A Fish Story

Maybe you think that fish have always been fish and never lived anywhere else but in the water. But if you went to Australia and talked to the black people in the sandy desert in the middle of the country, you would learn something quite different.

They would tell you that long, long ago, you could meet fish on land, wandering from place to place and hunting all kinds of animals. And if you think about how fish are made, you will understand how difficult this must have been and how clever they were at doing it.

They were actually so clever that they might still be hunting, if not for a terrible thing that happened.

One day the whole fish tribe came home very tired from a hunting expedition and looked around for a nice, cool place to camp. It was very hot, and they thought they could not find a more pleasant spot than under the branches of a large tree that grew by the bank of a river.

So they made a fire to cook, right on the edge of a steep slope that had a deep pool of water at the bottom. While the food was cooking, they stretched out lazily under the tree and were about to fall asleep, when a large black cloud that they had not noticed spread over the sun, and heavy raindrops began to fall, so that the fire was nearly put out.

And that, as you know, is a very serious thing in wild lands where they have no matches, because it is very difficult to light it again. To make matters worse, an icy wind began to blow, and the poor fish were frozen through.

"This won't do," said Thuggai, the eldest of the fish tribe. "We will die of cold unless we can get the fire lit again," and he asked his sons to rub two sticks together in hopes of getting a flame, but even though they rubbed until they were tired, they did not get a spark.

"Let me try," cried Biernuga, the bonefish, but he had no better luck, and neither did Kumbal, the bream, nor any of the others.

"It's no use," Thuggai exclaimed at last. "The wood is too wet. We'll just have to sit and wait for the sun to come out again and dry it." Then a very small fish, not more than four inches long and the youngest in the tribe, bowed to Thuggai and said: "Ask my father, Guddhu the cod, to light the fire. He is more skillful in magic than most fish."

So Thuggai asked him, and Guddhu tore some pieces of bark from a tree and laid them on top of the smoldering embers. Then he knelt beside the fire and blew on it for a long time, until the faint red glow slowly grew a little stronger and the edges of the bark began to curl.

When the rest of the tribe saw this, they pressed closer and turned their backs to the sharp wind, but Guddhu said they must go to the other side, for he wanted the wind to blow on his fire. Gradually the spark grew into a flame, and a merry crackling was heard.

"More wood!" cried Guddhu, and they all ran together and gathered wood and threw it on the flames, which leaped and roared and crackled.

"Soon we will be warm now," the people said to each other. "Truly, Guddhu is great." And they crowded around again, nearer and nearer. Suddenly, with a shriek, a gust of wind swept down from the hills and blew the fire out towards them.

They sprang back in fright, completely forgetting where they were, and all fell down the slope, tumbling over each other until they rolled into the waterhole below. Oh, how cold it was in the dark water that the sun never shone on!

But at the same moment they felt warm again, for the fire, driven by the strong wind, had followed them all the way to the bottom of the waterhole, where it burned as brightly as before. And the fish gathered around it just as they had done on top of the cliff, finding the flames as warm as ever.

And that fire never went out, like those on land, but kept burning forever. So now you know why, if you dive deep under the cold surface of the water on a frosty clear day, you will find it pleasant and cozy below, and be quite sorry that you cannot stay there.

The Wonderful Melody

Maurice Connor was the king, and that is no small word, of all the bagpipers in Munster. He could play jigs and reels without end, and Ollistrum's March, and The Eagle's Whistle, and The Hen's Concert, and odd tunes of all sorts. But he knew one far more surprising than the others, which had the power to make all living and dead things dance.

How he learned it is beyond my knowledge, for he was very careful about telling how he had come across such a wonderful melody. At the very first note of that melody, the shoes began to tremble on the feet of all who heard it, old or young, it didn't matter, just as if the shoes had chills.

Then the feet began to walk, walk, walk beneath them, and finally up and away with them, dancing like mad, swaying here and there and everywhere, like a straw in the storm, there was no stopping as long as the music lasted.

Not a market, a wedding, or a festival in the seven surrounding parishes was considered worth talking about without "blind Maurice and his bagpipes." His mother, poor woman, used to lead him around from place to place, just like a dog.

