THE FISHER-FOLK.
The Fisher-People the same everywhere—Growth of a Fishing
Village—Marrying and giving in Marriage—The Fisher-Folks’
Dance—Newhaven near Edinburgh—Newhaven Fishwives—A Fishwife’s mode
of doing Business—Superstitions—Fisherrow—Dunbar—Buckhaven—Cost of
a Boat and its Gear—Scene of the _Antiquary_: Auchmithie—Smoking
Haddocks—The Round of Fisher Life—“Finnan Haddies”—Fittie and
its quaint Inhabitants—Across to Dieppe—Bay of the Departed—The
Eel-Breeders of Comacchio—The French Fishwives—Narrative of a
Fishwife—Buckie—Nicknames of the Fisher-Folk—Effects of a Storm on the
Coast.
A book professing to describe the harvest of the sea must of necessity
have a chapter about the quaint people who gather in the harvest,
otherwise it would be like playing “Hamlet” without the hero.
I have a considerable acquaintance with the fisher-folk; and while
engaged in collecting information about the fisheries, and in
investigating the natural history of the herring and other food-fishes,
have visited most of the Scottish fishing villages and many of the
English ones, nor have I neglected Normandy, Brittany, and Picardy;
and wherever I went I found the fisher-folk to be the same, no matter
whether they talked a French _patois_ or a Scottish dialect, such as
one may hear at Buckie on the Moray Firth, or in the _Rue de Pollet_
of Dieppe. The manners, customs, mode of life, and even the dress and
superstitions, are nearly the same on the coast of France as they are
on the coast of Fife, and used-up gentlemen in search of seaside
sensations could scarcely do better than take a tour among the Scottish
fisher-folks, in order to view the wonders of the fishing season, its
curious industry, and the quaint people.
There are scenes on the coast worthy of any sketch-book; there are also
curious seaside resorts that have not yet been vulgarised by hordes of
summer visitors—infant fishing villages, set down by accident in the
most romantic spots, occupied by hardy men and rosy women, who have
children “paidling” in the water or building castles upon the sand.
Such seascapes—for they look more like pictures than realities—may be
witnessed from the deck of the steamboat on the way to Inverness or
Ultima Thule. Looking from the steamer—if one cannot see the coast
in any other way—at one of these embryo communities, one may readily
guess, from the fond attitude of the youthful pair who are leaning on
the old boat, that another cottage will speedily require to be added
to the two now existing. In a few years there will be another; in
course of time the four may be eight, the eight sixteen; and lo! in a
generation there is built a large village, with its adult population
gaining wealth by mining in the silvery quarries of the sea; and by
and by we will see with a pleased eye groups of youngsters splashing
in the water or gathering sea-ware on the shore, and old men pottering
about the rocks setting lobster-pots, doing business in the crustaceous
delicacies of the season. And on glorious afternoons, when the
atmosphere is pure, and the briny perfume delicious to inhale—when the
water glances merrily in the sunlight, and the sails of the dancing
boats are just filled by a capful of wind—the people will be out to
view the scene and note the growing industry of the place; and, as the
old song says—
“O weel may the boatie row,
And better may she speed;
And muckle luck attend the boat
That wins the bairnies’ bread.”
In good time the little community will have its annals of births,
marriages, and deaths; its chronicles of storms, its records of
disasters, and its glimpses of prosperity; and in two hundred years
its origin may be lost, and the inhabitants of the original village
represented by descendants in the sixth generation. At any rate, boats
will increase, curers of herrings and merchants who buy fish will visit
the village and circulate their money, and so the place will thrive. If
a pier should be built, and a railway branch out to it, who knows but
it may become a great port.
I first became acquainted with the fisher-folk by assisting at a
fisherman’s marriage. Marrying and giving in marriage involves an
occasional festival among the fisher-folks of Newhaven of drinking and
dancing—and all the fisher-folks are fond of the dance. In the more
populous fishing towns there are usually a dozen or two of marriages to
celebrate at the close of each herring season; and as these weddings
are what are called in Scotland penny weddings—_i.e._ weddings at
which each guest pays a small sum for his entertainment—there is
no difficulty in obtaining admission to the ceremony and customary
rejoicings. Young men often wait till the close of the annual fishing
before they venture into the matrimonial noose; and I have seen at
Newhaven as many as eight marriages in one evening. It has been
said that a “lucky” day, or rather night, is usually chosen for the
ceremony, for “luck” is the ruling deity of the fishermen; but as
regards the marriage customs of the fisher-class, it was explained
to me that marriages were always held on a Friday (usually thought
to be an unlucky day), from no superstitious feeling or notion, as
was sometimes considered by strangers, but simply that the fishermen
might have the last day of the week (Saturday) and the Sunday to
enjoy themselves with their friends and acquaintances, instead of,
if their weddings took place on Monday or Tuesday, breaking up the
whole week afterwards. I considered this a sort of feasible and
reasonable explanation of the matter. On such occasions as those of
marriage there is great bustle and animation. The guests are invited
two days beforehand by the happy couple _in propriis personis_, and
means are taken to remind their friends again of the ceremony on the
joyous day. At the proper time the parties meet—the lad in his best
blue suit, and the lass and all the other maidens dressed in white—and
walk to the manse or church, as the case may be, or the minister is
“trysted” to come to the bride’s father’s residence. There is a great
dinner provided for the happy occasion, usually served at a small inn
or public-house when there is a very large party. All the delicacies
which can be thought of are procured: fish, flesh, and fowl; porter,
ale, and whisky, are all to be had at these banquets, not forgetting
the universal dish of skate, which is produced at all fisher marriages.
After dinner comes the collection, when the best man, or some one of
the company, goes round and gets a shilling or a sixpence from each.
This is the mode of celebrating a penny wedding, and all are welcome
who like to attend, the bidding being general. The evening winds up,
so far as the young folks are concerned, with unlimited dancing.
In fact dancing at one time used to be the favourite recreation of
the fisher-folk. In a dull season they would dance for “luck,” in a
plentiful season for joy—anything served as an excuse for a dance.[17]
On the wedding night the old folks sit and enjoy themselves with
a bowl of punch and a smoke, talking of old times and old fishing
adventures, storms, miraculous hauls, etc.; in short, like old military
or naval veterans, they have a strong _penchant_ “to fight their
battles o’er again.” The fun grows fast and furious with all concerned,
till the tired body gives warning that it is time to desist, and by and
by all retire, and life in the fishing village resumes its old jog-trot.
It would take up too much space, and weary the reader besides, were I
to give in detail an account of all the fishing places I have visited
during the last ten years. My purpose will be amply served by a glance
at a few of the Scottish fishing villages, which, with the information
I can interpolate about the fisher-folks of the coast of France, and
the eel-breeders of Comacchio, not to mention those of Northumberland
and Yorkshire, will be quite sufficient to give the general reader a
tolerable idea of this interesting class of people; and to suit my own
convenience I will begin at the place where I witnessed the marriage,
for Newhaven, near Edinburgh—“Our Lady’s Port of Grace” as it was
originally named—is the most accessible of all fishing villages; and,
although it is not the primitive place now that it was some thirty
years ago, having been considerably spoiled in its picturesqueness by
the encroachments of the modern architect, and the intrusion of summer
pleasure-seekers, it is still unique as the abode of a peculiar people
who keep up the social distinctiveness of the place. How Newhaven and
similar fishing colonies originated there is no record; it is said,
however, that this particular community was founded by King James
III., who was extremely anxious to extend the industrial resources of
his kingdom by the prosecution of the fisheries, and that to aid him
in this design he brought over a colony of foreigners to practise
and teach the art. Some fishing villages are known to have originated
in the shipwreck of a foreign vessel, when the people saved from
destruction squatted on the nearest shore and grew in the fulness of
time into a community.
[Illustration: NEWHAVEN FISHWIVES.]
