Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens Read Free Book Online Page B

the salmon,” said Fionn in a rage of resignation.

Chapter 10
    L ife continued for him in a round of timeless time, wherein days and nights were uneventful and were yet filled with interest. As the day packed its load of strength into his frame, so it added its store of knowledge to his mind, and each night sealed the twain, for it is in the night that we make secure what we have gathered in the day.
    If he had told of these days he would have told of a succession of meals and sleeps, and of an endless conversation, from which his mind would now and again slip away to a solitude of its own, where, in large hazy atmospheres, it swung and drifted and reposed. Then he would be back again, and it was a pleasure for him to catch up on the thought that was forward and re-create for it all the matter he had missed. But he could not often make these sleepy sallies; his master was too experienced a teacher to allow any such bright-faced, eager-eyed abstractions, and as the druid women had switched his legs around a tree, so Finegas chased his mind, demanding sense in his questions and understanding in his replies.
    To ask questions can become the laziest and wobbliest occupation of a mind, but when you must yourself answer the problem that you have posed, you will meditate your question with care and frame it with precision. Fionn’s mind learned to jump in a bumpier field than that in which he had chased rabbits. And when he had asked his question, and given his own answer to it, Finegas would take the matter up and make clear to him where the query was badly formed or at what point the answer had begun to go astray, so that Fionn came to understand by what successions a good question grows at last to a good answer.
    One day, not long after the conversation told of, Finegas came to the place where Fionn was. The poet had a shallow osier basket on his arm, and on his face there was a look that was at once triumphant and gloomy. He was excited certainly, but be was sad also, and as he stood gazing on Fionn his eyes were so kind that the boy was touched, and they were yet so melancholy that it almost made Fionn weep.
    â€œWhat is it, my master?” said the alarmed boy.
    The poet placed his osier basket on the grass.
    â€œLook in the basket, dear son,” he said.
    Fionn looked.
    â€œThere is a salmon in the basket.”
    â€œIt is The Salmon,” said Finegas with a great sigh. Fionn leaped for delight.
    â€œl am glad for you, master,” he cried. “Indeed I am glad for you.”
    â€œAnd I am glad, my dear soul,” the master rejoined.
    But, having said it, he bent his brow to his hand and for a long time he was silent and gathered into himself.
    â€œWhat should be done now?” Fionn demanded, as he stared on the beautiful fish.
    Finegas rose from where he sat by the osier basket.
    â€œI will be back in a short time,” he said heavily. “While I am away you may roast the salmon, so that it will be ready against my return.”
    â€œI will roast it indeed,” said Fionn.
    The poet gazed long and earnestly on him.
    â€œYou will not eat any of my salmon while I am away?” he asked.
    â€œI will not eat the littlest piece,” said Fionn.
    â€œI am sure you will not,” the other murmured, as he turned and walked slowly across the grass and behind the sheltering bushes on the ridge.
    Fionn cooked the salmon. It was beautiful and tempting and savoury as it smoked on a wooden platter among cool green leaves; and it looked all these to Finegas when he came from behind the fringing bushes and sat in the grass outside his door. He gazed on the fish with more than his eyes. He looked on it with his heart, with his soul in his eyes, and when he turned to look on Fionn the boy did not know whether the love that was in his eyes was for the fish or for himself. Yet he did know that a great moment had arrived for the poet.
    â€œSo,” said Finegas, “you did not eat it