The Legend of the Winnanish

isten now and I will tell you how the salmon came to live in Big Lake and

the Legend of the Winnanish, as it was told to me when I was a very young boy.

Once, in a time long ago, there was a young fish named Winn who lived in the lake we call Big Lake. Winn was very happy in the lake, but also somewhat lonely be-cause while there were many small fish in the waters of Big Lake, he seemed to be the only salmon.

As time passed, Winn grew lonelier and lonelier and he began to question his existence. One day, as evening ap-proached, he called out to a passing eagle. "Brother Ea-gle!" he shouted. The eagle, who had heard Winn call, circled back to see what it was that this little salmon wanted, for while it was not unheard of for fish to talk to eagles it was very uncommon and so the eagle was curi-ous.

"What is it?" asked the eagle.

"Brother Eagle," Winn began, "I am all alone in the world and I do not know what I am, and..."

But he got no further in his question, for the eagle laughed and flew off into the sky and shouted down to Winn as he departed. "You are!" the eagle cried. "You are! You are!"

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Winn watched as the eagle disappeared into the orange sky of the setting sun, somewhat irked at the bird's re-sponse. "I am?" thought Winn. "What kind of answer is that?" And then Winn forgot about the eagle and went off to sleep, in the manner that salmon do.

But while the young salmon had forgotten about the ea-gle, the eagle had not forgotten about him. The very next evening at sunset, Winn looked up and saw the eagle circling overhead. When the eagle saw that Winn was paying attention he cried out "You are!"

Winn watch as the eagle once more flew away into the sunset calling out in his great eagle voice "You are! You are! You are! "

If Winn had thought that this was a one-time thing he would have been mistaken. Every single evening at sun-set the eagle flew over the fish and cried "You are! You are! You are! " until Winn was growing quite tired of the routine. He heard the eagle's words but he had no idea what they meant, so one evening he called out to the ea-gle just as it arrived.

"Brother Eagle! Please, you have told me that I am. I know that I am, but I don't know what it is that I am. What am I?"

The eagle laughed in his eagle way and cried out, in his loudest voice yet "You are... you are... you are... the Winnanish!"

The Legend of the Winnanish

"What?" said Winn.

"You are, you are the Winnanish!" the eagle replied and with that he flew away calling...

Winnanish! Winnanish!

Find the ring! Make a wish!

As the eagle flew away into the distance Winn thought, not for the first time, that perhaps this eagle was just a little bit crazy. "My name is Winn, not Winnanish" he thought. "And what possible use does a fish have for a ring? We have no fingers. I will give this foolish bird no more of my attention."

And so Winn once again forgot about the eagle and he no more looked to the sky in the evening and this story might have ended there. But one day, which started out like any ordinary day without a single hint of magic in it at all, Winn suddenly had a most peculiar experience. He had been thinking about something else, probably his dinner, for it was past his dinner time and he was getting hungry when without warning he felt a strange sense of excitement. There seemed to be a wonderful smell com-ing from everywhere at once and the water seemed to take on a gentle amber glow. From the corner of his eye Winn saw a faint twinkle ahead near the shoreline and he swam towards it to see what it might be.

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And that is when he found it. Sitting in the pebbles near the edge of the lake, near a big green rock under the bough of a pine tree growing by the shore was a marvel-ous, magical golden ring. Winn swam closer for a better look and was amazed at what he saw. The ring, for all the magical qualities and beauty it seemed to possess had one extremely interesting feature indeed. It had his name on it. He stared in disbelief at the ring for it was covered in carved letters and the letters on the top of the mysterious ring clearly spelled out

WINN

Well when Winn saw that he was very impressed and not just a little bit concerned for Winn could not imagine how this ring could have gotten into the lake and even less could he imagine how it knew his name! And just then, as if on cue, the eagle appeared overhead again and Winn heard him cry out

Winnanish!Winnanish!

Move the ring!Make a wish!

Well, Winn was much more inclined to listen to the eagle now that he had seen a magical ring, and who can deny that a ring that knows your name is magical? And so Winn tried to move the ring. He swam at it. He blew bubbles at it. He crossed his eyes and thought about it really hard. But nothing worked. The ring did not move


or react in any way. It did not seem that a fish had the power to work the magic ring after all. Also, it occurred to Winn that even if he could persuade the ring to move, he had no idea what it was that he wanted to wish for. Discouraged (and hungry) Winn turned and swam off to find his dinner and he did not notice that as he swam his tail had brushed the ring. And the letters on the ring had begun to move. Around and around they turned in the swirling water until new letters appeared on the top of the ring. Winn did not see it, but here is what the ring now said

NISH

Winn spent the next day wandering around the Big Lake. His feelings of loneliness had returned to him and suddenly he knew what he wished for. He wanted to find a mate. At that moment, Winn began to feel the strange sense of excitement he had felt the previous day. The delicious smell, though very faint, passed by him once again. Winn decided to go back to the place where the ring had been, to see if the ring had anything to say for itself today.

