TIDBITS 11/05/06

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We encourage you to forward this email to friends and colleagues. ====================================== Gundestrup Cauldron A richly decorated silver vessel dating back to the 2nd or 1st century B.C. found--quaintly enough--somewhere near Gundestrup, Denmark. Laden with decorations of Celtic deities and rituals ... this little babe is thought to have been used for sacrificial purposes. But not to worry dear souls. This is not my intent ... today.

Rather ... I have an image lifted from the Gundestrup Cauldron depicting a man on a dolphin. Is it gold ... is it silver ... is it bronze ... I doth not know. Is it a brooch ... is it a pendant ... is it a plaque ... I doth not know that either. At this point ... there may be thems amongst you who might think I doth not know much. To you I respond ... I doth not know much much more than I doth know ... and I suspect the same holds true for most. But enough of this dothing for nothing.

Did you know that in Irish myth the fish imbued with great wisdom was the salmon. Not only that ... but the first to taste this fish's flesh would inherit all this wisdom ... a fact which has surely been instrumental in the headlong rush many make to their fisheries in order to buy the fresh catch of the day and take it home and cook it and say ... go ... go ... eat ... it will make you wise.

Alas ... ?tis for naught my friends. For the first salmon was caught by a bard named Finnegas who gave it to his apprentice named Fionn Mac Cumhaill to cook. But when Fionn touched the fish's flesh ... he acquired magical powers. And this is all I know about that.

However ... Celts of them thar days believed the sea separated our world from that of the fish ... and the dolphin became the symbol of connection between our two realms. And it is here ... in this interrelated tale of salmon and dolphin ... that I bring forth and image of a dolphin to relate the tale of the salmon. For it is the dolphin--denoting the power of the sea--that permits our view into that wet world ... giving us insight to the gifts of wisdom bestowed upon man by eating salmon. Eat your heart out Charlie. You ain't as important as you thought you were.

So ... as the great Paul Harvey used to say ... now you know the rest of the story.

For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits...may I direct you to my home page at

where you will scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that says Current Tidbits ... and then click on it in order to view an image of this man on a dolphin ... riding the oceans high ... uniting the land people with the sea people