" "It is a pity you to ask
that," said Brian, "for our own pledge is as good as any pledge in the
world." "Your own pledge is not enough," said Lugh, "for it is often the
like of you promised to pay a fine in this way, and would try to back
out of it after."
So then the sons of Tuireann bound themselves by the King of Ireland,
and by Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda, and by the chief men of the Tuatha
de Danaan, that they would pay that fine to Lugh.
"It would be well for me now," said Lugh, "to give you better knowledge
of the fine." "It would be well indeed," said they.
"This is the way of it then," said Lugh. "The three apples I asked of
you are the three apples from the Garden in the East of the World, and
no other apples will do but these, for they are the most beautiful and
have most virtue in them of the apples of the whole world. And it is
what they are like, they are of the colour of burned gold, and they are
the size of the head of a child a month old, and there is the taste of
honey on them, and they do not leave the pain of wounds or the vexation
of sickness on any one that eats them, and they do not lessen by being
eaten for ever. And the skin I asked of you," he said, "is the pig skin
of Tuis, King of Greece, and it heals all the wounds and all the
sickness of the world, and whatever danger a man may be in, if it can
but overtake the life in him, it will cure him; and it is the way it was
with that pig, every stream of water it would go through would be turned
into wine to the end of nine days after, and every wound it touched was
healed; and it is what the Druids of Greece said, that it is not in
itself this virtue was, but in the skin, and they skinned it, and the
skin is there ever since.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67