The Coming of Finn

Chapter XII

The Salmon of Destiny

Fingal the Mouse scrambled quickly through the tanglewood, his mind afire. "He caught it!" he blurted aloud. "All those years of frustration, of struggling and trial. All ending in utter defeat!" Fingal raged against the memories. "Then the boy, easy as you please, puts his hands in the water, and the salmon comes to him like a docile baby!

He caught it!"

"For me..." the druid insisted.

"The boy's right, of course," he thought to himself, "what need has he of such knowledge? I have devoted my entire life to pursuing knowledge; surely it will be served better through me!"

Yet, he felt a strange disquiet. Why was he arguing with himself? He pushed at the unease, trying to force it away. It was only natural that he should feel a little dismayed at this moment. He was over-excited, that's all. He must calm himself.

"Yes, that's it... I must prepare!"

The old man gained the edge of his homesite and made directly for the spring, where he immediately stripped and began to bathe. Pouring cold water over his head cleared his mind a bit. As it ran across his brow, a tiny stream snaked across his eyes and the bridge of his nose. Looking through the fall of water, he thought of the salmon and the boy, the image of the moment they stood poised with each other before Deimne caught it. He thought of how bright the salmon had become in that moment, as if its luminescence had reached an absolute peak and could grow no brighter.

"The salmon know their purpose...." His own words came back to him; troubling, disconcerting.

Why was he thinking such thoughts? They were clouding his mind, unsettling him. "I must calm myself," he repeated. "It is meant for me. The boy is an Innocent, that's all. It required an Innocent to catch it!"

Fingal retreated to his hut, lit some dried incense, and collapsed cross-legged on the floor. The calm of druidic meditation would settle him.

But the storm in his mind raged on.

After what seemed an hour of fruitless struggle, Fingal could sit still no longer. The hermit arose and withdrew a small object wrapped in oil skin from the back of his hut. Reverently, he unfolded the water-repelling cloth to reveal black robes within. Softly, he touched the fabric. It had been many years since he'd worn these robes. As a young man, he remembered the first time he had donned them.

As a student of the druidic arts, Fingal had earned much respect from his teachers for the brilliance of his mind; how so easily he'd deciphered old tomes few others could translate, absorbed so readily the most arcane of understandings and became swiftly adept at druidic ritual and practice. Over the years, that same brilliance opened many opportunities for the druid, advancing him to fame and respect. Eventually, he was much favored in high and royal halls.

Yet for all of the adulation and renown, Fingal the Mouse felt unease in his soul. His hunger for knowledge was nearly insatiable. The more he knew, the more he could not grasp or understand. Each new horizon of comprehension revealed oceans of frustratingly endless possibilities beyond his ken. The day came when Fingal's hunger for knowledge could simply no longer be satisfied with mediating the minor problems of provincial kings and lords. He sought the answers to far greater questions: Life's questions.

That had begun his search for the Salmon of Knowledge.

"It was meant for me," he repeated to himself, "the boy was led here to catch the Salmon for me!"

Yet, something about those words troubled Fingal. Angrily, he snatched up his robes and donned them. "Enough time has passed," he said impatiently, "and enough thinking." Whirling like a toppling kettle, moving in jags and starts, he passed out of the hut and made determined strides toward the Pool of the Salmon.