Down through Iveragh, Maurice Connor and his mother were on a tour. Above all other places, Iveragh is the place for stormy coasts and steep mountains, as suitable a place as any in Ireland for being drowned or breaking your neck on land, if you prefer. Yet, in Ballinskellig Bay there is a fine stretch of land, well suited for fun, and down from it, towards the water, there is a clean, even strip of beach, a mirror of a calm summer sea on a moonlit night, with only the ripple of small waves.

It was here that Maurice's music had gathered from all sides a large assembly of young men and young women; for it was not every day that the beach of Trafraska was set in motion by the sound of a bagpipe. The dance began, and as pretty a dance as ever was danced. "Brave music," said everyone, "and well done," when Maurice stopped.

"More strength to your elbow, Maurice, and a good wind in the bellows," cried Paddy Dorman, a hunchbacked dancing master who was there to keep order. "It's a pity," said he, "if we should let the piper go dry after such music; it would be a disgrace to Iveragh, which hasn't seen the like since the week of the three Sundays." So, as befitted one who was always a decent man, he said: "Did you drink, piper?"

"Yes, sir," said Maurice, answering on the safe side, for you never knew a piper or a schoolmaster to refuse a drink.

"What will you drink, Maurice?" said Paddy.

"I'm not fussy," said Maurice; "I drink anything except plain water; but if it's all the same to you, Mister Dorman, could you lend me a glass of whiskey?"

"I have no glass, Maurice," said Paddy; "I only have the bottle."

"Let that be no obstacle," replied Maurice; "my mouth holds exactly a glass to the drop; often have I tried it, so true."

Then Paddy Dorman trusted him with the bottle, more fool he; and to his cost he found that although Maurice's mouth might not hold more than one glass at a time, it took many fillings because of the hole in his throat.

"It wasn't bad whisky either," said Maurice, handing back the empty bottle.

"By the holy frost, then!" said Paddy, "that's cold comfort there is in that bottle now; and it's your word we must take for the strength of the whisky, for you've given us no sample to judge by." And so true it was, Maurice had not.

Now I need not tell any gentleman or lady that if he or she drank an honest bottle of whiskey in one gulp, it is not the same as drinking a bottle of water; and in all my life I have never known more than five men who could do it without becoming worse.

Among these was not Maurice Connor, although he had a hard head enough himself. Do not think I blame him for that; but true is the word that says: "When the whiskey is in, the wit is out"; and puff, in one breath, he blew out his wonderful melody.

It was truly then beyond all belief or description how they danced. Maurice himself could not keep still; swaying now on one leg, now on the other, and rolling around like a ship in a choppy sea, trying to follow the tune.

There was his mother too, moving her old bones as lightly as the youngest girl of them all; but her dance, no, not the dance of all the others, is not worth speaking of compared to the work that was going on down on the beach.

Every inch of it was covered with all kinds of fish that jumped and bounced to the music, and every moment more and more came leaping out of the water, enchanted by the wonderful melody. Giant crabs spun around on one claw with the agility of a dancing master, whirling and tossing their other claws around like limbs that did not belong to them.

It was a sight that was surprising to see. But perhaps you have heard of Father Florence Conry, as pleasant a man as one could wish to drink with on a warm summer day. And he had rhymed all about the dancing fish so nicely that it would be a thousand pities not to give you his verses.

So here they are in English (but we can only imagine what they said):

The great seals in motion, like waves of the sea, or gouty feet dancing, came and led the happy fishes, crabs, lobsters, and sea crayfish, determined to dance.

The sweet sounds followed them, the gasping cod swallowed—it was truly wonderful; and turbot and flounder, among fish that were rounder, just hopped as merrily.

John Dory tripped; the sad haddock, by its hop, seemed given to bouncing; the bright mackerel sprang, like little rainbows winging up to the sky.

Whiting and hake left the saltwater bed to join in this dance; where skate with flat faces shoved out some old plaice; but the soles stood on their feet.

Sprats and herrings in shoals of silvery showers surpassed all numbers; and long cod was there in such quantities that the beach was overcrowded.

Scallops and oysters—their two shells made a noise like castanets striking; while albus snails moved clearly, and stones almost leaped with laughter.

Never was there such a din in this world, before or since; it was as if heaven and earth were coming together; and all because of Maurice's wonderful melody!

While this was going on, what should be dancing among the strange collection of fish but a beautiful young woman, as beautiful as the first light of day! She wore a tricorn hat on her head; beneath it, her long green hair, exactly the color of the sea, fell down her back without hindering her dance.

