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sharp, who can cut a lad to pieces as if he were a bolt of cloth.”
    “I’m sorry, Finn,” said the Salmon. “I seldom give advice. And when I do, it’s along general lines. No details. But seeing as you are rather young and tender, and may do some interesting things if you are permitted to live, I will stretch a point and tell you this. When faced by a powerful enemy, son, use their own weapons against them. Use their strength to your advantage. Seek your allies in the very heart of their camp.”
    “I’m sure that’s good policy, sir,” said Finn. “But I still don’t know how to go about it. Dole me out a bit of your magic wisdom, pray. Just one detail or two of real practical instruction.”
    “Why, for that, Finn, I would need more than your need. The only way you can learn such of me is not by questioning, but by eating of my flesh, the way the Druids do.”
    “But I am not a Druid, and if I steal from them I will be punished most horribly, the Hag has said. She will put me to the Fire Flick and the Marrow Log.”
    “Yes. Secrets and penalties, risks and rewards all go together, Finn. Farewell.”
    He flipped in the air and dived, and the water closed blackly over him.
    “Well, some of it sounded like good advice,” said Finn to himself. “If I can just figure out how to use it.”
    And he went back to his hutch and went to sleep. But the next morning he wasn’t so sure. It’s tricky being advised by moonlight; he did not know whether he had actually been conversing with the wise Salmon or if it had all been a dream. Suppose it had? Wisdom was sometimes offered in dream scenes; the old stories were full of it. Besides, he was never quite certain of how much he saw in his sleep and how much elsewhere.
    But something had changed in him all the same. He found himself doing the first thing that came into his head, and that was a peculiar thing. Druids were gathering in the grove. They were clad in green—long beautiful leaf-green robes from which their clean gnarled faces shone. And Finn could see how they had come to be known as Tree Priests, Sages of the Mistletoe. When they doffed their green robes for a ceremonial wetting in the pool, Finn crept among the scattered garments, swiftly ripping each one. When the Druids emerged, dripping, and began to dress, there was a great outcry. Their beards shook with rage; they scolded like great jays, grew hoarse as crows, cursing. And Finn was pleased to see the Fish-hag turn into their servant, scurry among them trying to appease them, vowing she would sew up every rip so that they would never know it was mended.
    She squatted right there on the bank of the pool with her work-basket on her lap, and began to mend, needle swiftly flashing in and out of the green cloth swaddled about her. The scissors-bird swooped away from its perch near Finn and dived into the workbasket to be ready when the hag needed to snip. Now Finn had his enemy and her helpers busy doing something else. He left the pool and ran beyond the hazel copse to the Hag’s cottage. It was the Sacred Salmon Net he was after, and he had to move fast.
    The eyes of the Fish-hag’s cat cast the only light in the room, but Finn lit no candle; he wanted it dark for his deed. Well he knew what dreadful punishments lay in store for him if he should be caught—just thinking of the Fire Flick and the Marrow Log was enough to scare a lad into obedience, and right then and there he almost abandoned his plan. But then the voice of the Hag creaked in his ears saying, “Do this,” “Do that,” and he thrust aside his fears and whistled the cat to him. The big black tom leaped to his shoulder; Finn felt its purr boiling beneath his hand as he twisted the cat’s head now this way, now that, so he could see by the light of its blazing green eyes. The cat loved Finn, who, in his deepest trouble, found time to tease him with a dangled string and to toss him a peeled tadpole now and then.
    Now the Sacred Salmon