The Salmon in the Spring, the Hazel and the Hermit
Into an open gob the hazelnuts fell,
so that over the years the salmon grew
into a colossus.
A day came when one fell and devoured
the very instant of dimpling the surface,
it caused the salmon to spew from its intestines
the knowledge of a thousand years
that cascaded downhill
over the shilling bright stones,
through the ignorant meadows to the lake,
where it became part of the ever-turning
cycle of life, in water, weed and silt.
A hermit, who lived by the lake,
dousing his face, drank some of this potion
and was instantly replete.
In time a hazel took root in his belly
and he convulsed
so that the stones unearthed by his flailing feet
filled the lake
and sent its waters flooding out
onto to the plain where the people lived;
so they, too, in their turn, drank;
and by this means knowledge and poetry spread
from the time that was before
to the times now and those yet to come
And that, dear frends, is how the Irish became
the wisest, savviest race on earth.