Her teeth were like rows of pearls; her lips looked like red coral; and she wore a shining dress, pale green like the vault of a wave cave, with small rows of purple and red seaweed set upon it; for you never saw a lady, under the water or above the water, who did not have a good sense for dressing up.

At last she danced up to Maurice, who threw his feet about as fast as he could, for nothing in this world could keep still while his melody was playing. And she said to him, singing it out in a voice as sweet as honey:

"I am a lady of honor who lives in the sea; come down, Maurice Connor, and marry me. Silver dishes and gold plates you shall have, and shall be king of the fishes when you are married to me."

The drink was strong in Maurice's head, and he sang out in return for her great politeness. It is not every lady, perhaps, who would make such an offer to a blind bagpiper; therefore it was only right for him to give as good as she gave herself. So Maurice said:

"I am grateful, madam; from a golden bowl or plate, if I were king and had them, I could eat in great style. With your own father's daughter I would surely get along, but drinking the salt water would not do for me!"

The lady looked at him quite astonished, and swayed her head from side to side like a great scholar: "Well," she said, "Maurice, if you are not a poet, where does poetry exist then?"

In this way they continued, exchanging great compliments; one answered the other, and their feet kept pace with the music as fast as their tongues. All the fish continued dancing as well; Maurice heard the clatter and was afraid to stop playing, in case it might displease the fish, and not knowing what so many of them might do to him if they became angry.

Well, the lady with the green hair continued to persuade Maurice with soft words, until she finally persuaded him to promise to marry her and become king over the fishes, great and small. Maurice was well suited to be their king, if they needed someone who could make them dance; and he would surely drink, except for the saltwater, with any fish of them all.

When Maurice's mother saw him with that unnatural thing in the form of a green-haired lady as a guide, and he and she dancing down together so lovingly to the water's edge, through the thickness of fishes, she called out to him to stop and come back.

"Oh, then," said she, "as if I were not widow enough before, now he goes away from me to marry that scaly woman. And who knows, perhaps I shall become grandmother to a haddock or a cod—Lord help and forgive me, but it is a very unnatural thing!

And perhaps I will boil and eat my own grandchild with a little salt butter, and not know it! Oh, Maurice, Maurice, if there is any love or natural feeling left in you, come back to your old mother, who raised you as a decent Christian!" Then the poor woman began to cry and sob so nicely that it would do anyone good to hear her.

Maurice was not long in getting to the water's edge. There he continued to play and dance as if nothing were the matter, and a great thundering wave came towards him, ready to swallow him alive; but since he could not see it, he did not fear it.

His mother was the one who saw it clearly through the big tears streaming down her cheeks; and although she saw it, and her heart ached as much as any mother's heart ever ached for a son, she kept on dancing, dancing all the time for dear life.

Certainly she could not help it, for Maurice never stopped playing his wonderful melody.

He only turned his ear to the sound of his mother's voice, for fear that it might throw him off balance, and all the answer he gave back was: "Hush, mother; I am going to be king of the fishes down there in the sea, and as a token of good luck and a sign that I am alive and well, I will send you every year on this day a piece of burnt wood to Trafraska."

Maurice had not the power to say another word, for the strange lady with the green hair, who saw the wave just above them, covered him with herself in a kind of cloak with a large hood, and the wave, curling twice as high as their heads, burst over the beach with a rush and a roar that could be heard as far as Cape Clear.

The following year the piece of driftwood came ashore in Trafraska. It was a strange thing for Maurice to think of sending all the way from the bottom of the sea. A dress or a pair of shoes would have been a suitable gift for his poor mother; but he had said it, and he kept his word.

The little piece of burned wood came regularly ashore on the appointed day for a good, yes, better than a hundred years. The day is now forgotten, and perhaps that is why people say that Maurice Connor has stopped sending the lucky token to his mother.

Poor woman, she did not live long enough to receive even one of them; for because of the loss of Maurice and the fear of eating her own grandchildren, she died three weeks after the dance.

Some say it was the fatigue that killed her, but whatever it was, Mrs. Connor was properly buried with her own people.

Sailors have often heard, off the coast of Kerry, on a quiet night, the sound of music coming up from the water; and some, with good ears, could clearly distinguish Maurice's voice singing these words to the bagpipe:

"Beautiful shore, with your broad sand, your crystal clear water, and your diamond sand; never would I have left you, but for my fair lady."