so a huge portion of my thesis focuses on stories in which saints or priests banish salmon from water bodies throughout ireland. usually after they are hungry and denied hospitality when they ask fishermen to share just one salmon with them. but there's a variant i've become obsessed with (literally, as it goes with a thesis) where a saint slips on a salmon and banishes salmon from that water body forevermore, presumably causing nigh incomprehensible ecological and economic devastation that ripples across centuries. and one must ask, well, why did he do that!
I'm not going to answer that question here¹ but I will share one example of this variant because I love the commentary from the person who relates the story:
St Patrick when crossing from Mayo into Sligo crossed this stream at the point where it issues from the lake and in doing so slipped on a salmon and fell into the stream. He is then stated to have cursed the salmon (a strange proceeding for a saint) and from that out no salmon ever passed that spot.
For months I've been collecting these hagiographies and looking at them from every angle, like, now what on earth did he go and do that?
So this made me laugh out loud.
A strange proceeding for a saint!
INDEED!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!!
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1. It's beyond the scope of this post.