Newhaven is most celebrated for its “fishwives,” who were declared by
King George IV. to be the handsomest women he had ever seen, and were
looked upon by Queen Victoria with eyes of wonder and admiration. The
Newhaven fishwife must not be confounded by those who are unacquainted
in the locality with the squalid fish-hawkers of Dublin; nor, although
they can use strong language occasionally, are they to be taken as
examples of the _genus_ peculiar to Billingsgate. The Newhaven women
are more like the buxom _dames_ of the market of Paris, though their
glory of late years has been somewhat dulled. There is this, however,
to be said of them, that they are as much of the past as the present;
in dress and manners they are the same now as they were a hundred
years ago; they take a pride in conserving all their traditions and
characteristics, so that their customs appear unchangeable, and are
never, at any rate, influenced by the alterations which art, science,
and literature produce on the country at large. Before the railway
era, the Newhaven fishwife was a great fact, and could be met with
in Edinburgh in her picturesque costume of short but voluminous and
gaudy petticoats, shouting “Caller herrings!” or “Wha’ll buy my caller
cod?” with all the energy that a strong pair of lungs could supply.
Then, in the evening, there entered the city the oyster-wench, with
her prolonged musical aria of “Wha’ll o’ caller ou?” But the spread
of fishmongers’ shops and the increase of oyster-taverns is doing
away with this picturesque branch of the business. Thirty years ago
nearly the whole of the fishermen of the Firth of Forth, in view of the
Edinburgh market, made for Newhaven with their cargoes of white fish;
and these, at that time, were all bought up by the women, who carried
them on their backs to Edinburgh in creels, and then hawked them
through the city. The sight of a bevy of fishwives in the streets of
the Modern Athens, although comparatively rare, may still occasionally
be enjoyed; but the railways have lightened their labours, and we do
not find them climbing the _Whale Brae_ with a hundredweight, or two
hundredweight, perhaps, of fish, to be sold in driblets, for a few
pence, all through Edinburgh.
The industry of fishwives is proverbial, their chief maxim being, that
“the woman that canna work for a man is no worth ane;” and accordingly
they undertake the task of disposing of the merchandise, and acting as
Chancellor of the Exchequer.[18] Their husbands have only to catch
the fish, their labour being finished as soon as the boats touch the
quay. The Newhaven fishwife’s mode of doing business is well known. She
is always supposed to ask double or triple what she will take; and,
on occasions of bargaining, she is sure, in allusion to the hazardous
nature of the gudeman’s occupation, to tell her customers that “fish
are no fish the day, they’re just men’s lives.” The style of higgling
adopted when dealing with the fisher-folk, if attempted in other kinds
of commerce, gives rise to the well-known Scottish reproach of “D’ye
tak’ me for a fishwife?” The style of bargain-making carried on by the
fishwives may be illustrated by the following little scene:—
A servant girl having just beckoned to one of them is answered by the
usual interrogatory, “What’s yer wull the day, my bonnie lass?” and the
“mistress” being introduced, the following conversation takes place:—
“Come awa, mem, an’ see what bonnie fish I hae the day.”
“Have you any haddocks?”
“Ay hae I, mem, an’ as bonnie fish as ever ye clappit yer twa een on.”
“What’s the price of these four small ones?”
“What’s yer wull, mem?”
“I wish these small ones.”
“What d’ye say, mem? sma’ haddies! they’s no sma’ fish, an they’re the
bonniest I hae in a’ ma creel.”
“Well, never mind, what do you ask for them?”
“Weel, mem, it’s? been awfu’ wather o’ late, an’ the men canna get
fish; ye’ll no grudge me twentypence for thae four?”
“Twentypence!”
“Ay, mem, what for no?”
“They are too dear, I’ll give—”
“What d’ye say, mem? ower dear! I wish ye kent it: but what’ll ye gie
me for thae four?”
“I’ll give you a sixpence.”
“Ye’ll gie me a what?”
“A sixpence.”
“I daur say ye wull, ma bonny leddy, but ye’ll no get thae four fish
for twa sixpences this day.”
“I’ll not give more.”
“Weel, mem, gude day” (making preparations to go); “I’ll tak’
eighteenpence an’ be dune wi’t.”
“No; I’ll give you twopence each for them.”
And so the chaffering goes on, till ultimately the fishwife will
take tenpence for the lot, and this plan of asking double what will
be taken, which is common with them all and sometimes succeeds with
simple housewives, will be repeated from door to door, till the supply
be exhausted. The mode of doing business with a fishwife is admirably
illustrated in the _Antiquary_. When Monkbarns bargains for “the
bannock-fluke” and “the cock-padle,” Maggie Mucklebackit asks four and
sixpence, and ends, after a little negotiation and much finesse, in
accepting half-a-crown and a dram; the latter commodity being worth
siller just then, in consequence of the stoppage of the distilleries.
The fishwives while selling their fish will often say something quaint
to the customer with whom they are dealing. I will give one instance
of this, which, though somewhat ludicrous, is characteristic, and
have no doubt the words were spoken from the poor woman’s heart. “A
fishwife who was crying her “caller cod” in George Street, Edinburgh,
was stopped by a cook at the head of one of the area stairs. A cod was
wanted that day for the dinner of the family, but the cook and the
fishwife could not trade, disagreeing about the price. The night had
been stormy, and instead of the fishwife flying into a passion, as
is their general custom when bargaining for their fish if opposed in
getting their price, the poor woman shed tears, and said to the cook,
‘Tak’ it or want it; ye may think it dear, but it’s a’ that’s left to
me for a faither o’ four bairns.’”
Notwithstanding, however, their lying and cheating in the streets
during the week when selling their fish, there are no human beings in
Scotland more regular in their attendance at church. To go to their
church on a Sunday, and see the women all sitting with their smooth
glossy hair and snow-white caps, staring with open eyes and mouth at
the minister, as he exhorts them from the pulpit as to what they
should do, one would think them the most innocent and simple creatures
in existence. But offer one of them a penny less than she feels
inclined to take for a haddock, and he is a lucky fellow who escapes
without its tail coming across his whiskers. Of late our fishwives have
been considering themselves of some importance. When the Queen came
first to Edinburgh, she happened to take notice of them, and every
printshop window is now stuck full of pictures of Newhaven fishwives
in their quaint costume of short petticoats of flaming red and yellow
colours.[19]
The sketch of fisher-life in the _Antiquary_ applies as well to the
fisher-folk of to-day as to those of sixty years since. This is
demonstrable at Newhaven; which, though fortunate in having a pier as
a rendezvous for its boats, thus admitting of a vast saving of time
and labour, is yet far behind inland villages in point of sanitary
arrangements. There is in the “town” an everlasting scent of new tar,
and a permanent smell of decaying fish, for the dainty visitors who
go down to the village from Edinburgh to partake of the fish-dinners
for which it is so celebrated. Up the narrow closes, redolent of
“bark,” we see hanging on the outside stairs the paraphernalia of
the fisherman—his “properties,” as an actor would call them; nets,
bladders, lines, and oilskin unmentionables, with dozens of pairs of
those particularly blue stockings that seem to be the universal wear of
both mothers and maidens. On the stair itself sit, if it be seasonable
weather, the wife and daughters, repairing the nets and baiting the
lines—gossiping of course with opposite neighbours, who are engaged
in a precisely similar pursuit; and to-day, as half a century ago,
the fishermen sit beside their hauled-up boats, in their white canvas
trousers and their Guernsey shirts, smoking their short pipes, while
their wives and daughters are so employed, seeming to have no idea of
anything in the shape of labour being a duty of theirs when ashore. In
the flowing gutter which trickles down the centre of the old village we
have the young idea developing itself in plenty of noise, and adding
another layer to the incrustation of dirt which it seems to be the sole
business of these children to collect on their bodies. These juvenile
fisher-folk have already learned from the mudlarks of the Thames the
practice of sporting on the sands before the hotel windows in the
expectation of being rewarded with a few halfpence. “What’s the use of
asking for siller before they’ve gotten their denner?” we once heard
one of these precocious youths say to another, who was proposing to
solicit a bawbee from a party of strangers.
