The Legend of the Corrib King Read Free Page A

course.’
    Having added a few more to his collection, Jamesie took his cousins back to the boat. There he helped them put on life jackets, and seated them in such a way that their weight was evenly distributed. When they were all in position, and Prince was wedged safely between Tapser’s knees, he started the engine, took a firm grip of the tiller and steered them out onto the Corrib.
    No one said anything. There was no need. It was all so new and exciting. As well as that, they were trying to solve the next part of Pakie’s rhyme. ‘ Fairies on the island, fish in the sky ?’ They looked up and around them. All they could see were swallows skimming the water and a distant flock of cormorants soaring low across the lake in search of fish. As for the islands, there seemed to be dozens of them.
    Almost as if he could read their thoughts, Jamesie throttled back on the engine and let the boat bob quietly on the waves. ‘Pakie says there’s an island for every day of the year.’
    â€˜You don’t think he could have had an accident?’ asked Rachel.
    â€˜Maybe marooned on one of the islands or something,’ suggested Róisín.
    Jamesie shook his head. ‘His boat was still on the slipway beside his house. That’s why they’ve been concentrating the search along the shore.’
    â€˜What do you think has happened to him?’ asked Tapser.
    â€˜Well, he was having a lot of trouble with poachers. Unless he’s had a run-in with them.’
    â€˜You don’t think he’s dead?’ exclaimed Rachel in horror. ‘I mean, they wouldn’t, would they?’
    â€˜Some of them are capable of it all right,’ Jamesie told her. ‘But I think his body would have turned up if they had.’
    Starting up the engine again, he took them further out onto the lake, and after some time pulled in near one of the islands. ‘That’s Illaun na Shee,’ he told them.
    â€˜What’s that?’ asked Cowlick.
    â€˜Illaun na Shee – island of the fairies.’
    â€˜ Fairies on the island !’ said Róisín and Rachel together.
    â€˜That’s it,’ said Jamesie.
    â€˜And what about fish in the sky ?’ asked Tapser.
    â€˜Maybe he meant birds carrying fish up into the sky in their beaks,’ suggested Róisín.
    Jamesie shook his head. ‘Look over the side.’
    They all looked into the clear waters of the lake.
    â€˜Of course,’ said Róisín. ‘The sky. It’s mirrored in the lake.’
    Jamesie baited each of the rods with a grasshopper and a ‘daddy’ as he called the daddy-long-legs. The boat was drifting sideways past the island, and he showed them how to hold the rods so that the insects just touched the top of the small waves. ‘Now,’ he told them, ‘that’s dapping.’
    â€˜Will the fish go for them?’ asked Tapser.
    Jamesie nodded. ‘In May it’s the Mayfly. But at this time of year it’s the daddies and grasshoppers. They blow off the islands and the trout love them.’
    Sure enough, it wasn’t long before there was a strong pull on Rachel’s line. Quickly she let it out just as Jamesie told her to do, and as it sliced through the water he took in the other rods, started up the engine and nosed the boat gently in towards the stony shore.
    â€˜Careful now, wind him carefully,’ he advised her, and when the boat came to a halt he hopped out into about a foot of water and scooped the trout into the net.
    It was a big fish, but not as big as the one they spotted a few minutes later. It was lying on its side in a few inches of water near the shore, and was obviously dead.
    â€˜It’s a salmon,’ Jamesie told them. He waded over and brought it back to the boat. ‘Strange, no sign of disease, and there’s no pollution around here.’
    â€˜Maybe it’s one a fisherman thought had got away,’