"I was in air, and it was as though I were in fire. The air
pressed on me like a fiery mountain. It beat on my scales and
scorched them. It rushed down my throat and scalded me. It
weighed on me and squeezed me, so that my eyes felt as though
they must burst from my head, my head as though it would leap
from my body, and my body as though it would swell and expand and
fly in a thousand pieces.

"The light blinded me, the heat tormented me, the dry air made me
shrivel and gasp; and, as he lay on the grass, the great salmon
whirled his desperate nose once more to the river, and leaped,
leaped, leaped, even under the mountain of air. He could leap
upwards, but not forwards, and yet he leaped, for in each rise he
could see the twinkling waves, the rippling and curling waters.

"'Be at ease, O King,' said the fisherman. 'Be at rest, my
beloved. Let go the stream. Let the oozy marge be forgotten, and
the sandy bed where the shades dance all in green and gloom, and
the brown flood sings along.'

"And as he carried me to the palace he sang a song of the river,
and a song of Doom, and a song in praise of the King of the
Waters.

"When the king's wife saw me she desired me. I was put over a
fire and roasted, and she ate me. And when time passed she gave
birth to me, and I was her son and the son of Cairill the king. I
remember warmth and darkness and movement and unseen sounds. All
that happened I remember, from the time I was on the gridiron
until the time I was born. I forget nothing of these things."