It did. When Winn arrived back at the spot where the ring lay, he was astonished at what he saw. Here is what the letters on the top of the ring now said:

LOVE

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Well, now Winn knew that the magical ring was a real magical ring and not some kind of trick. The ring knew that Winn wanted to find his true love! Winn was so happy he wanted to share his discovery and he saw the eagle was circling above him once again and Winn called out "Brother Eagle! I'm so excited. The ring knows I am in love!"

"You are! You are!" the eagle shouted, and he was happy too. But then Winn suddenly became thoughtful. "But Brother Eagle, I cannot be in love, because I am the only salmon in the Big Lake." And then Winn felt very sad, but the eagle just laughed and cried out

You are! You are the Winnanish!

See the ring!Find your wish!

And with that the eagle flew away and Winn heard these words trailing on the wind.

You are not alone...

Winn was confused. What had the eagle meant? He swam back down to the ring and there in the fading light of sunset Winn saw this word had formed on the top of the ring...

EAST


Now, Winn took one look at that and he was off like a shot. He thought to himself that the ring must be giving him directions! All he had to do to find his true love was to swim to the east. So without delay he set right out that night swimming east along the shore of the Big Lake.

Big Lake is, as the name implies, a very big lake. it took young Winn twelve entire nights and twelve entire days to swim all the way around it. He looked in every corner of every bay and in every nook and cranny and hollow and pocket. He looked at every log and every rock that was in the water. But at last as the twelveth evening fell he returned to the place where the magical ring lay, hav-ing gone completely around the lake without finding his true love (which didn't seem fair to him) and he discov-ered that the ring had changed yet again. Now it said...

WEST

Winn stared at the ring, wishing it would make up it's mind. Very well, thought Winn. This must be some kind of test. So without further adieu, Winn turned his tail and swam off to the west, seeking his one true love. Now, twelve days is a long time to be away from home and it's nice to have someone to talk to, and every eve-ning Winn would rest awhile and talk to the eagle who still appeared at sunset to see how things were going. Winn had been full of confidence when he started out, but as the days passed and he had nearly gone all the way around the lake again he still had found no sign of his true love and was feeling a little down. When the ea-

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gle heard this he told Winn he was sure the ring knew what it was talking about and that Winn just had to have a little patience and everything would work out.

So Winn kept going, but by and by he came back to the place where the golden ring lay in the pebbles and still he had not found his love. Winn was beginning to think the ring was maybe not magical after all, but as he ap-proached he began to smell that delicious smell again. It was very faint, but it was so wonderful that Winn forgot about his hardships traveling around the lake and rushed up to see what the ring had to say now. It said...

ROCK

Winn was very frustrated. He had looked at, around, under and over every single rock all the way around the entire Big Lake, twice, and he had not found his own true love, so what was this ring thinking? He said as much to the eagle, who had just landed on the shore nearby. "First is said EAST", Winn complained, "then it said WEST and now it says ROCK. What would you do?"

"Hmm," said the eagle. "I should probably ignore it. It sounds like a fish thing." But then eagle saw that Winn was getting despondent and quickly added "on the other hand, maybe the ring means the Rock island."

"Rock island?" asked Winn.


"Yes, said the eagle. Right in the middle of Big Lake is a little rocky island. I'm sure that's where the ring means for you to go."

Winn was impressed. He had not known there was an island in the middle of Big Lake, for he had only ever swam around the shores, and didn't think there could be anything of interest in the middle. Of course, Brother Eagle could easily see the island from the sky. If Winn had had a hand he would have smacked his forehead. "Of course! That's what the ring meant. Don't go to the east, don't go west, go to the center, to the Rock island! it's so obvious."

It wasn't particularly obvious to the eagle, but he could see that Winn was happy with the idea and just waved goodbye as Winn swam away into the center of the Big Lake. Neither Winn nor the eagle noticed that as he swam away Winn's tail had brushed the ring and moved the letters again and it had formed another word. Here is what it said...

WAIT

It was a very long swim out to the center of the lake and WInn was very tired when he found it. He was happy to see his eagle friend waiting at the shore. They rested there and talked the night away. Winn told of his journey to the center of the lake which had been strange and un-familiar and the eagle said he could only imagine. "Tell

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me something about your people," Winn said. "I know nothing of mine so I cannot tell you anything about us".

