STORIES 481 If Magwdnts’s son had not visited the land of birds the latter would be blind unto the present day. THE BOY WHO HAD POWER OVER SALMON A considerable period, perhaps seven hundred years, after the first people had come to this earth, the wife of Anukkalsnam, a Kimsquit man, dreamt that she became a salmon and in this form went up the river and caught a small fish. The following morning, when the woman remem- bered her dream, she realized that it meant she was about to have a male child. Presently she felt that she was pregnant, and long before the usual time had elapsed, she gave birth to a boy. The infant grew withsuch extraordinary rapidity that, when only three months old, he was able to sit up in his crib, a three-sided box fitted with a cross-bar, behind which he rested, with his legs projecting. This was the parents’ first child, and the father, delighted with the infant’s precociousness, gave him his own name, Anukkélsnam. When young Anukkélsnam was one year old he had the appearance and ability of a boy of ten, and always accompanied his father on his expeditions, rather to his mother’s dread. One day, when the first salmon of the season were running, his father took the lad to the mouth ofthe river, where he startled his parent by talking in a strange language. “Father,” he said when he had finished, “I have just had a conver- sation with the river people, who have asked a number of questions about us.” “What people?” the startled father asked. “The salmon,” answered his son. Then the father, remembering the story of Magwants’s son (II, p. 472) knew that his own son must be partly salmon and partly human, and that the language he had been speaking was that of the former. He did not reply to his son’s remark, and the two continued their journey to the edge of the ocean. When they passed the same spot on the return trip, the boy once more carried on an animated conversation with the salmon, from which, judging by his frequent laughter, he derived much pleasure. When they reached home, the salmon-boy bade his father invite the people to his house, as he desired to transmit to them the wishes of his friends. As soon as all had assembled, the father told of his son’s con- versation in a strange tongue, from which he suspected that he must be in part a salmon. This the people readily believed, remembering the phenomenal speed with which he had grown. Acting as spokesman for his son, the father went on to say that the salmon wanted beaten cedar-