To see the people of Newhaven, both men and women, one would be apt
to think that their social condition was one of great hardship and
discomfort; but one has only to enter their dwellings in order to be
disabused of this notion, and to be convinced of the reverse of this,
for there are few houses among the working population of Scotland which
can compare with the well-decked and well-plenished dwellings of these
fishermen. Within doors all is neat and tidy. When at the marriage I
have mentioned, I thought the house I was invited to was the cleanest
and the cosiest-looking house I had ever seen. Never did I see before
so many plates and bowls in any private dwelling; and on all of them,
cups and saucers not excepted, fish, with their fins spread wide out,
were painted in glowing colours; and in their dwellings and domestic
arrangements the Newhaven fishwives are the cleanest women in Scotland,
and the comfort of their husbands when they return from their labours
on the wild and dangerous deep seems to be the fishwife’s chief
delight. I may also mention that none of the young women of Newhaven
will take a husband out of their own community, that they are as rigid
in this matrimonial observance as if they were all Jewesses.[20]
The following anecdotic illustration of the state of information in
Newhaven sixty years since is highly characteristic:—
A fisherman, named Adam L——, having been reproved pretty severely for
his want of Scripture knowledge, was resolved to baulk the minister
on his next catechetical visitation. The day appointed he kept out of
sight for some time; but at length, getting top-heavy with some of his
companions, he was compelled, after several falls, in one of which he
met with an accident that somewhat disfigured his countenance, to take
shelter in his own cottage. The minister arrived, and was informed by
Jenny, the wife, that her husband was absent at the fishing. The Doctor
then inquired if she had carefully perused the catechism he had left
on his last visit, and being answered in the affirmative, proceeded to
follow up his conversation with a question or two. “Weel, Jenny,” said
the minister, “can ye tell me the cause o’ Adam’s fall?” By no means
versed in the history of the great progenitor of the human race, and
her mind being exclusively occupied by her own Adam, Janet replied,
with some warmth, “’Deed, sir, it was naething else but drink!” at the
same time calling upon her husband, “Adam, ye may as weel rise, for the
Doctor kens brawly what’s the matter; some clashin’ deevils o’ neebours
hae telt him a’ aboot it!”
The remains of many old superstitions are still to be found about
Newhaven. I could easily fill a page or two of this volume with
illustrative anecdotes of sayings and doings that are abhorrent to the
fisher mind. The following are given as the merest sample of the number
that might be collected.
They have several times “gone the round” of the newspapers but are none
the worse for that:—
If an uninitiated greenhorn of a landsman chanced to be on board of
a Newhaven boat, and, in the ignorance and simplicity of his heart,
talked about “salmon,” the whole crew—at least a few years ago—would
start, grasp the nearest _iron thowell_, and exclaim, “Cauld iron!”
“cauld iron!” in order to avert the calamity which such a rash use of
the appellation was calculated to induce; and the said uninitiated
gentleman would very likely have been addressed in some such courteous
terms as “O ye igrant brute, cud ye no ca’d it redfish?” Woe to the
unfortunate wight—be he Episcopalian or Presbyterian, Churchman or
Dissenter—who being afloat talks about “the minister:” there is a kind
of undefined terror visible on every countenance if haply this unlucky
word is spoken; and I would advise my readers, should they hereafter
have occasion, when water-borne, to speak of a clergyman, to call him
“the man in the black coat;” the thing will be equally well understood,
and can give offence to none. I warn them, moreover, to be guarded and
circumspect should the idea of a cat or a pig flit across their minds;
and should necessity demand the utterance of their names, let the one
be called “Theebet” and the other “Sandy;” so shall they be landed on
_terra firma_ in safety, and neither their ears nor their feelings be
insulted by piscatory _wit_. In the same category must be placed every
four-footed beast, from the elephant moving amongst the jungles of
Hindostan to the mouse that burrows under the cottage hearth-stone.
Some quadrupeds, however, are more “unlucky” than others; dogs are
detestable, hogs horrible, and hares hideous! It would appear that
Friday, for certain operations, is the most unfortunate; for others the
most auspicious day in the week. On that day no sane fisherman would
commence a Greenland voyage, or proceed to the herring-ground, and on
no other day of the week would he be married.
In illustration of the peculiar dread and antipathy of fishermen to
swine, I give the following extract from a volume published by a
schoolmaster, entitled _An Historical Account of St. Monance_. The
town is divided into two divisions, the one called Nethertown and the
other Overtown—the former being inhabited entirely by fishermen, and
the latter by agriculturists and petty tradesmen:—“The inhabitants
of the Nethertown entertained a most deadly hatred towards swine, as
ominous of evil, insomuch that not one was kept amongst them; and if
their eyes haplessly lighted upon one in any quarter, they abandoned
their mission and fled from it as they would from a lion, and their
occupation was suspended till the ebbing and flowing of the tide had
effectually removed the spell. The same devils were kept, however, in
the Uppertown, frequently affording much annoyance to their neighbours
below, on account of their casual intrusions, producing much damage by
suspension of labour. At last, becoming quite exasperated, the decision
of their oracle was to go in a body and destroy not the animals (for
they dared not hurt them), but all who bred and fostered such demons,
looking on them with a jealous eye, on account of their traffic. Armed
with boat-hooks, they ascended the hill in formidable procession, and
dreadful had been the consequence had they not been discovered. But
the Uppertown, profiting by previous remonstrance, immediately let
loose their swine, whose grunt and squeak chilled the most heroic blood
of the enemy, who, on beholding them, turned and fled down the hill
with tenfold speed, more exasperated than ever, secreting themselves
till the flux and reflux of the tide had undone the enchantment....
According to the most authentic tradition, not an animal of the kind
existed in the whole territories of St. Monance for nearly a century;
and, even at the present day, though they are fed and eaten, the fisher
people are extremely averse to looking on them or speaking of them by
that name; but, when necessitated to mention the animal, it is called
‘the beast’ or ‘the brute’ and, in case the real name of the animal
should accidentally be mentioned, the spell is undone by a less tedious
process—the exclamation of ‘cauld iron’ by the person affected being
perfectly sufficient to counteract the evil influence. Cauld iron,
touched or expressed, is understood to be the first antidote against
enchantment.”
At Fisherrow, a few miles east from Newhaven, there is another fishing
community, who also do business in Edinburgh, and whose manners and
customs are quite as superstitious as those of the folks I have been
describing. “The Fisher-raw wives,” in the pre-railway times, had a
much longer walk with their fish than the Newhaven women; neither were
they held in such esteem, the latter looking upon themselves as the
salt of their profession. Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk, whose memoirs were
recently published, in writing of the Fisherrow women of his time,
says:—“When the boats come in late to the harbour in the forenoon, so
as to leave them no more than time to reach Edinburgh before dinner,
it is not unusual for them to perform their journey of five miles
by relays, three of them being employed in carrying one basket, and
shifting it from one to another every hundred yards, by which means
they have been known to arrive at the fishmarket in less than three
quarters of an hour. It is a well-known fact, that three of these women
went from Dunbar to Edinburgh, a distance of twenty-seven miles, with
each of them a load of herrings on her back of 200 pounds, in five
hours.” Fatiguing journeys with heavy loads of fish are now saved to
the wives of both villages, as dealers attend the arrival of the boats,
and buy up all the sea produce that is for sale. In former times there
used to be great battles between the men of Newhaven and the men of
Fisherrow, principally about their rights to certain oyster-scalps.
The Montagues and Capulets were not more deadly in their hatreds than
these rival fishermen. Now the oyster-grounds are so well defined that
battles upon that question are never fought.
Fisherrow has long been distinguished for its race of hardy and
industrious fishermen, of whom there are about two hundred in all.
They go to the herring-fishing at Caithness, at North Sunderland, at
Berwick, North Berwick, and Dunbar, and about sixty men go to Yarmouth,
on the east coast of England, a distance of about 300 miles. Ten boats,
with a complement of eight men each, go to the deep-sea white-fishing,
and two or three boats to the oyster-dredging.
The white-fishing of Fisherrow has long been a staple source of income.
At what time a colony of fishermen was established at that village is
unknown. They are most likely coeval with the place itself. When the
Reverend Dr. Carlyle, minister of the parish of Inveresk, wrote (about
1790) there were forty-nine fishermen and ninety fishwives, but since
that time the numbers of both have of course much increased.
The system of merchandise followed by the fishwives in the old days
of creel-hawking, and even yet to a considerable extent, was very
simple. Having procured a supply of fish, which having bestowed in a
basket of a form fitted to the back, they used to trudge off to market
under a load which most men would have had difficulty in carrying, and
which would have made even the strongest stagger. Many of them still
proceed to the market, and display their commodities; but the majority,
perhaps, perambulate the streets of the city, emitting cries which,
to some persons, are more loud than agreeable, and which a stranger
would never imagine to have the most distant connection with fish.