The eagle thought for a moment. He felt bad for Winn, who had no family to tell him the stories of his own people, and he thought of something special he could share with Winn to cheer him up. "I will tell you the se-cret song of the eagle," he said.

"This is the song which no eagle can resist. If you sing this song an eagle will come to you. This song is not known in the world (outside of the Eagle World) for they say no creature can sing the secret eagle song. But that is not true. I think the human children could sing it easily if they tried, and I know the Winanish can too."

And so eagle taught the Winnanish the secret eagle song. Winn, who indeed had been happy to learn a secret of the Eagle People drifted off to sleep humming the song in his mind.

Early the next morning Winn was off on his task, con-vinced that today he was finally going to meet his one true love. The little island was just that. It was little, and before sunset came Winn had swam completely around it. He had been very thorough and methodical but he had found no trace of his true love anywhere. Once, for a brief moment he had smelled the wonderful smell again, but it was gone so quickly he decided it must have been his imagination. He looked around, feeling lost. He sighed. Somehow I have misinterpreted the words on


the magical ring or, the thought flashed through his mind, it is not a magical ring at all. He decided to go back to the ring one more time and demand some an-swers. So he turned his tail to the little island in the mid-dle of the Big Lake and set off for the shore.

But he did not get far. Less than half way across the lake, his mind occupied with all the things he was going to say to the ring when he got there, the sky suddenly darkened and he felt a great blow to his back. The water exploded around him. Then his world went black and he passed out.

After a time, he knew not how long, Winn came awake to a terrifying sight. The whole world, the water, the seaweed, the water bugs and everything he knew was... gone. He was in some impossible world, he looked down and saw far, far below a scene his mind struggled to comprehend. There were huge swaths of green with a ribbon of blue winding through them.

He looked around and gradually began to understand. He was in the sky! He was... flying? All of this took only a few moments but time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. It was only then that Winn noticed that he was grasped firmly in two impossibly large claws that wrapped completely around his body and were squeez-ing very tightly. He became aware that he was in a great deal of pain. And he was rapidly becoming aware that he had another problem that he had never in his wildest dreams imagined was even possible. He was.. he was...

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there was a word for it.. he was... dry. There was no wa-ter in the sky! He wasn't sure what that meant, but he noticed he was having trouble breathing.

But that was not the worst of it. The worst of it was what those giant claws were attached to. Craning his head around to got a look, Winn saw that he had been cap-tured by the biggest eagle he had ever seen. It was gigan-tic, much larger that his eagle friend from the Big Lake.

"Brother Eagle!" Winn cried. "What are you doing?"

"Ho ho!" laughed the eagle. "A talking fish. Well, well. Wonders never cease. Well, rather dim little brother" the eagle pronounced the word brother in a sarcastic way, "I am an eagle and today you are my lunch."

Of course this was very distressing news to Winn who did not at all want to be eaten and he spoke right up. "Brother Eagle of the Big Lake People," Winn began in the formal eagle greeting, "please do not eat me--"

But that was as far as he got for the giant eagle said "What? You mistake me for one of the Big Lake People? Can you not see my purple crown feathers? No, no you silly fish. I am from the Long Lake People. I should eat you at once for the insult. Big Lake indeed."

"I am sorry Brother Long Lake Eagle. I could not see your beautiful crown feathers from down here in your claws. I did not mean to give offense."


"Well, you are polite at least," said the eagle, "so I will do you the honour of asking your name before I eat you."

The eagle seemed very proud of this concession, but Winn did not feel honoured. Nevertheless, Winn decided that if he was going to be eaten he would shout his name and give a speech to the world first. So he opened his mouth and shouted as loud as he could

"I AM WINN--"

But he did get to finish his speech. The eagle screamed. "YOU ARE THE WINNANISH?"

Winn felt the giant bird's talons suddenly retract and he fell through the air. The startled bird had dropped him and he was falling down, fortunately toward a river be-low. "What's happened?" he shouted.

From far above the eagle cried "You are the Winnanish. I cannot eat you."

"I'm glad! But... why not?" shouted Winn and just as he landed safely in the water he heard the bird cry...

You are!You are the Winnanish!

Winnanish! Winnanish!

You are not a common fish!

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The eagle had turned and was flying away. Winn, who was indeed very happy to see him go nonetheless wanted to know what was so special about this Winnan-ish that everybody seemed to be confusing him with and he called the eagle back to explain.

