A story this week. Something rich to begin the new year.
The Salmon of Knowledge
There were rumors we began with a flood.
I bet you haven’t heard that, that we Irish came to this land on the same Flood that Noah saved us from with his ark, marching the animals on two-by-two until the water subsided. But despite what we like to think, we Irish aren’t special. You’ll find the same story in many places around the world. Cities destroyed by water. Crops wiped out, trees pulled up by the roots to float until they sank, for there was no shore to receive them. I’m sure you’ve all heard how Noah and his family survived, drifting on the ark until they got a sign from a white dove that land had returned, the olive branch and the rainbow, covenant of God’s promise to look after us.
How did this come to be? The Irish tracing their lineage back to Noah? Well then, let me enlighten you with the story. It’s a strange one that I had a hard time believing at first, too.
As I was told, when Noah denied his own son Bith a place on the Ark, along with his companions Fintan MacBochra and Ladra, and his own granddaughter Cesair, the plucky lass took charge. Cesair built three more arks and promised safe transport to them all if they would acknowledge her leadership. As the waters rose, the small band gathered others left behind by Noah and made their way to “Inis Fail, “The Promised Land-Ireland.”
Seven soggy years later one ship finally reached dry ground-Inis Fail. Only Fintan, Bith, Ladra, Cesair, and fifty women survived. On land, they divided themselves up into three groups, one man to each. Cesar, having eyes for Fintan, joined his group, but when the other two men died her love took on a burden she wasn’t expecting. It was up to her and Fintan to populate Inis Fail.
Now this may have been a dream come true for some men, but Fintan quaked at the thought of being responsible for populating the Promised Land! Perhaps he was more of a hermit than a lover. Alas-he fled.
Brokenhearted, Cesair died soon after. All the women but warrior Banba were swept away by the Flood, leaving Fintan and Banba as the only humans left in Ireland, and that wasn’t the case for long. Tossed on the wild waters, Fintan discovered his powers as a shapeshifter. To survive he became a salmon, biding his time beneath the churning surface until the waters receded.
When land appeared again, the waters shaped themselves into bodies of water. One of those limbs was the River Boyne, which Fintan discovered, and with the instinct spawned in his silvery flesh he powered his was upstream all the way too a pool ringed by nine hazel trees. Nine nuts grew on each tree that contained all the world’s knowledge. One by one the nuts fell into Fintan’s fish lips, traveling down his gullet to his belly. Lo and behold, they tinged his scales with all the colors of the rainbow! And that is how he became known as the Salmon of Wisdom.
I’m Finn MacCool, by the way. I haven’t properly introduced myself. You may have heard of me, though my name is not as renowned as it once was when I led the Fianna, my great band of wild-living warriors—oh how we danced and fought and loved this island—but I’m getting away with myself. Tends to happen when you get older. The mind wanders to better days, or at least the glory days when we all answered the horn’s call and rode out onto the mountain to hunt the deer in the deep glades where ferns released the secrets of our original ancestors into the air on gold spores. I learned some of those secrets just by galloping through them, but I was too young to know it. And the deer, what can I say? I loved her-but that is another story, which I’ll tell you if you really want to hear it, if you’ll come with me to another time and place where you may not hear what happened to the Salmon of Wisdom. No? You want to focus on one story? Well, that’s your choice then, but I must put my two cents in and say it’s often the journey where you learn the wisdom, not the destination. Still, I aim to please so I will stay focused. It seems people in your time best understand a story that moves from A to Z without detours, so I’ll make this relatable and not take you on a wild Irish ramble into the mystic.
I was born to Cumhaill and Murna, who’s father Tadg (my grandfather) was so irate he killed my father and probably would have killed me if my mother had not fled. She and my aunt Bodmhall raised me on the mountainside. Bodmhall was a trainer of warriors. She actually trained many of the boys that grew up to join the Fianna, and she taught me the martial arts of Ireland. My mother was a deer woman, and from her I learned to run with the deer and to listen in all directions while standing still. Some say my mother could even become a deer, but I never saw that. To me, she was a human mother and I loved her. She called me Deimne, Little Stag, and there was nothing I loved more in the world than to curl up with her in a grove to shelter from the bright sunlight, walking out through the dusk into starlit fields of hay and wildflowers.
Sooner than my mother wanted I was faster than the deer, and soon enough my grandfather had heard of me and my mother living on the mountainside and determined to kill us. It broke my mother’s heart, but she dressed me in rags and sent me off with a band of traveling bards. We sang our way across the ley lines of Ireland, in and out of many households. The bards called me Finn because I was so fair and they said I shone even when the sun didn’t, which is still the case in Ireland, though who knows what will happen with global warming.
Eventually my time with the wandering minstrels came to an end. They were talking about sailing across the great ocean in coracles and I knew I wasn’t ready for that, so when they offered to escort me to a great druid master who lived in the woods near the River Boyne I didn’t say no.