Occasionally, too, they may be seen pulling the door-bell of some house
where they are in the habit of disposing of their merchandise, with the
blunt inquiry, “Ony haddies the day?”[21]
While treating of the peculiarities of these people, I may record the
following characteristic anecdote:—“A clergyman, in whose parish a
pretty large fishing-village is situated, in his visitations among
the families of the fish-carriers found that the majority of them
had never partaken of the sacrament. Interrogating them regarding
the reason of this neglect, they candidly admitted to him that their
trade necessarily led them so much to cheat and tell lies, that they
felt themselves unqualified to join in that religious duty.” It is but
justice, however, to add that, when confidence is reposed in them,
nothing can be more fair and upright than the dealings of the fisher
class; and, as dealers in a commodity of very fluctuating value, they
cannot perhaps be justly blamed for endeavouring to sell it to the best
advantage.
At Prestonpans, and the neighbouring village of Cockenzie, the
modern system, as I may call it, for Scotland, of selling the fish
wholesale, may be seen in daily operation. When the boats arrive at the
boat-shore, the wives of those engaged in the fishing are in readiness
to obtain the fish, and carry them from the boats to the place of
sale. They are at once divided into lots, and put up to auction, the
skipper’s wife acting as the George Robins of the company, and the
price obtained being divided among the crew, who are also, generally
speaking, owners of the boat. Buyers, or their agents, from Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, etc., are always ready to purchase,
and in a few hours the scaly produce of the Firth of Forth is being
whisked along the railway at the rate of twenty miles an hour. This
system, which is certainly a great improvement on the old creel-hawking
plan, is a faint imitation of what is done in England, where the
owners of fishing-smacks consign their produce to a wholesale agent at
Billingsgate, who sells it by auction in lots to the retail dealers and
costermongers.
Farther along on the Scottish east coast is North Berwick, now a
bathing resort, and a fishing town as well; and farther east still is
Dunbar, the seat of an important herring-fishery—grown from a fishing
village into a country town, in which a mixture of agricultural and
fishing interests gives the place a somewhat heterogeneous aspect;
and between St. Abb’s Head and Berwick-on-Tweed is situated Eyemouth,
a fishing-village pure and simple, with all that wonderful filth
scattered about which is a sanitary peculiarity of such towns. The
population of Eyemouth is in keeping with the outward appearance of
the place. As a whole, they are a rough uncultivated people, and
more drunken in their habits than the fishermen of the neighbouring
villages. Coldingham shore, for instance, is only three miles distant,
and has a population of about one hundred fishermen, of a very
respectable class, sober, well dressed, and “well-to-do.” A year or two
ago an outburst of what is called “revivalism” took place at Eyemouth,
and seemed greatly to affect it. The change produced for a time was
unmistakable. These rude unlettered fishermen ceased to visit the
public-houses, refrained from the use of oaths, and instead sang psalms
and said prayers. But this wave of revivalism, which passed over other
villages besides Eyemouth, has rolled away back, and in some instances
left the people worse than it found them; and I may perhaps be allowed
to cite the fish-tithe riots as a proof of what I say. These riots,
for which the rioters were tried before the High Court of Justiciary
at Edinburgh, and some of them punished, arose out of a demand by the
minister for his tithe of fish.
Crossing the Firth of Forth, the cost of Fife, from Burntisland to
“the East Neuk,” will be found studded at intervals with quaint
fishing-villages; and the quaintest among the quaint is Buckhaven.
Buckhaven, or, as it is locally named, Buckhyne, as seen from the sea,
is a picturesque group of houses sown broadcast on a low cliff. Indeed,
most fishing villages seem thrown together without any kind of plan.
The local architects had never thought of building their villages in
rows or streets; as the fisher-folks themselves say, their houses
are “a’ heids and thraws,” that is, set down here and there without
regard to architectural arrangement. The origin of Buckhaven is rather
obscure: it is supposed to have been founded by the crew of a Brabant
vessel, wrecked on that portion of the Fife coast in the reign of
Philip II. The population are, like most of their class, a peculiar
people, living entirely among themselves; and any stranger settling
among them is viewed with such suspicion that years will often elapse
before he is adopted as one of the community. One of the old Scottish
chap-books is devoted to a satire of the Buckhaven people. These old
chap-books are now rare, and to obtain them involves a considerable
amount of trouble. Thirty years ago the chapmen were still carrying
them about in their packs; now it is pleasing to think they have been
superseded by the admirable cheap periodicals which are so numerous
and so easy to purchase. The title of the chap-book referred to above
is, _The History of Buckhaven in Fifeshire, containing the Witty and
Entertaining Exploits of Wise Willie and Witty Eppie, the Ale-wife,
with a description of their College, Coats of Arms, etc._ It would be
a strong breach of etiquette to mention the title of this book to any
of the Buckhaven people; it is difficult to understand how they should
feel so sore on the point, as the pamphlet in question is a collection
of very vulgar witticisms tinged with such a dash of obscenity as
prevents their being quoted here. The industrious fishermen of
Buckhaven are moral, sober, and comparatively wealthy. Indeed, many
of the Scottish fisher-folk are what are called “warm” people; and
there are not in our fishing villages such violent alternations of
poverty and prosperity as are to be found in places devoted entirely to
manufacturing industry. There is usually on the average of the year a
steady income, the people seldom suffering from “a hunger and a burst,”
like weavers or other handicraftsmen.
As denoting the prosperous state of the people of Buckhaven, it may be
stated that most of the families there have saved money; and, indeed,
some of them are comparatively wealthy, having a bank account, as well
as considerable capital in boats, nets, and lines. Fishermen, being
much away from home, at the herring-fishery or out at the deep-sea
fishing, have no temptation to spend their earnings or waste their
time in the tavern. Indeed, in some Scottish fishing villages there
is not even a single public-house. The Buckhaven men delight in their
boats, which are mostly “Firth-built,”—_i.e._ built at Leith, on the
Firth of Forth. Many of the boats used by the Scottish fishermen are
built at that port: they are all constructed with overlapping planks;
and the hull alone of a boat thirty-eight feet in length will cost
a sum of £60. Each boat, before it can be used for the herring or
deep-sea fishery must be equipped with a set of nets and lines; say,
a train of thirty-five nets, at a cost of £4 each, making a sum of
£140; which, with the price of the hull, makes the cost £200, leaving
the masts and sails, as well as inshore and deep-sea lines and many
other _etceteras_, to be provided for before the total cost can be
summed up. The hundred boats which belong to the men of Buckhaven
consequently represent a considerable amount of capital. Each boat with
its appurtenances has generally more than one owner; in other words,
it is held in shares. This is rather an advantage than otherwise, as
every vessel requires a crew of four men at any rate, so that each
boat is usually manned by two or three of its owners—a pledge that it
will be looked carefully after and not be exposed to needless danger.
With all the youngsters of a fishing village it is a point of ambition
to obtain a share of a boat as soon as ever they can; so that they
save hard from their allowances as extra hands, in order to attain as
early as possible to the dignity of proprietorship. We look in vain,
except at such wonderful places as Rochdale, to find manufacturing
operatives in a similar financial position to these Buckhaven men; in
fact, our fishermen have been practising the plan of co-operation for
years without knowing it, and without making it known. The co-operative
system seems to prevail among the English fisher-folk as well. At
Filey, on the Yorkshire coast, many of the large fishing yawls—these
vessels average about 40 tons each—are built by little companies and
worked on the sharing principle: so much to the men who find the bait,
and so much to each man who provides a net; and a few shillings per
pound of the weekly earnings of the ship go to the owners. In France
there are various ways of engaging the boats and conducting the
fisheries. There are some men who fish on their own account, who have
their own boat, sail, and nets, etc., and who find their own bait,
whether at the sardine-fishery or when prosecuting any other branch of
the sea fisheries. Of course these boat-owners hire what assistance
they require, and pay for it. There are other men again who hire a
boat and work it on the sharing plan, each man getting so much, the
remainder being left for the owner. A third class of persons are those
who work off their advances: these are a class of men so poor as to
be obliged to pawn their labour to the boat-owners long before it is
required. We can parallel this at home in the herring-fishery, where
the advance of money to the men has become something very like a curse
to all concerned.
