he news went through the city and the whole district, and the king
had three wise, crafty daughters, and they put themselves into the shape
of three ospreys, and they followed the hawks to the sea, and sent
flashes of lightning before them and after them, that scorched them
greatly.

"It is a pity the way we are now," said the sons of Tuireann, "for we
will be burned through and through with this lightning if we do not get
some relief." "If I can give you relief I will do it," said Brian. With
that he struck himself and his brothers with the Druid rod, and they
were turned into three swans, and they went down quickly into the sea,
and the ospreys went away from them then, and the sons of Tuireann went
into their boat.

After that they consulted together, and it is what they agreed, to go to
Greece and to bring away the skin of the pig, with or without leave. So
they went forward till they came near to the court of the King of
Greece.

"What appearance should we put on us going in here?" said Brian. "What
appearance should we go in with but our own?" said the others. "That is
not what I think best," said Brian; "but to go in with the appearance of
poets from Ireland, the way the high people of Greece will hold us in
respect and in honour." "It would be hard for us to do that," they said,
"and we without a poem, and it is little we know how to make one."

However, they put the poet's tie on their hair, and they knocked at the
door of the court, and the door-keeper asked who was in it. "We are
poets of Ireland," said Brian, "and we are come with a poem to the
king."

The door-keeper went in and told the king that there were poets from
Ireland at the door. "Let them in," said the king, "for it is in search
of a good man they came so far from their own country." And the king
gave orders that everything should be well set out in the court, the way
they would say they had seen no place so grand in all their travels.

The sons of Tuireann were let in then, having the appearance of poets,
and they fell to drinking and pleasure without delay; and they thought
they had never seen, and there was not in the world, a court so good as
that or so large a household, or a place where they had met with better
treatment.

Then the king's poets got up to give out their poems and songs. And then
Brian, son of Tuireann, bade his brothers to say a poem for the king.
"We have no poem," said they; "and do not ask any poem of us, but the