Finnegas was his name, a man of deep wisdom, who wanted even more. Obsessed with what he didn’t know, my new master spent hours fishing in the River Boyne, hoping to catch the famed salmon of knowledge, Fintan, who had eaten the nuts from the Tree of Life and knew everything there was to know in the world.
For a boy, life with Finnegas was grand. We lived in the woods with no one to tell us what to do or where to be. He taught me all the druid lore, the ballads and spells and stories, and I learned even more from the woods themselves. Often we would sit together on the banks of the Boyne reciting poetry while Finnegas dropped his line into the pool in the hopes of catching Fintan.
And then it happened-a mighty tug on the pole-and Finnegas leaping to his feet, straining with all his might to reel the catch in. With glee he hollered, “My boy, It’s Fintan, himself! At last! Oh, glory!”
Beads of sweat poured down hi his forehead as he put his whole beings into reeling that fish in, and when we could see it just beneath the water’s surface-the rainbow flash-well I’ll tell you, I’ve never seen the like before or after.
“You did it, Finnegas!” I yelped with delight, leaning toward the old man to help him haul the great Fintan onto the bank.
“Back off. I’ve got it,” Finnegas commanded. I let him do the work himself. It was his catch and he was rightly proud of it.
I have to say I was a bit sad watching Fintan gasp on the grass next to our fire pit. Finnegas was blowing on an ember to get the flames going so he could roast and eat this wisest of beasts. He would be the greatest bard ever. What epics he would compose! The very trees shook their leaves in jubilation.
My master didn’t notice I was quiet while he laid the fire, stacking kindling on the red coals and then adding larger logs. As the flames flickered and leapt into life I was watching the salmon and I saw something I’ve never forgotten in all my adventures with the Fianna—I met the eye of the Salmon of Knowledge just before it glazed over. Let me tell you, I’ll never forget it. I was there when the rainbow left his scales, shifting right before my eyes to a dull, flat gray like a poisoned well. I watched magic leave the world.
But Finnegas was going to eat it and the magic would be restored! I was delighted for my teacher and helped him blow on the flames until the fire was roaring, rip rap. “Thank you, Finn. You’re a good boy,” Finnegas told me. My heart swelled with pride.
“There, just so. The coals are ready.” He looked up at me. “I find myself exhausted after my exertions, though. I need to lay down and restore myself. Would you turn the spit while I rest? I’ll eat the salmon when I awaken, refreshed.”
And that’s how it happened. Finnegas propped himself against an oak. “Wake me when it’s ready, boy. And don’t eat even one bite!”
As he drifted off, I sat by the fire watching the fish with a falcon’s intensity. I wanted it to be perfect for my master. I watched the skin crackle and fat drip into the flames with a sizzle. I tried to forget the loss of the rainbow and how the salmon’s eye had met mine, but I couldn’t, and maybe that’s why when the fish was done and I called out to Finnegas to rouse him- “Dinner!” I called, as if this was an ordinary meal-I couldn’t forget that rainbow, and maybe that’s why when I noticed a blister bubbling on the fish’s roasting skin I couldn’t resist popping it with my thumb, which caused my own thumb to blister. Without thinking I sucked on it, and my spontaneous act of self-soothing changed the course of history, for all the salmon’s knowledge entered into me.
Finnegas saw it at once, of course. I stood before him holding up the fish for him to eat and I looked nothing like the reckless boy who’d been following him about the woods all these years. Unbelievably, considering I’d ruined his life’s dream, Finnegas forgave me and told me I may as well eat the rest of the fish. He was a wise man and knew my heart was innocent.
Destiny had shown her hand to us that day in the woods and he would not resist it. I didn’t either. He told me to suck my thumb whenever I needed an answer to a problem and I still do, even in my old age. He also told me that water drunk from my cupped hands could save a life. That will come into play in another story, but we’re not ready yet for that one. We still have a long way to go and the direction is down. If your knees quake when you hear that, be strengthened by the knowledge I am with you.
Was it fair I got the knowledge of the world Finnegas had yearned for so many years? No, but that’s not the way destiny works. I went on to become the leader of the Fianna and have had a life full of adventures. I’ve entered many stories and left a hundred more, and now I’m leaving this one for you to take up and tell. I encourage you to do right by my story, and to remember life isn’t always fair, but justice will find you. It may not come down from a court, but life will have its way with you, and in the long run that is justice. I know because I’ve lived through many other stories besides this one, where I was a young and green boy who sucked his thumb and gained the knowledge of the world that made me a great leader, but none of that protected me from a broken heart. Would you like to hear that story? Not today. I find myself tired after my exertions. I think I’ll lay down and rest. Perhaps when I awake, refreshed, I’ll share my stories of heartbreak. In the meantime, get some rest yourselves, my fellow travelers. Destiny always find us, if not in this world, then the next.
Kō aloha la ea
Concentrate of Love by way of the Light
notes
I first heard this story out loud. Can’t remember who told it, sorry! I did a bit of research for my retelling and found inspiration at this site:
The Salmon of Knowledge: www.yourirish.com/folklore/salmon-of-wisdom