"Very well," said the eagle. "I will tell you since you do not know. "We are the Lake Eagle People, as are our brothers on your Big Lake. We are a very old and wise people and know many important things. We know where the field mice hide. We know when the warm winds will come. We know if the rabbits will run. We know... " then he stopped for he could tell that the fish was thinking he was a braggart. "Well, we know many things of importance to birds," he said quickly, "and we sing the stories to our children. But the oldest story in all our songs is in the song of the Winnanish. For it is said that the Winnanish will feed the children of the Lake Ea-gle People for ten thousand years.” He stopped and looked down at Winn. “I really don't see how. You're pretty skinny and kind of small for a salmon. But you are the Winnanish! You are! You are!"

And with that the eagle soared away, leaving young Winn in a state of confusion.

‘He must have me mixed up with someone else. My name is Winn, not Winnanish. All eagles must be crazy.’

But there was no time for Winn to ponder the sanity of eagles or indeed to question the seeming miracle of his


escape from the lake. Being snatched from a lake and flown over a mountain and dropped into a river makes for a very full day and young Winn was very hungry. And then, in the most impossible turn of events in a most impossible day Winn realized he was about to be-gin the most incredible journey of his life. For as he had drifted along in the river he had come around a bend and the river now widened and a million new smells came to Winn all at once. A very peculiar feeling came over him. He knew what this was, as if he had heard about it in a story a long, long time ago. The river he was in was ending. It had arrived, as great rivers do, at the ocean.

So Winn forgot about the eagle and he forgot about the ring and he forgot about the story in the song about the Winnanish and he turned his tail to the land he'd come from and he headed out to sea.

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Many years passed after Winn escaped from the lonely lake and he had many fine adventures but this is not the time to tell them. Winn by now was a full grown salmon, and by salmon standards was very handsome and im-pressive. He had made many friends in his travels around the ocean but in his heart he always knew that he was different from his ocean salmon friends in some im-portant way. Year after year in the fall, many of his ocean salmon friends would suddenly become excited and they would rush from the ocean into one of the rivers that emptied into the sea. "Come on Winn!” they all cried, “Lets go!"

"Go where?" asked Winn.

"Go where? Why... go.. upstream! That's the place to be!"

When he asked they why they all said something about the wonderful smell. But Winn couldn't smell anything wonderful at all, and year after year he just watched them go.

Then came an autumn when Winn, seemingly by chance, found himself at the mouth of a river that seemed very familiar. The last of his old salmon friends had long since gone away and Winn was feeling lonely once again. As he passed the mouth of this river he suddenly smelled something familiar. He couldn't place it, but it was very compelling. It seemed to be coming from somewhere up


that river. With nothing better to do, Winn decided to swim up the river a bit and see if he could find whatever it was that was making the delicious smell.

As he swam further up the river, the delicious smell seemed to grow stronger. His skin began to tingle, too, in a not unpleasant way. A sense of urgency overtook Winn and he started to swim a little faster. The smell grew stronger and stronger.

Days and nights passed in a blur for Winn. He could think of nothing at all but the delicious smell. He didn't eat. He didn't rest. He just swam. After several days, he didn't know how many, the smell was growing stronger and stronger until Winn thought it might drive him mad and he knew, though he had never been this way before, that the source of the wonderful smell he had been seek-ing lay right around the next bend.

Right around the next bend the river ended.

The river literally ended, and a gigantic pile of rocks filled the whole end of the valley. Winn swam around the corner and right into it. Dazed, poor Winn circled around in the pool beneath the rocks that loomed into the air above the river. The river was not flowing in a channel, but somehow escaping through the debris in the valley through millions and millions of tiny rivulets. At the base of the pile the waters swirled and gushed. The water got through but there was no way for a fish, even a very determined salmon, to pass beyond the bar-

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rier. No way. At all. The enormity of the obstacle and what it meant finally dawned on Winn. Exhausted, frus-trated and so very sad, Winn curled up in a quiet spot near the bank of the river and cried himself to sleep in a way that is pitiful even when a fish does it.

Morning came and Winn awoke. There didn't seem to be any point in sticking around but he had nowhere else to go and besides, the wonderful smell was still there. It was coming from the waters beyond the wall of stone. And so Winn spent the day going over the entire wall of rubble again and again, hoping to find some crack or stream that was wide enough for him to swim through, though in his heart he knew that there was not.

By and by evening came and Winn had given up. He pondered his life and tried to make sense of the paths that had led him to this place. He remembered the eagle that had dropped him by the sea. He remembered the Big Lake. He remembered his quest to find his true love. And he remembered the ring and the last thing it had said.

ROCK

And Winn was angry then. For it seemed to him now that the ring must have been mocking him. It had sent him out to the rock at Little Island when all along it meant he would be stopped here by the rock that blocked the river. And then Winn remembered his trip to the little island and his conversation with the eagle and


he remembered what the eagle had said and he remem-bered the secret eagle song and, as the last rays of the sun grew red and low, Winn began to sing.

