Let's go back to Ireland to meet the Great Salmon of Wisdom. This wonderfully brainy fish (fish IS brain food) can be found in the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology. The story goes that a common salmon gobbled up nine hazel nuts it found bobbing in the Well of Wisdom. These were obviously not ordinary hazel nuts. They were hazel nuts bobbing in the WELL OF WISDOM. Eating these special nuts gave our friend the salmon all the knowledge found in the wide world. It also meant the first person to catch and eat the fish would gain all the knowledge the cooked salmon contained.
A poet named Finn Eces dedicated seven years of his life to find this very wise salmon. Finally, after seven long years, he pulled it to shore. To be honest with you, if this salmon was so wise, why did it get caught?! This is a mystery I cannot explain. Finn Eces told his young apprentice Fionn to get out the pan and cook the salmon so Esos could become the wisest man in the whole world. As you may know, nothing ever goes as planned. In the process of cooking the salmon, Fionn burnt his thumb on a bit of frying oil. Placing the scorched thumb in his mouth, he soon learned all the salmon's knowledge was contained in that one drop of oil. Fionn, and not Finn Eces, became the brilliant one.
When Eces saw Fionn, he noticed the glint of wisdom in the apprentice's eyes. Angrily, he asked Fionn if he ate a piece of fish on purpose. "No." Fionn countered back, " I only burnt my thumb on a bit of hot oil, and licked it off to remove the sting!" After that, all Fionn need do was bite his formerly burnt thumb, and all the salmon's knowledge would magically appear in his mind.
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