The joint-stock fishing system has been prevalent in Scotland, with
various modifications, for a very long period. Ship-carpenters at one
time used to speculate in the fisheries, and build boats in order to
give fishermen a share in them, and persons who had nets would lend
them out on condition of getting a share in the speculation. The two
or three fishermen chiefly concerned would assume a few landsmen as
assistants. At the end of the season the proceeds of the fishing were
divided; the proprietors of the boat drew each one deal, every man
half a deal, and every net was awarded half a deal. The landsmen, being
counted as boys, only drew a quarter of a deal.
The retired Buckhaven fishermen can give interesting information
about the money value of the fisheries. One, who was a young fellow
five-and-twenty years ago, told me the herring-fishery was a kind
of lottery, but that, on an average of years, each boat would take
annually something like a hundred crans—the produce, in all cases
where the crew were part owners, after deducting a fifth part or so
to keep up the boat, being equally divided. “When I was a younker,
sir,” said this person, “there was lots o’ herrin’, an’ we had a fine
winter fishin’ as well, an’ sprats in plenty. As to white fish, they
were abundant five-an’-twenty year ago. Haddocks now are scarce to
be had; being an inshore fish, they’ve been a’ ta’en, in my opinion.
Line-fishin’ was very profitable from 1830 to 1840. I’ve seen as many
as a hunder thoosand fish o’ ae kind or anither ta’en by the Buckhyne
boats in a week—that is, countin’ baith inshore boats an’ them awa at
the Dogger Bank. The lot brocht four hunder pound; but a’ kinds of fish
are now sae scarce that it taks mair than dooble the labour to mak the
same money that was made then.”
In the pre-railway era, most of the fishermen along the east coast
of Fife (at Buckhaven, Cellardyke, St. Monance, and Pittenweem),
as also the fishermen along the south coast (North Bewick, Dunbar,
Eyemouth, and Burnmouth), used to carry their catchings of white fish
to villages up the Firth of Forth, and dispose of them to cadgers and
creel-hawkers, who had the retail trade of Edinburgh and Leith in their
own hands. These persons distributed themselves over the country in
order to dispose of their fish, and some of them would return with
farm-produce in its place. The profits realised from thus retailing
the produce of fishermen belonging to distant villages enabled those
who resided on firths bordering the large towns and cities quietly to
lie on their oars. Railways having given facilities to the east coast
of Fife fishers, as well as those on the opposite coast, to send their
produce to market from their own respective villages, and a new class
of traders having arisen—viz. fishmongers having retail shops—the
creel-hawking trade is now fast declining, and as a following result so
also must be the material wealth of the villages that were in a great
measure dependent upon it. In fact, railways have quite revolutionised
the fish trade. There are a few females, formerly creel-hawkers, who
continue still to act as retailers of fish. But many of them have taken
shops, and others stalls in retail markets, and attend the wholesale
market regularly to purchase their supplies. These retail dealers
in fish do remarkably well; but those who still continue to hawk
about a few haddocks or whitings when they can be procured find that
creel-hawking is but a precarious trade.
I will now carry the reader with me to a very quaint place indeed,
the scene of Sir Walter Scott’s novel of _The Antiquary_—Auchmithie;
and then on to Fittie, at Aberdeen—another fishing quarter of great
originality: we will go in the steamer.
Steamboat travelling has been in some degree superseded by the railway
carriage; but to tourists going to Inverness or Thurso the steamer
has its attractions. It is preferable to the railroad when the time
occupied in the journey is not an object. On board a fine steamboat
one has opportunities to study character, and there are always a few
characters on board a coasting steam-vessel. And going north from
Edinburgh the coast is interesting. The steamer may pass the Anster or
Dunbar herring-fleet.
“Up the waters steerin’,
The boats are thick and thrang;
Aboon the Bass they’re bearin’,
They’ll shoot their nets ere lang.
“The morn, like siller glancin’,
They’ll haul them han’ to han’;
Syne doon the water dancin’,
Come hame wi’ sixty cran.”
The passengers can see the Bell Rock lighthouse, and think of the old
legend of the pirate who took away the floating bell that had been
erected by a pious abbot on the Inchcape Rock as a warning to mariners,
and who was promptly punished for his sin by being shipwrecked on
the very rock from which he had carried off the bell. After leaving
Aberdeen, the Buffers of Buchan are among the wonders of the shore,
and the sea soughs at times with mournful cadence in the great caverns
carved out by the waves on the precipitous coast, or it foams and
lashes with majestic fury, seeking to add to its dominions. All the
way, till the Old Man of Wick is descried, guarding the entrance of
Pulteneytown harbour, there are ruined castles, and ancient spires, and
curious towers perched on high sea-cliffs; or there are frowning hills
and screaming sea-birds to add to the poetry of the scene. And along
these storm-washed coasts there are wonders of nature that show the
strong arm of the water, and mark out works that human ingenuity could
never have achieved. Loch Katrine and the Pass of Glencoe have been
the fashion ever since Sir Walter Scott _made_ Scotland; but there are
other places besides these that are worth visiting.
The supposed scene of Sir Walter Scott’s novel of _The Antiquary_,
on the coast of Forfarshire, presents a conjunction of scenic and
industrial features which commends it to notice. At Auchmithie, which
is distant a few miles from Arbroath, there is often some cause for
excitement; and a real storm or a real drowning is something vastly
different from the shipwreck in the drama of _The Tempest_, or the
death of the Colleen Bawn. The beetling cliffs barricading the sea
from the land may be traversed by the tourist to the music of the
everlasting waves, the dashing of which only makes the deep solitude
more solemn; the sea-gull sweeps around with its shrill cry, and
playful whales gambol in the placid waters.
The village of Auchmithie, which is wildly grand and romantic, stands
on the top of the cliffs, and as the road to it is steep a great amount
of labour devolves on the fishermen in carrying down their lines
and nets, and carrying up their produce, etc. One customary feature
observed by strangers on entering Auchmithie is, that when met by
female children they invariably stoop down, making a very low curtsey,
and for this piece of polite condescension they expect that a few
halfpence will be thrown to them. If you pass on without noticing them
they will not ask for anything, but once throw them a few halfpence
and a pocketful will be required to satisfy their importunities. There
are two roads leading to Auchmithie from Arbroath, one along the
sea-coast, the other through the country. The distance is about 3½
miles in a north-east direction, and the country road is the best; and
approaching the village in that direction it has a very fair aspect.
Two rows of low-built slate-roofed houses, and a school and chapel,
stand a few yards off by themselves. On the north side of the village
is a stately farm-house, surrounded by trees, and on the south side a
Coast-Guard station, clean, white-washed, and with a flagstaff, giving
the whole a regular and picturesque appearance. Entering the village
of Auchmithie from the west, and walking through to the extreme east
end, the imagination gets staggered to think how any class of men could
have selected such a wild and rugged part of the coast for pursuing the
fishing trade—a trade above all others that requires a safe harbour
where boats can be launched and put to sea at a moment’s warning if any
signals of distress be given. The bight of Auchmithie is an indentation
into rocky cliffs several hundred feet in perpendicular height. About
the middle of the bight there is a steep ravine or gully with a small
stream, and at the bottom of this ravine there is a small piece of
level ground where a fish-curing house is erected, and where also the
fishermen pull up their boats that they may be safe from easterly
gales. There are in all about seventeen boats’ crews at Auchmithie.
Winding roads with steps lead down the side of the steep brae to the
beach. There are a few half-tide rocks in the bight that may help to
break the fury of waves raised by easterly winds; but there is no
harbour or pier for the boats to land at or receive shelter from, and
this the fishermen complain of, as they have to pay £2 a year for the
privilege of each boat. The beach is steep, and strewed with large
pebbles, excellently adapted, they say, for drying fish upon.
