Some of the oldest laws in Britain were drafted in defence of the Atlantic salmon; one of the lesser-known clauses of the first Magna Carta in 1215 ordered the removal of all salmon weirs in the Thames and Medway estuaries, a statute that remained in force until the end of the 19th century. In Scotland, there is still no public right to fish for salmon, even in the sea, while recent bylaws passed in England and Wales have reinstated a number of ancient restrictions, including on the use of the 'Viking' haaf nets that have been a feature of Cumbrian salmon fishing for more than a thousand years. Native American, Norse and Celtic myth-makers wove the figure of the wise or noble salmon into a number of early myths and legends, such as the sixth-century Welsh quest narrative of Culhwch and Olwen collected in The Mabinogion, in which a sea-scarred, Severn-born salmon is revered as the oldest and wisest creature on earth; or the Ossianic legend of the Salmon of Wisdom, the skin of which was accidentally eaten by Fionn mac Cumhaill, who from it gained oracular access to all the knowledge of the world.

LRB 25 February 2010 | PDF Download