out of Teamhair westward.  And presently he saw three armed men coming towards him, his own father Cian, with his brothers Cu and Ceithen, that were the three sons of Cainte, and they saluted him.  “What is the cause of your early rising?” they said.  “It is good cause I have for it,” said Lugh, “for the Fomor are come into Ireland and have robbed Bodb Dearg; and what help will you give me against them?” he said.

“Each one of us will keep off a hundred from you in the battle,” said they.  “That is a good help,” said Lugh; “but there is a help I would sooner have from you than that:  to gather the Riders of the Sidhe to me from every place where they are.”

So Cu and Ceithen went towards the south, and Cian set out northward, and he did not stop till he reached the Plain of Muirthemne.  And as he was going across the plain he saw three armed men before him, that were the three sons of Tuireann, son of Ogma.  And it is the way it was between the three sons of Tuireann and the three sons of Cainte, they were in hatred and enmity towards one another, so that whenever they met there was sure to be fighting among them.

Then Cian said:  “If my two brothers had been here it is a brave fight we would make; but since they are not, it is best for me to fall back.”  Then he saw a great herd of pigs near him, and he struck himself with a Druid rod that put on him the shape of a pig of the herd, and he began rooting up the ground like the rest.

Then Brian, one of the sons of Tuireann, said to his brothers:  “Did you see that armed man that was walking the plain a while ago?” “We did see him,” said they.  “Do you know what was it took him away?” said Brian.  “We do not know that,” said they.  “It is a pity you not to be keeping a better watch over the plains of the open country in time of war,” said Brian; “and I know well what happened him, for he struck himself with his Druid rod into the shape of a pig of these pigs, and he is rooting up the ground now like any one of them; and whoever 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,”