The visitor, in addition to studying the quaint people, may explore one
of the vast caves which only a few years ago were the nightly refuge
of the smuggler. Brandy Cove and Gaylet Pot are worth inspection,
and inspire a mingled feeling of terror and grandeur. The visitor
may also take a look at the “Spindle”—a large detached piece of the
cliffs, shaped something like a corn-stack, or a boy’s top with the
apex uppermost. When the tide is full this rock is surrounded with
water, and appears like an island. Fisher-life may be witnessed here
in all its unvarnished simplicity. Indeed nothing could well be more
primitive than their habits and mode of life. I have seen the women of
Auchmithie “kilt their coats” and rush into the water in order to aid
in shoving off the boats, and on the return of the little fleet carry
the men ashore on their brawny shoulders with the greatest ease and all
the _nonchalance_ imaginable, no matter who might be looking at them.
Their peculiar way of smoking their haddocks may be taken as a very
good example of their other modes of industry. Instead of splitting
the fish after cleaning them, as the regular curers do, they smoke
them in their round shape. They use a barrel without top or bottom as
a substitute for a curing-house. The barrel being inserted a little
distance in the ground, an old kail-pot or kettle, filled with sawdust,
is placed at the bottom, and the inside is then filled with as many
fish as can conveniently be hung in it. The sawdust is then set fire
to, and a piece of canvas thrown over the top of the barrel: by this
means the females of Auchmithie smoke their haddocks in a round state,
and very excellent they are when the fish are caught in season. The
daily routine of fisher-life at Auchmithie is simple and unvarying;
year by year, and all the year round, it changes only from one branch
of the fishery to another. The season, of course, brings about its
joys and sorrows: sad deaths, which overshadow the village with gloom;
or marriages, when the people may venture to hold some simple _fête_,
but only to send them back with renewed vigour to their occupations.
Time, as it sweeps over them, only indicates a period when the deep-sea
hand-lines must be laid aside for the herring-drift, or when the
men must take a toilsome journey in search of bait for their lines.
Their scene of labour is on the sea, ever on the sea; and, trusting
themselves on the mighty waters, they pursue their simple craft with
persevering industry, never heeding that they are scorched by the suns
of summer or benumbed by the frosts of winter. There is, of course, an
appropriate season for the capture of each particular kind of fish.
There are days when the men fish inshore for haddocks; and there are
times when, with their frail vessels, the fishermen sail long distances
to procure larger fish in the deep seas, and when they must remain in
their open boats for a few days and nights. But the El-dorado of all
the coast tribe is “the herring.” This abounding and delightful fish,
which can be taken at one place or another from January to December,
yields a six weeks’ fishing in the autumn of the year, to which, as has
already been stated, all the fisher-folk look forward with hope, as
a period of money-making, and which, so far as the young people are
concerned, is generally expected to end, like the third volume of a
love-story, in matrimony.
Taking a jump from Auchmithie, it is desirable to pause a moment at the
small fishing village of Findon, in the parish of Banchory-Devenick, in
Kincardineshire, in order to say a few words about a branch of industry
in connection with the fisheries that is peculiar to Scotland. Yarmouth
is famed for its “bloaters,” a preparation of herrings slightly
smoked, well known over England; and in Scotland, as has already been
mentioned in a previous chapter, there is that unparagoned dainty,
the “Finnan haddock,” the best accompaniment that can be got to the
other substantial components of a Scottish breakfast. Indeed, the
Finnan haddock is celebrated as a breakfast luxury all over the world,
although it is so delicate in its flavour, and requires such nicety in
the cure, that it cannot be enjoyed in perfection at any great distance
from the sea-coast. George IV., who had certainly, whatever may have
been his other virtues, a kingly genius in the matter of relishes
for the palate (does not the world owe to him the discovery of the
exquisite propriety of the sequence of port wine after cheese?), used
to have genuine Finnan haddocks always on his breakfast-table, selected
at Aberdeen and sent express by coach every day for his Majesty’s
use. Great houses of brick have now been erected at various places
on the Moray Firth and elsewhere; and in these immense quantities of
haddocks and other fish are smoked for the market by means of burning
billets of green wood. Formerly the fisher-folk used to smoke a few
haddocks in their cottages over their peat-fires for family use. I
have already described how the fame of the Finnan haddock arose. The
trade soon grew so large that it required a collection to be made in
the fishing districts in order to get together the requisite quantity;
so that what was once a mere local effort has now become a prominent
branch of the fish trade. But it is seldom that the home-smoked
fish can be obtained, with its delicate flavour of peat-reek. The
manufactured Finnan or yellow haddock, smoked in a huge warehouse,
is more plentiful, of course, but it has lost the old relish. It
is pleasant to see the clean fireside and the clear peat-fire in
the comfortably-furnished cottage, with the children sitting round
the ingle on the long winter evenings, listening to the tales and
traditions of the coast, the fish hanging all over the reeking peats,
acquiring the while that delicate yellow tinge so refreshing to the
eyes of all lovers of a choice dish.
Footdee, or “Fittie” as it is locally called, is a quaint suburb of
Aberdeen, figuring not a little, and always with a kind of comic
quaintness, in the traditions of that northern city, and in the stories
which the inhabitants tell of each other. They tell there of one
Aberdeen man, who, being in London for the first time, and visiting
St. Paul’s, was surprised by his astonishment at its dimensions into
an unusual burst of candour. “My stars!” he said, “this maks a perfect
feel (fool) o’ the kirk o’ Fittie.” Part of the quaint interest thus
attached to this particular suburb by the Aberdonians themselves
arises from its containing a little colony or nest of fisher-folk, of
immemorial antiquity. There are about a hundred families living in
Fittie, or Footdee Square, close to the sea, where the Dee has its
mouth. This community, like all others made up of fishing-folk, is a
peculiar one, and differs of course from those of other working-people
in its neighbourhood. In many things the Footdee people are like the
gipsies. They rarely marry, except with their own class; and those born
in a community of fishers seldom leave it, and very seldom engage in
any other avocation than that of their fathers. The squares of houses
at Footdee are peculiarly constructed. There are neither doors nor
windows in the outside walls, although these look to all the points
of the compass; and none live within the square but the fishermen and
their families, so that they are as completely isolated and secluded
from public gaze as are a regiment of soldiers within the dead walls of
a barrack. The Rev. Mr. Spence, of Free St. Clement’s, lately completed
plans of the entire “toun,” giving the number and the names of the
tenants in every house; and from these exhaustive plans it appears
that the total population of the two squares was 584—giving about nine
inmates for each of these two-roomed houses. But the case is even worse
than this average indicates. “In the South Square only eight of the
houses are occupied by single families; and in the North Square only
three, the others being occupied by at least two families each—one
room apiece—and four _single_ rooms in the North Square contain _two_
families each! There are thirty-six married couples and nineteen widows
in the twenty-eight houses; and the number of distinct families in
them is fifty-four.” The Fittie men seem poorer than the generality of
their brethren. They purchase the crazy old boats of other fishermen,
and with these, except in very fine weather, they dare not venture
very far from “the seething harbour-bar;” and the moment they come
home with a quantity of fish the men consider their labours over, the
duty of turning the fish into cash devolving, as in all other fishing
communities, on the women. The young girls, or “queans,” as they are
called in Fittie, carry the fish to market, and the women sit there and
sell them; and it is thought that it is the officious desire of their
wives to be the treasurers of their earnings that keeps the fishermen
from being more enterprising. The women enslave the men to their
will, and keep them chained under petticoat government. Did the women
remain at home in their domestic sphere, looking after the children
and their husbands’ comforts, the men would then pluck up spirit and
exert themselves to make money in order to keep their families at home
comfortable and respectable. Just now there are many fishermen who
will not go to sea as long as they imagine their wives have got a
penny left from the last hawking excursion. There is no necessity for
the females labouring at out-door work. There are few trades in this
country where industrious men have a better chance to make money than
fishermen have, especially when they are equipped with proper machinery
for their calling. At Arbroath, Auchmithie, and Footdee (Fittie), the
fishing population are at the very bottom of the scale for enterprising
habits and social progress. When the wind is in any way from the
eastward, or in fact blowing hard from any direction, the fishermen at
these places are very chary about going to sea unless dire necessity
urges them.
The people of “Fittie” are progressing in morals and civilisation.
One of the local journalists who took the trouble to visit the place
lately, in order to describe truthfully what he saw, says:—“They have
the reputation of being a very peculiar people, and so in many respects
they are; but they have also the reputation of being a dirtily-inclined
and degraded people, and this we can certify from personal inspection
they are not. We have visited both squares, and found the interior of
the houses as clean, sweet, and wholesome as could well be desired.
