Old Celtic Romances. Anonymous

pig answered, "I am Kian, the son of Canta; and now I ask you to give me quarter."

      Ur and Urcar, who had regained their shape and come up, said, "We will give you quarter indeed, and we are sorry for what has happened to you."

      But Brian, on the other hand, said, "I swear by the gods of the air, that if your life returned to you seven times, I would take it from you seven times."

      "Then," said Kian, "as you will not grant me quarter, allow me first to return to my own shape."

      "That we will grant you," said Brian; "for I often feel it easier to kill a man than to kill a pig."

      Kian accordingly took his own shape; and then he said, "You indeed, ye sons of Turenn, are now about to slay me; but even so, I have outwitted you. For if you had slain me in the shape of a pig, you would have to pay only the eric-fine[10] for a pig; whereas, now that I am in my own shape, you shall pay the full fine for a man. And there never yet was killed, and there never shall be killed, a man for whom a greater fine shall be paid, than you will have to pay for me. The weapons with which I am slain shall tell the deed to my son; and he will exact the fine from you."

      "You shall not be slain with the weapons of a warrior," said Brian; and so saying, he and his brothers laid aside their arms, and smote him fiercely and rudely with the round stones of the earth, till they had reduced his body to a disfigured mass; and in this manner they slew him.

      They then buried him a man's height in the earth; but the earth, being angry at the fratricide,[XXXVI.] refused to receive the body, and cast it up on the surface. They buried him a second time, and again the body was thrown up from beneath the clay. Six times the sons of Turenn buried the body of Kian a man's height in the earth, and six times did the earth cast it up, refusing to receive it. But when they had buried him the seventh time, the earth refused no longer, and the body remained in the grave.

      Then the sons of Turenn prepared to go forward after Luga of the Long Arms to the battle. But as they were leaving the grave, they thought they heard a faint, muffled voice coming up from the ground beneath their feet—

      The blood you have spilled,

       The hero you've killed,

       Shall follow your steps till your doom be fulfilled!

CHAPTER III.

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      DEFEAT AND FLIGHT OF THE LOCHLANNS.

      Now as to Luga. After parting from his father, he journeyed westward till he reached Ath-Luan,[XXXVII.] thence to Ros-Coman, and over Moy-Lurg to the Curlieu Hills, and to the mountain of Kesh-Corran, till he reached the "Great Plain of the Assembly," where the foreigners were encamped, with the spoils of Connaught around them.

      As he drew nigh to the Fomorian encampment, Bres, the son of Balor, arose and said—

      "A wonderful thing has come to pass this day; for the sun, it seems to me, has risen in the west."

      "It would be better that it were so," said the druids,[3] "than that matters should be as they are."

      "What else can it be, then?" asked Bres.

      "The light you see," replied the druids, "is the brightness of the face, and the flashing of the weapons of Luga of the Long Arms, our deadly enemy, he who slew our tax-gatherers, and who now approaches."

      Then Luga came up peacefully and saluted them.

      "How does it come to pass that you salute us," said they, "since you are, as we know well, our enemy?"

      "I have good cause for saluting you," answered Luga; "for only one half of my blood is Dedannan; the other half comes from you; for I am the son of the daughter of Balor of the Mighty Blows, your king.[7] And now I come in peace, to ask you to give back to the men of Connaught all the milch cows you have taken from them."

      "May ill luck follow thee," said one of the Fomorian leaders, in a voice loud and wrathful, "until thou get one of them, either a milch cow or a dry cow!"

      And the others spoke in a like strain.

      Then Luga put a druidical spell upon the plundered cattle; and he sent all the milch cows home, each to the door of her owner's house, throughout all that part of Connaught that had been plundered. But the dry cows he left, so that the Fomorians might be cumbered, and that they might not leave their encampment till the Fairy Host should arrive to give them battle.

      Luga tarried three days and three nights near them, and at the end of that time the Fairy Host arrived, and placed themselves under his command. They encamped near the Fomorians, and in a little time Bove Derg, son of the Dagda, joined them with twenty-nine hundred men.

      Then they made ready for the fight. The Ildana put on Mannanan's coat of mail and his breast-plate; he took also his helmet, which was called Cannbarr, and it glittered in the sun with dazzling brightness; he slung his broad, dark-blue shield from his shoulder at one side; his long, keen-edged sword hung at his thigh; and lastly, he took his two long, heavy-handled spears, which had been tempered in the poisonous blood of adders. The other kings and chiefs of the men of Erin arrayed their men in battle ranks; hedges of glittering spears rose high above their heads; and their shields, placed edge to edge, formed a firm fence around them.

      Then at the signal they attacked the Fomorians, and the Fomorians, in no degree dismayed, answered their onset. At first a cloud of whizzing javelins flew from rank to rank across the open space, and as the warriors rushed together in closer conflict, their spears were shivered in their hands. Then they drew their gold-hilted swords, and fought foot to foot and shield to shield, so that a forest of bright flashes rose high above their helmets, from the clashing of their keen-tempered weapons.

      In the midst of the fight, Luga looked round, and seeing at some distance, Bres, surrounded by his Fomorian warriors, dealing havoc and death among the Dedannans, he rushed through the press of battle, and attacked first Bres's guards so fiercely that in a few moments twenty of them fell beneath his blows.

      Then he struck at Bres himself, who, unable to withstand his furious onset, cried aloud—

      "Why should we be enemies, since thou art of my kin? Let there be peace between us, for nothing can withstand thy blows. Let there be peace, and I will undertake to bring my Fomorians to assist thee at Moytura,[11] and I will promise never again to come to fight against thee."

      And Bres swore by the sun and the moon, by the sea and land, and by all the elements,[XXXVIII.] to fulfil his engagement; and on these conditions Luga granted him his life.

      Then the Fomorians, seeing their chief overcome, dropped their arms, and sued for quarter. The Fomorian druids and men of learning next came to Luga to ask him to spare their lives; and Luga answered them—

      "So far am I from wishing to slay you, that in truth, if you had taken the whole Fomorian race under your protection, I would have spared them."

      And after this, Bres, the son of Balor, returned to his own country with his druids, and with those of his army who had escaped from the battle.

CHAPTER IV.

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      THE ERIC-FINE ON THE SONS OF TURENN FOR THE SLAYING OF KIAN.

      Towards the close of the day, when the battle was ended, Luga espied two of his near friends; and he asked them if they had seen his father, Kian, in the fight. And when they answered, "No," Luga said—

      "My father is not alive; for if he lived he would surely have come to help me in the battle. And now I swear that neither food nor drink will I take till I have found out who has slain him, and the manner of his death."

      Then Luga set out with a small chosen band of the Fairy Host,