." "I
swear by the gods of the air," said Brian, "that if the life came back
seven times to you, I would take it from you every time." "If that is
so," said Cian, "give me one request: let me go into my own shape
again." "We will do that," said Brian, "for it is easier to me to kill a
man than a pig."

So Cian took his own shape then, and he said: "Give me mercy now." "We
will not give it," said Brian. "Well, I have got the better of you for
all that," said Cian; "for if it was in the shape of a pig you had killed
me there would only be the blood money for a pig on me; but as it is in
my own shape you will kill me, there never was and never will be any
person killed for whose sake a heavier fine will be paid than for
myself. And the arms I am killed with," he said, "it is they will tell
the deed to my son."

"It is not with weapons you will be killed, but with the stones lying on
the ground," said Brian. And with that they pelted him with stones,
fiercely and roughly, till all that was left of him was a poor,
miserable, broken heap; and they buried him the depth of a man's body in
the earth, and the earth would not receive that murder from them, but
cast it up again. Brian said it should go into the earth again, and they
put it in the second time, and the second time the earth would not take
it. And six times the sons of Tuireann buried the body, and six times it
was cast up again; but the seventh tim