Their white-washed walls and ceiling, their well-rubbed furniture,
clean bedding, and freshly-sanded floors, present a picture of tidiness
such as is seldom to be met with among classes of the population
reckoned higher in the social scale. And this external order is only
the index of a still more important change in the habits and character
of our fisher-toun, the population of which, all who know it agree in
testifying, has within the past few years undergone a remarkable change
for the better in a moral point of view. Especially is this noticed in
the care of their children, whose education might, in some cases, bring
a tinge of shame to the cheek of well-to-do town’s folks. Go down to
the fisher squares, and lay hold of some little fellow hardly able to
waddle about without assistance in his thick made-down moleskins, and
you will find he has the Shorter Catechism at his tongue-end. Ask any
employer of labour in the neighbourhood of the shore where he gets his
best apprentices, and he will tell you that for industry and integrity
he finds no lads who surpass those from the fisher squares. Inquire
about the families of the fishermen who have lost their lives while
following their perilous occupation, and you will find that they have
been divided among other families in the square, and treated by the
heads of these families as affectionately as if they had been their
own.”
As regards the constant intermarrying of the fisher class, and the
working habits of their women, I have read an Italian fable to the
following effect:—“A man of distinction, in rambling one day through
a fishing-village, accosted one of the fishermen with the remark
that he wondered greatly that men of his line of life should chiefly
confine themselves, in their matrimonial connections, to women of their
own caste, and not take them from other classes of society, where a
greater security would be obtained for their wives keeping a house
properly, and rearing a family more in accordance with the refinement
and courtesies of life. To this the fisherman replied, that to him,
and men of his laborious profession, such wives as they usually took
were as indispensable to their vocation as their boat and nets. Their
wives took their fish to market, obtained bait for their lines, mended
their nets, and performed a thousand different and necessary things,
which husbands could not do for themselves, and which women taken from
any other of the labouring classes of society would be unable to do.
‘The labour and drudgery of our wives,’ continued he, ‘is a necessary
part of our peculiar craft, and cannot by any means be dispensed with,
without entailing irreparable injury upon our social interests.’
MORAL.—This is one among many instances, where the solid and the useful
must take precedence of the showy and the elegant.”
As I have already mentioned, the fishers are intensely superstitious.
No matter where we view them, they are as much given to signs and omens
at Portel near Boulogne as at Portessie near Banff. For instance,
whilst standing or walking they don’t like to be numbered. Rude boys
will sometimes annoy them by shouting—
“Ane, twa, three;
What a lot o’ fisher mannies I see!”
It is also considered very offensive to ask fisher-people, whilst on
their way to their boats, where they are going to-day; and they do not
like to see, considering it unlucky, the impression of a very flat
foot upon the sand; neither, as I have already explained, can they go
to work if on leaving their homes in the morning a pig should cross
their path. This is considered a particularly unlucky omen, and at
once drives them home. Before a storm, it is usually thought, there is
some kind of warning vouchsafed to them; they see, in their mind’s eye
doubtless, a comrade wafted homeward in a sheet of flame, or the wraith
of some one beckons them with solemn gesture landward, as if saying,
“Go not upon the waters.” When an accident happens from an open boat,
and any person is drowned, that boat is never again used, but is laid
up high and dry, and allowed to rot away—rather a costly superstition.
Then, again, some fisher-people perform a kind of “rite” before going
to the herring-fishery, in drinking to a “white lug”—that is, that when
they “pree” or examine a corner or lug of their nets, they may find
it glitter with the silvery sheen of the fish, a sure sign of a heavy
draught.
But the fishermen of other coasts are quite as quaint, superstitious,
and peculiar as those of our own. The residents in the _Faubourg de
Pollet_ of Dieppe are just as much alive to the signs and tokens of the
hour as the dwellers in the square of Fittie, or those who inhabit the
fishing quarter of Boulogne. It is a pity that the guide-books say so
little about these and similar places. The fishing quarter of Boulogne
is not unlike Newhaven: there is the same “ancient and fish-like
smell,” the same kind of women with a very short petticoat, the only
difference being that our Scottish fishwives wear comfortable shoes and
stockings. We can see too the dripping nets hung up to dry from the
windows of the tumble-down-like houses, and the _gamins_ of Boulogne
lounge about the gutter’s side on the large side stones, or run up
and down the long series of steps just the same as the fisher-folks’
children do at home.
[Illustration: A FRENCH FISHWOMAN.]
It is only, however, by penetrating into the quaint villages situated
on the coasts of Normandy and Brittany, that we can gain a knowledge
of the manners and customs of those persons who are daily engaged in
prosecuting the fisheries. The clergymen of their districts, as may be
supposed, have great power over them, and all along the French coast
the fisher-people have churches of their own, and they are constantly
praying for “luck,” or leaving propitiatory gifts upon the altars, as
well as going pilgrimages in order that their wishes may be realised.
A dream is thought of such great consequence among these people, that
the women will hold a conference, early in the day, in order to its
interpretation. Each little village has its storied traditions, many
of them of great interest, and some of them very romantic. I can only
briefly allude, however, to one of these little stories. Some of my
readers may have heard of the Bay of the Departed on the coast of
Brittany, where, in the dead hour of night, the boatmen are summoned
by some unseen power to launch their boats and ferry over to a sacred
island the souls of men who had been drowned in the surging waters. The
fishermen tell that, on the occasion of those midnight freights, the
boat is so crowded with invisible passengers as to sink quite low in
the water, and the wails and cries of the shipwrecked are heard as the
melancholy voyage progresses. On their arrival at the Island of Sein,
invisible beings are said to number the invisible passengers, and the
wondering awe-struck crew then return to await the next supernatural
summons to boat over the ghosts to the storied isle, which was in long
back days the chief haunt of the Druidesses in Brittany. A similar
story may be heard at Guildo on the same coast. Small skiffs, phantom
ones it is currently believed, may be seen when the moon is bright
darting out from under the castle cliffs, manned by phantom figures,
ferrying over the treacherous sands the spirits whose bodies lie
engulphed in the neighbourhood. Not one of the native population, so
strong is the dread of the scene, will pass the spot after nightfall,
and strange stories are told of phantom lights and woeful demons that
lure the unsuspecting wayfarer to a treacherous death.
The Parisian fishwives are clean and buxom women, like their sisters
of Newhaven, and they are quite as celebrated if not so picturesque
in their costume. About a century and a half ago—and I need not go
further back—there were a great number of fishwives in Paris, there
being not less than 4000 oyster-women, who pursued their business
with much dexterity, and were able to cheat their customers as well,
if not better than any modern fishwife. One of their best tricks was
to swallow many of the finest oysters under the pretence of their
not being fresh. Among the Parisian fishwives of the last century we
are able to pick out Madame Picard, who was famed for her poetical
talent, and was personally known to many of the eminent Frenchmen of
the last century. Her poems were collected and published in a little
volume, and ultimately by marriage this fishwife became a lady, having
married a very wealthy silk merchant. The fishwives of Paris have
long been historical: they have figured prominently in all the great
events connected with the history of that city. A deputation from these
market-women, gorgeously dressed in silk and lace, and bedecked with
diamonds and other precious stones, frequently took part in public
affairs. Mirabeau was a great favourite of the Parisian fishwives; at
his death they attended his funeral and wore mourning for him. These
Poissardes took an active part in the revolution of 1789, and did deeds
of horror and charity that one has a difficulty in reconciling. It was
no uncommon sight, for instance, to see the fishwives carrying about on
poles the heads of obnoxious persons who had been murdered by the mob.
