The Fisherman

There was once a fisherman who lived in a village by a long winding river. The river was lined with dense damp forest, which held many creatures of legend, some of which have never been caught. There was one creature, a fish in particular, that had the power to change the villager’s lives.

 The fisherman was very wrinkled with decades of experience out on the great river. He was commissioned every so often by the leaders of the village to try and catch large fish. The leaders needed fish for large feasts, which they had every so often. Early one day, one of the leaders of the village came to discuss with the fisherman about finding the Fish of Legends. The leader thought that this poor village could be much wealthier. So the fisherman, after consideration, said, ‘Yes, I will try to find this Fish of Legends.’

A few days later the fisherman decided to sit down and build himself a device to find a special fish that had powers. As he pondered on what device to build, the fisherman patted his black cat. The fisherman knew that the villagers were uneasy about him owning this cat, so he reassured the leader that it was just a cat.

The leader said ‘You will probably have to use your powers of metal work and magic to find this fish, because many have tried before but they were unsuccessful.’ So the leader left and the fisherman got to work. He decided to make something that was like a compass in design with a case that was locked with a key. When he was finished he sprayed it with a finding spell.

The next early morning the villagers all gathered to see him off. The fisherman brought his cat with him, as the cat was fearless. The villagers seemed a bit weary of the cat, because earlier in the villages’ history, someone bad owned the cat, and some of the villagers thought that the bad man put his essence into the cat and became the cat. Of course this was not true, but they were a very superstitious people.

The fisherman and his cat got into his fishing boat which was already packed with his star net and fish finding device. He untied the boat from the bank and they drifted off down the river. Every so often the needle on the finding device would quiver, but then, it stopped. He thought that maybe the fish was sleeping. 

He chucked the star net over the boat to catch some fish for dinner. When it became lunch time he had caught a few fish in his net and ate one hungrily. Then the needle on the finding device started to straighten out and pointed definitively in a north-east direction.  So he followed it until the day became twilight.

Suddenly the fisherman noticed a phoenix overhead. It was both a good and a bad omen for him because the fisherman knew that birds around rivers would dive down and try to get good sized fish. Because of the phoenix though, he knew he was in the right area, but as it was a fire bird he didn’t want it close to his wooden long boat. His cat stared at the bird, which got a little scared and flew back a few metres. Then the device started to glow and he knew that it was a good sign. So he charged his star net with a spell to increase his chances of catching the fish of legends. He ate another one of the fish from earlier that day for dinner, and slept a while as it was a long day.

At about midnight the fisherman woke up noticing that the net seemed to be full of various fish. As he picked through them trying to see if he finally got the fish of legends, he saw a large fish with hard golden scales on the bottom of the net. He said to his cat, ‘Could this be it?’

As the fisherman held his finding device close to the fish, the needle became quiet erratic and he knew there and then that he had caught it. The fisherman pulled the fish back into the boat and packed away his net, changing his course back to his village. The night wind did the rest and his cat warned off the phoenix. He went to sleep for the night quite content.

In the morning the fisherman arrived at the bank of his little village. He tied the boat to the wooden pole of the bank of the river, gathered up the fish of legends, and climbed out of the boat with his cat. He placed the fish in the building of leaders in the middle of the town and said to the fish, ‘I hope you work’.

Then to his delight he saw it glow for a second. After a while thinking about the future, he walked slowly back to his little house near the river with his cat by his side and the fisherman knowing that his fellow villagers would never be poor and hungry again. 

Robert Walmsley-Evans.