The Fate of the Sons of Tuireann

Before the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, the Tuatha De Danann prepared for war against the Fomorians. Lugh Lamfada sent his father Cian to summon the warriors of Ulster, and Cian traveled north across the plain of Muirthemne.

There he saw three warriors approaching: Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba, the three sons of Tuireann. Between their family and Cian's ran a blood feud of many generations. Cian knew he could not defeat all three, so he struck himself with a druid's wand and transformed into a pig, joining a nearby herd.

But Brian had seen the transformation. "One of those pigs is a man," he told his brothers. "Let us hunt them all until we find him."

They drove the herd, and one pig ran apart from the others. Brian cast his spear and wounded it. Cian resumed his human form.

"You have found me," Cian said. "But know that if you kill me in my true shape, you must pay an eric-fine. And the weapons that kill a man pay a higher fine than those that kill a pig."

"Then we will kill you with stones," Brian replied, "which have never paid eric for any man."

They stoned Cian until he was a mass of broken flesh, then buried him in the earth. The ground rejected his body seven times before it would accept him.

Lugh knew the manner of his father's death through druidry, and when the sons of Tuireann returned to Tara, he demanded his eric-fine before the assembled Tuatha De Danann. He listed eight objects:

Three apples from the Garden of the Hesperides. The pigskin of Tuis, King of Greece, which healed all wounds it touched. The poisoned spear of Pisear, King of Persia. The chariot and horses of Dobar, King of Sicily. The seven pigs of Easal, King of the Golden Pillars, which could be killed and eaten each night and found alive the next morning. The whelp of the King of Ioruaidhe. The cooking-spit of the women of the Island of Fianchuive. Three shouts on the Hill of Miochaoin in the north of Lochlann.

"Is that all?" asked Brian, thinking the list lighter than expected.

"That is all," said Lugh. Then, when the sons of Tuireann had sworn to complete the eric, he described each item in full: how the Garden was guarded by champions who never slept, how the pigskin's owners would never part with it, how each king would die rather than surrender his treasure, how Miochaoin and his sons killed all who set foot on their hill.

"You have murdered the father of the champion of the Tuatha De Danann," Lugh said. "Did you think the eric would be easy?"

The sons of Tuireann set out in Manannan's magical boat, the Wave-Sweeper, which obeyed the thoughts of its sailors. They obtained the three apples through cunning, transforming into hawks to snatch them and into swans to escape. They won the pigskin by posing as poets, then fighting their way free when discovered.

They took the spear of Pisear by disguising themselves as soldiers and assassinating the king in his own hall. They won the chariot of Sicily through single combat, and the seven pigs through alliance with Easal, who admired their courage and gave the pigs freely in exchange for peace.

The whelp they won through battle, and they were sinking near death when they reached the Island of Fianchuive. The women there were warriors, but seeing the brothers so wounded, they gave the cooking-spit in pity rather than fight.

Only the final task remained: three shouts on the Hill of Miochaoin, where Cian had trained in his youth and whose lord had sworn that no son of Tuireann would ever survive crying out upon that ground.

Lugh, through his arts, had kept track of the brothers' progress. He sent a druidic forgetfulness upon them, so that they returned to Ireland with the other treasures, forgetting the final quest. But as they approached Tara, their memories returned, and they knew they must complete the eric or be forsworn.

They sailed north to Lochlann and climbed the Hill of Miochaoin. Miochaoin and his three sons met them there. The battle was terrible. Brian killed Miochaoin, and each brother killed one of Miochaoin's sons, but all three sons of Tuireann took mortal wounds in the fighting.

With his last strength, Brian gave three shouts upon the hill, completing the eric.

The brothers returned to Ireland, barely alive. Tuireann, their father, begged Lugh to lend them the pigskin that had been part of the eric, which could heal any wound. Lugh refused.

Brian was carried before the god on a litter, too weak to stand. "Have mercy," he begged. "We have completed every quest. Surely we have paid enough for your father's blood."

"If you offered me the whole earth," Lugh replied, "I would not heal you now."

Brian was carried back to his father and brothers, and the three sons of Tuireann died in their father's arms. Tuireann died of grief above their bodies, and all four were buried in a single grave.

Thus ended the fate of the sons of Tuireann, one of the Three Sorrows of Storytelling. They achieved the impossible and died for their achievement, proving that some debts cannot be paid except in blood.