The Salmon of Here and There, the Eel of This and That

An eel and a salmon once met in the bay at Radgenish. A quite commonplace eel, but no ordinary salmon, for it was the fabled Salmon of Knowledge.

He used to say he got his knowledge a bit at a time. He was not born with it, nor did he study at the fins of a tight circle of wise salmon elders. No, he took a little piece, here and there, from all the lowliest creatures of the sea.

“Even the stupidest will have at least one insight to show for itself,” he said. “And if you hoard these glimmers of cleverness from as many of the stupid as you can find, you can meld them into a great intellect like mine.”

There are some, and maybe I’m among them, who doubt you could ever get clever by mixing with fools. Even a huge number of fools. But the salmon had been telling his tale so long that if he once knew it was a lie, he eventually convinced himself that it was true. So whenever he met a new subject, he liked to cock a curious fin, and set about what he thought of as his routine. All contributions, however small, gratefully received. But despite his supposedly questing nature the salmon spent more time talking than listening during these interrogations with whelk, gurnard or periwinkle.

So it was with the eel. A quite ordinary eel, but no fool, and with questions of his own. So the garrulous salmon took little persuading to unburden himself first.

”My clan spawn in stark stoney rivers, whose unforgiving bleakness makes our mettle, but where there is little nourishing food. And so we take ourselves to sea where we can ride the tide, gorge and flourish to fat silver glory.  But we’ve earned it mind.”

The salmon is the most Calvinist of fish.

”And I expect you may wonder why we love to leap? Well, to kiss the wind, and moisten it with our spray, to hasten the rain and better yet snow which will melt in the spring, so my kin are lifted over rock and up river and burn to spawn.

“In mid-leap I have smelt a droplet, and batted it with my tail into the heat of the Atlantic sun. Much later I smelt the same drop as it tumbled over me in a high brown burn. So I know it journeyed before me - to the highest mountain top where it waited out the winter, melting only so I could ride the spate.

“My tail brings the torrent. It is a tail of much power.  And I, as you can probably tell, am a fish or considerable wisdom.”

The salmon, for diplomacy’s sake, neglected to mention that a good deal of its silvery bulk was down to a diet rich in squirming elvers, that slipped over a treat, often with a satisfying final slap and whipcrack of their tails before disappearing down his maw.

God I love it when they do that, thought the Salmon of Knowledge as he eyed the eel’s lithe flank. This one looks like she would have an enchanting wiggle going down.

Salmon of course, even Salmon of Knowledge, can’t tell the gender of an eel. So although the eel was male, the salmon liked to think of it as an eelstress, with a beguiling dance.

The eel listened intently to the salmon, and then for his part said:  “My tribe spawns deep in the faraway Sargasso in a knotted orgy of wanton abandon. Everyone is equal in the bliss.”

The eel is the least Calvinist of fish.

“Our young voyage far, running up rivers, invading the very land itself, sliding across the dry soil to dip snouts in landlocked lochs where we bide our time before returning to the sea for supple slimey sex.”

The eel, for propriety’s sake, left out that it often patrolled the river gravel for salmon eggs that burst their juices like berries, with an echo of the sea’s salt tang.

God I love it when they do that, thought the eel as it admired the salmon’s plump flanks. My but you’re a fine big lass and you must be loaded with the good stuff right enough.
Eels, of course, can’t tell the gender of a salmon. So although the Salmon of Knowledge was a cock fish, the eel liked to think of it as a hen, packed with flavoursome red jewels.

“And what is it that you eat when you are in the river?” said the salmon.
“Oh, this and that,” said the eel. “And what about yourself, at sea?”
“Oh, bits and bobs,” said the salmon.

The salmon and the eel would argue over which had the idea first, but one of them certainly wondered aloud that if they might come to some arrangement, then neither would have to migrate again. If one bred at sea and went inland to feed, while the other bred in rivers and journeyed to sea to fatten, then surely there was a living to be had for each if they stayed in the place they were born?

So the salmon took the notion back to his clan, that if the eel could feed in freshwater then so could they. There was no need for them to make the arduous trip to sea. They could live their whole lives in the river. And the eel put to its tribe the possibility they might remain at sea for didn’t the salmon find enough there to eat? No need to swim all that way to freshwater.

As starvation took the eel, his belly swelled with gas and he could no longer wriggle. It was sheer luck that an elver swam past his snout while he still had enough energy to make a snatch at it. It gave a whipcrack and snap before going down, which made the eel pine for his own lost agility.

The salmon became skinny in the river. He could no longer leap but thinness made him supple until his jaws could reach his tail, which in a hunger trance he tried to swallow. But just as he took a grip he glimpsed a crimson speck in the gravel. Letting go of himself he sank to the riverbed. As he took the egg in his mouth it burst with an echo of salt tang, and the salmon missed the ocean.

George Anderson lives in Edinburgh where he writes fiction. This story is part of his ongoing collection The Bewilderds. He is a keen trout fisherman but has only ever caught one salmon. It had a lot of strength but not much wisdom.