The pig screamed and said, "You have done an ill deed to cast your spear at me, for you know well who I am."
"Your voice, methinks, is the voice of a man," said Brian; "but I know not who you are."
And the 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.