You have probably never heard a salmon sing. Most people do not even know that they can. And if you have heard a salmon sing I can guarantee you that you have never heard a salmon sing a song in the secret Eagle lan-guage. For while of course it is true that no eagle can re-sist the Secret Eagle Song, it is also true that when it is sung by a salmon no human can resist it either. It is probably a very good thing that the Salmon People do not know this.

In any event it worked perfectly on this occasion and be-fore long a familiar shape appeared in the sky.

You are!You are the Winnanish!

Sing your songCommand your wish

"Very well," sang Winn. "Take me home."

It was not long later that the eagle, who had been care-fully carrying Winn in his talons, gently dropped him into the waters of the Big Lake near a big green rock un-der the bough of a pine tree growing by the shore. There in the pebbles it waited, a marvelous, magical golden ring. As he had known it would, Winn saw that ring said

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HOME

"Home!" thought Winn. "Yes, I am home."

Winn felt a great relief, as if a huge weight had been lifted from him. And then the smell began again. It was more powerful than ever before. It filled him with joy, and yet somehow sadness. "My love!" cried Winn. "I am home but I am alone. Where is my own true love?"

Winn turned again to the ring and his tail brushed it as he moved. The letters on the ring turned around and slowly stopped. Winn looked at it. It said

HERE

And at that moment the smell became overpowering. Winn trembled like a water bug. A music that sounded like a symphony orchestra expiring from happiness came from somewhere and he turned his head. The sound and the smell and the moment all seemed to meld into one thing and as Winn turned around he saw... the most beautiful creature in the world.

"You." said Winn.

"You" said the creature, who of course was a beautiful female salmon.

"Who are you?" asked Winn who knew the answer al-ready and started to cry when she answered.


"My name is Nish."

"My name is Winn."

"I know. I have been waiting for you."

"And I have been looking for you."

And then they both cried, although they were very, very happy, for they had been searching for each other for such a long, long time and now they were finally to-gether.

Over the following days and nights they spent every moment together. They told each other their stories. Nish told how she had tried to tell Winn where she had looked. She had swam around the lake to the east but didn't find him so she moved the ring to say EAST so he would know where she had looked. But of course Winn had taken EAST to be a direction so he had followed the path she had already taken. When she had circled the lake to the west she had left the word WEST so Winn would know she had been there and of course Winn had taken it the wrong way and followed her around again. All through that summer they had followed each other's trail and so had never met up. And they smiled about this because it was all very comical to them now that it was over. And everywhere they went they sang together

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My name is Winn. My name is Nish. We are... we are... The Winnanish!

And then the Winnanish began to laugh. For of course it is true that they can laugh though it is very hard to hear. Some say it sounds like a little waterfall and if you are very very quiet you can hear it on a summer night when the moon is full. I hope you get to hear it sometime, for whoever hears the Winnanish laugh will smile for twenty days and remember it forever.

And so Winn and Nish spent their remaining days to-gether. Each day was more wonderful and exciting that the one that had gone before. At Nish's insistence one day they started up one of the streams that fed into the Big Lake. When Winn asked her why she had just said that it smelled like the right thing to do, and as soon as they had started Winn had to agree that everything smelled absolutely perfect.

On and on they swam laughing and singing. They grew frantic in their joy. When they reached the end of the river Nish began a gyrating dance that drove Winn crazy with desire for his beautiful true love. They danced around and around, faster and faster, delirious with joy. At the height of their dance Nish released her eggs and the sight of them made Winn's heart break and he knew why they were here.


On and on throughout the night they danced their final dance together, and together, exhausted, they floated gently towards the shore.

And as they lay together they knew their lives were com-ing to an end, and overhead the Winnanish could see the hungry young eaglets circling and they knew who they were and they knew what was their place in the circle of life in the Big Lake. And they knew their eggs would live and thrive and one day grow up to leave their own eggs in the place where they were born. And so they passed together, at peace, for they knew that they and their children had become the Winnanish that live in the wa-ters of the Big Lake and feed the eagle children to this very day.

And that is the story of how salmon came to live in Big Lake and the legend of the Winnanish.

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exactly as it was once told to Grandpa Barrett by an old fellow from Big Lake who heard it from an eagle

and swears that it is true.

The Original Wish Ring by

114 Duckworth StSt . John’s Newfoundland

Canada A1C 1E3

phone : 709-726-2508onl ine : Chris topherKearney.ca

emai l : Chris@Chris topherKearney.ca


The Legend of the Winnanish

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