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 time it was put underground the earth kept it.  And then they went on to join Lugh of the Long Hand for the battle.

Now as to Lugh; upon parting with his father he went forward from Teamhair westward, to the hills that were called afterwards Gairech and Ilgairech, and to the ford of the Shannon that is now called Athluain, and to Bearna nah-Eadargana, the Gap of Separation, and over Magh Luirg, the Plain of Following, and to Corr Slieve na Seaghsa, the Round Mountain of the Poet’s Spring, and to the head of Sean-Slieve, and through the place of the bright-faced Corann, and from that to Magh Mor an Aonaigh, the Great Plain of the Fair, where the Fomor were, and the spoils of Connacht with them.

It is then Bres, son of Elathan, rose up and said:  “It is a wonder to me the sun to be rising in the west to-day, and it rising in the east every other day.”  “It would be better for us it to be the sun,” said the Druids.  “What else is it?” said he.  “It is the shining of the face of Lugh, son of Ethlinn,” said they.

Lugh came up to them then and saluted them.  “Why do you come like a friend to us?” said they.  “There is good cause for that,” he said, “for there is but one half of me of the Tuatha de Danaan, and the other half of yourselves.  And give me back now the milch cows of the men of Ireland,” he said.  “May early good luck not come to you till you get either a dry or a milch cow here,” said a man of them, and anger on him.