one we know before, and that is to take what we want by the strength of
our hand if we are the strongest, or to fall by those that are against
us if they are the strongest." "That is not a good way to make a poem,"
said Brian. And with that he rose up himself and asked a hearing. And
they all listened to him, and it is what he said:

"O Tuis, we do not hide your fame; we praise you as the oak among kings;
the skin of a pig, bounty without hardness, this is the reward I ask for
it.

"The war of a neighbour against an ear; the fair ear of his neighbour
will be against him; he who gives us what he owns, his court will not be
the scarcer for it.

"A raging army and a sudden sea are a danger to whoever goes against
them. The skin of a pig, bounty without hardness, this is the reward I
ask, O Tuis."

"That is a good poem," said the king; "but I do not know a word of its
meaning." "I will tell you its meaning," said Brian. "'O Tuis, we do not
hide your fame; we praise you as the oak above the kings.' That is, as
the oak is beyond the kingly trees of the wood, so are you beyond the
kings of the world for open-handedness and for grandeur.

"'The skin of a pig, bounty without hardness.' That is, the skin of a
pig you own is what I would wish to get from you as a reward for my
poem.

"'The war of a neighbour against an ear, the fair ear of his neighbour
will be against him.' That is, you and I will be by the ears about the
skin, unless I get it with your consent.

"And that is the meaning of the poem," said Brian.

"I would praise your poem," said the king, "if there was not so much
about my pig-skin in it; and you have no good sense, man of poetry," he
said, "to be asking that thing of me, and I would not give it to all
the poets and the learned men and the great men of the world, since they
could not take it away without my consent. But I will give you three
times the full of the skin of gold as the price of your poem," he said.

"May good be with you, king," said Brian, "and I know well it was no
easy thing I was asking, but I knew I would get a good ransom for it.
And I am that covetous," he said, "I will not be satisfied without
seeing the gold measured myself into the skin."

The king sent his servants with them then to the treasure-house to
measure the gold. "Measure out the full of it to my brothers first,"
said Brian, "and then give good measure to myself, since it was I made
the poem."

But when the skin w