Bits of Blarney

by R. Shelton Mackenzie

The Arch-Druid was noted, far and near, as an interpreter of dreams, a diviner of auguries, an unraveller of mysteries, and a reader of prophecies. Common rumor declared that he was master of enchantments,—that the thunder rolled and the lightning flashed at his command,—that he had communion with spirits from another world, and could compel them to obey his bidding.

After the performance of many rites and ceremonies, some penance and much prayer, the Arch-Druid asked the King of Munster whether he knew that part of the West which we now call Mayo? Mac Carthy replied that he ought to know it, for he had been brought up there. "Then," said the Arch-Druid, "thither we must go. For in one of the rivers which run through that district, by the foot of a lofty mountain, there is a salmon, which, if caught, cooked, and eaten, will bestow long life and health, wisdom and valor, success in arms and love, upon him who eats it."

The King thanked the Arch-Druid for his information, and gave him a liberal largess, when he added that in the book of the future it was written that this wonderful fish was predestined to be caught by his own royal hands. This put him into excellent spirits, and he proposed to the Arch-Druid that they should "make a night of it," which they did, upon mead or metheglin—for, in those days, whiskey had not been invented.

The next day they set off on their fishing-tour. The way was long, the roads bad, and travelling rather dangerous. But, seating themselves on the Arch-Druid's cloak, its wizard-owner muttering a few cabalistic words, forthwith they were wafted, men and cloak, through the air, on the swift wings of the wind, to the precipitous ridge of hills surrounding the lofty rock now called Croagh Patrick. The cloak and its two passengers finally dropped down on the bank of the river of which the Arch-Druid had spoken.

They followed the course of the stream through one of the most fertile valleys that sunshine ever glanced upon, until they reached a dark cavern where the struggling waters sink suddenly into the earth. No one has yet been able to ascertain whither the stream finally goes—whether it again rises to the earth—whether it runs through a subterranean channel, or is sucked in to quench the Phlegethon of this world's central fires. No one knows—nor would it much matter if he did.

Close by the mouth of this cavern is a dark, deep hollow, over which the gloom of eternal night ever seems to rest, and into which the stream falls before it sinks into the abyss, whirling in foaming eddies, warring as in agony, and casting up a jet of spray into the air. Loudly the waters roar as they fall on the rugged rock beneath—they are whirled round and round, until, at regular intervals, they descend into the yawning gulf beneath.

In this pool, among thousands of fishes, of all sorts and sizes, was the Salmon of Knowledge, the possession of which was to make King Mac Carthy amazingly wise, and irresistibly mighty. By this pool he sat, in company with the Arch-Druid, day after day, for a whole month, until their patience was nearly, and their provisions wholly, exhausted. They had sport enough to satisfy Izaak Walton himself, for they were perpetually catching fish. There was a little hut hard by, and in it the King and the Arch-Druid alternately officiated as cook. Still, though he was latterly on a fish diet, the King grew never the wiser. He got so tired of that kind of food that historians have gone the length of asserting that even a Hoboken turtle-feed would have had no charm for his palled appetite. Amid the finest fish that Royalty ever feasted upon, he sighed for the white and red of his own fine mutton from the green fields of Munster.

To add to his misfortune, though he wanted only one salmon, fish of all sorts would hook themselves on to his line. There was perpetual trouble in taking them off the hook. They determined to judge of the salmon, as Lavater did of men, by their looks. Therefore the fat and plump fish obtained the dangerous distinction of being broiled or boiled, while the puny ones were thrown back, with the other fish, into the water.

Thus it happened that, one evening at dusk, a lank, lean, spent salmon having been caught, they did not think it worth cooking, and the King took it up to throw it back into the water. He did not cast it far enough, and the poor fish remained on the bank. It was quietly wriggling itself back into its native element, when it was espied by a little boy who had a special taste for broiled fish. He seized it, took it home, made a fire, and set about cooking it.

This youth was the famous Finn Mac Coul:—but he was not famous then. He had fled from the South, from some enemies of his family, and, being hungry, the salmon, poor and lean as it seemed, was better to him than nothing.