bradán feasa

What to say about Finn and the 'salmon of knowledge'? I'm not much taken with portentous modern tellings of heroic tales. Better to let the originals speak for themselves. (Look here for W.T. Rolleston's translation of The High Deeds of Finn Mac Cumhail.) I shall just express a little sympathy for Finn's teacher, Finegas the Bard, with whom the young hero went to 'perfect himself' in 'wisdom and the art of poetry' before he took on the chieftainship of the Fianna.

Finegas made his home by the river because, as Rolleston says, 'It was a belief among the poets of Ireland that the place of the revealing of poetry is always by the margin of water'. And there, in a deep pool, lived the bradán feasa, a salmon in which was contained all the knowledge in the world so that the first person to eat its flesh would become the wisest of human beings. Finegas had spent many years trying to catch the salmon. But it was only when Finn came to live with him that he managed to land the fish.

I imagine he must already have felt misgivings - the elusive beast surrendering itself as soon as the boy wonder arrived. But Finegas still proceeded as if the knowledge was destined to be his. He told the young man to cook the salmon but not eat it - he wanted, of course, to be the first to taste it - and the worst of it is that Finn did exactly as he was told. This isn't a story about theft or deception or trickery. The boy cooked the fish and refrained from eating any. But he burned his thumb and, when he put it in his mouth to relieve the pain, the knowledge began to pass into him. No need to eat the flesh - the traces of grease from his fingers were enough.

How terrible for Finegas - to realise that he was never meant to have that learning. The daily work of contemplation, the assiduous routine of seeking wisdom, means little if a handsome young lad with a talent for sports can take it all from you without even trying. The old bard behaved well, it seems. 'Take the salmon and eat it, Finn, son of Cumhail,' he said, 'for to thee the prophecy is come. And now go home, for I can teach thee no more, and blessing and victory be thine.'

But I wonder how he felt as he watched his young protégé march off through the trees to meet his destiny. Did Finn scour the frying pan before he left?




Photograph by Wknight94 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.