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Net had come down from the earliest mists of time when the magic kings of the Tuatha da Danaan reigned in Ireland. Fashioned by Giobniu the great smith, it was spun of the beard of Mamos, the first Druid, and its handle was a rod of gold. When Finn snatched it off the shelf it seemed no implement at all but a living extension of his own arm, and he knew he could scoop up any swimming thing from any water in the world.
    Swiftly Finn left the cottage, bearing the net. Swiftly he circled the meadow where the Druids were matching verse while the Hag was mending, then darted through the hazel copse to the edge of the pool. And then, instead of dipping the net, stood there panting, watching the stars float upside down.
    Finn stood at the edge of the pool; it seemed like a gulf of shadow waiting to swallow him. He stood there at the edge of wisdom, between boyhood and manhood, and was taken by a creeping blood-sucking sadness in which Murtha’s face hung, now laughing, now cruel, garlanded by memory. And he stood there trying to fight the sadness and let the laughter and cruelty enter himself. He felt himself fill with a choking excitement. Now? he asked the night. Now! said the Salmon Net. Now! sighed the trees. Now! sang the drowning stars, and Finn dipped his net.
    He needed but one dip. The net had barely grazed the water when the Salmon flashed out, curved in the air, and landed in the mesh. Finn felt the net come alive with the sudden weight of the great fish. It twitched out of his hands. He bellowed with rage and smote his head.
    “Easy, Finn. Don’t go breaking your skull like that—with so many others ready to do it for you.”
    Finn looked about for the voice and saw the Salmon standing on the shore wearing the net like a cape.
    “Enough gawking, lad. You’ve caught me, now eat me.”
    “How shall I cook you, sir?”
    “No time for cooking.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Eat me raw. Knowledge doesn’t have to be palatable; it just has to be swallowed. And if you cannot stomach the truth, unflavored, why then you’re not meant to be wise.”
    “But I am,” said Finn.
    Then, at the edge of the pool in the weird pearly fire of the midsummer moon, Finn ate the Salmon raw from nose to tail—flesh, bone, scales, guts, eyes—he ate every bit, and a terrible griping slimy meal it was. No sooner had he swallowed the last of it than he jumped into the pool, clothes and all, to wash himself clean. When he climbed back onto the bank there stood the Salmon, taller than Finn, looking like a prince in his close-fitting armor of silver.
    “Now, Finn,” he said, “I will tell you what you need to know.”
    “How do I escape the Hag?”
    “Your first problem is this: having been eaten once, I am no longer available for the Druid feast, and our bearded friends are getting hungrier and hungrier. Listen, you can hear them railing at the Fish-hag.”
    Finn listened, and heard an angry chattering.
    “I hear them. Where is the Hag?”
    “At the cottage searching for the Salmon Net and not finding it. It won’t take her long to figure out who stole it.”
    “What shall I do, wise sir, what shall I do?”
    “Dip the net again. Catch the Loutish Trout.”
    “But the Druids have been eating salmon flesh for nine hundred years. Surely they know the difference between salmon and trout?”
    “Not if you follow this recipe. Baste the trout in vinegar and butter, parsley, scallions. Dust it with wheat crumbs and crumbled madragore. Then lay strips of bacon upon it and broil it until the skin is charred. Stuff it with sautéed crabmeat, and serve with a sauce of almonds seethed in cream and sprinkled with poppy. Can you remember that?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Do it, and so delicious will it be that the Druids will forget all distinction between salmon and trout, loutishness and wisdom, for they will be too busy cramming their gullet with both hands. Then, with bellies full and the drowsy fumes of madragore and poppy working, they