As I am on the subject of the foreign fisher-folk, I may as well say
a few words more about the quaint eel-breeders of Comacchio, to whom
I have already had occasion to allude. According to M. Coste, the
social life of the people at Comacchio, who are engaged in the work
of eel-culture, is very curious; but I think the industrial phase is
so much mixed up with the social as to render the two inseparable. The
community is in a sense—that is, so far as discipline is concerned—a
military one, and strict laws are laid down for the conduct of the
fishery. A large number of the men live in barracks, and observe the
monkish rule of passive obedience. Each of the islands of the lagoon
may be described as a small farm, having a chief cultivator, a few
servants, a plentiful supply of the necessary implements of labour,
its living-house, and its store for the harvest. It appears so natural
to the people to suppose these stations to be farms, that they have
from the very earliest times described the various basins as fields,
just as if they were composed of earth instead of water; and of these
places there are no less than four hundred, the most important of them
belonging to the state, the rest being private property. The government
of the whole lagoon is exclusively in the hands of the farmer-general
or his representative, who rents the fisheries from the Pope. There is
a large body of men employed by him, who are divided into brigades,
and whose business lies in the construction of the dykes, and in the
management of the flood-gates during the seeding of the lagoon, and
the organisation of the labyrinths during the fishing-season. This
cultivating brigade numbers about three hundred men; the police brigade
consists of one hundred and twenty persons; and besides these there is
an administrative brigade of one hundred individuals. A great deal of
work has to be done by the persons employed, whether at the various
farms, in the offices, or in the kitchen, for at Comacchio a large
portion of the fish is cooked for the market. Upon each farm there are
about twelve labourers, who live in a barrack under severe discipline,
having all things in common. There is a master who exercises
absolute power in his own domain; he is paid a salary of four scudi
seventy-five baiocchi per month, with two and a half pounds of fish
per day, and during summer-time, when the fish are scarce, he gets an
additional allowance of money. The rate of wages at this place appears
exceedingly small when contrasted with the payment of English labour.
The wages of the learners or apprentices are exceedingly modest; they
are remunerated with the “sair-won penny-fee” of 26s. per annum, in
addition to their food! But then the poor people of Comacchio—the
widow, the orphan, the aged and the infirm labourer—are all maintained
at the expense of the community.
But it is right to mention also that a greater than a mere salaried
interest in the labours incidental to the working of these fish-farms
is kept up by the greater portion of the _employes_ having a share of
or commission on the produce, which in good years amounts to as much as
twelve Roman ecus for each man. The captain is, of course, responsible
in every way for his farm, both that the labour be properly carried on,
and also for the moral conduct of the men under his charge, to whom
he is bound to set a good example, as well of neatness in dress as
activity in business.
Exiled in the valley which they cultivate, each family finds it
necessary to devote its attention to those domestic offices so
necessary for economy and comfort. The _vallanti_ take in turn, as
our soldiers do, the duty of cooking. They place the fish which they
receive as a part of their wages in a common stock, to which is added
such provision as the messenger may have brought from the town.
When the cook has prepared the repast, they all sit down to table
in one company, from the head man to the most humble servant; but
although they mix thus promiscuously together, military etiquette is
strictly observed—the foreman occupies the place of honour, having
the under-foreman and the secretary by his side, next come the
vallanti, and then the apprentices and cleaners. A benediction is then
pronounced, after which the foreman serves out to each man his proper
modicum of food, taking care to respect those rights of precedence
which have been indicated. Eels, cooked upon the gridiron, form the
staple of the repast, and the dinner is washed down with a little
bosco-eli-esco wine. After dinner is over, the labourers return to
their work. When evening arrives some remain awake all night, seated in
arm-chairs, and others lie down in hard beds similar to those of the
barracks. None of the _employes_ of the valley are allowed to be absent
from duty without a written permission, and heavy fines are exacted
on any occasion of this rule being infringed. The discipline of each
valley is the same, and one cannot conceive of a more monotonous life
than that led by these humble fishermen, which season after season is
ever the same, and goes on for years in one dull unvarying round. An
unexpected tourist excites quite a commotion among the simple people,
and they have great hopes that as the place becomes known to the outer
world their prison life will ultimately be ameliorated.
The fish season is opened with great solemnity of prayer, and many
of those other ceremonies of the church peculiar to Roman Catholic
communities—one of which is the consecration of the lagoon. The
labyrinths, which have been constructed from hurdles in each watery
field (see plan in “Fish Culture”) are crowded with fish, so that
there is comparatively little trouble in the capture, and the salter
waters of the sea being let in, the migratory instinct of the animal
is excited, so that it becomes an easy prey to the fishermen. Upon the
occasion of taking a great haul of fish in any particular valley, a gun
is fired to announce the glad tidings to the other islanders, and next
day a feast is held to celebrate the capture, which must, however, be
of a certain amount.
The town of Comacchio is chiefly a long street of one-storied houses,
situated on the principal island of the lagoon. There is a cathedral in
the town, but it is entirely destitute of any architectural character,
and there is a tower, from the top of which a good view of the lagoon
and its various islands may be obtained; but in an industrial point
of view the chief feature of the place is the great kitchen where
the cure of the fish is carried on, one of the peculiarities of
Comacchio being that a large portion of the eels are cooked before
being sent to market. The kitchen where the eels are cooked is a large
room containing a number of fireplaces ranged along one side. These
fireplaces are about five feet square, and in front of each of them
are hung six or seven spits on which the eels are impaled and roasted.
The fire is placed on a low grate, and immediately below the spits is
a trough or duct to catch the grease, that drops from the eels while
cooking. Before being roasted the fish undergo an operation. A workman
seated before a block of wood, with a small hatchet in his hand, seizes
the eels one by one and with great dexterity cuts off the head and
tail, which are given to the poor, divides the body of the eel into
several pieces of equal length according to its size, and throws them
into a basket at his side. Each piece at the same time is slightly
notched to facilitate the work of the next operator, who with equal
skill and quickness puts the bits on the spit. It is only the large
eels, however, that are decapitated and divided, the smaller ones are
simply notched and stuck on the spit. The spits thus filled are next
handed to the women in front of the fire. Two women are necessary for
each fireplace: one regulates the fire; the second looks after the
roasting of the eels, which is the most important part of the labour,
carefully shifting the spits from a higher to a lower position in front
of the fire until the fish are properly done, when the spits are taken
off by the woman, who places them aside for the next operation. This
woman also attends to the grease that collects in the trough below the
spits, and puts it in jars for future use. Besides these fireplaces,
there are a number of furnaces fitted with large circular frying-pans,
which are exclusively attended to by men. All the fish for which the
spit is unsuitable are fried in these pans with a mixture of the grease
dropped from the eels and olive-oil. They are exposed to the air for
some time, even during very warm weather, before being cooked. This
operation renders them fitter for preservation. The eels roasted on
spits, and the fish cooked in the frying-pans, are placed in baskets of
openwork to _dreep_ and cool. They are then packed in barrels of large
and small sizes. The packing is carefully and regularly done similar
to the method of packing herrings. A mixture of vinegar and salt is
poured into the barrel before it is closed up. The vinegar must be of
the strongest, and the salt employed is grey rock-salt instead of white
salt. Previous to exportation the barrels are branded with different
letters according to the nature of the fish contained in them.
Another method of preserving the fish is by salting. In the room
devoted to this operation is a raised quadrangular space inclined so as
to have a flow into a kind of ditch or trough, similar to that which
receives the grease from the eels in the kitchen. On this raised space
a layer of grey rock-salt is spread, and upon this salt the eels are
disposed, laid at full length and closely squeezed together. Another
layer of salt is spread upon the eels, and then another layer of eels
is disposed crosswise on the first row, and so on until the pile is
sufficiently high. A layer of salt is spread on the top, which is
crowned by a board heavy with weights to press the fish close together
and prevent the air from penetrating into the pile. The brine that
exudes from the heap of fish and salt flows into the trough already
mentioned. When the fish are considered to be well impregnated with the
salt, which requires a period of twelve or fifteen days according to
the size of the eels, the fish are taken down and packed in barrels,
the same as the cooked eels, but without any liquid. There is a third
mode of preparation, which consists in first immersing them for some
time in the brine obtained from the above process of salting and then
drying them. It is found necessary to put them into this liquid when
alive, as otherwise the entrails would not absorb enough of salt to
preserve them. In order to render the operation still more effective,
powdered salt is introduced into the intestines by a wooden rod. After
this they are washed in lukewarm water, and then hung up to dry below
the ceiling of the kitchen or in a room somewhat smoky. The eels dried
in this manner become of a bronze colour and are called smoked, a name
which is also applied to all the fish prepared by the drying process,
although smoke has nothing to do with the process. When the fish are
destined for speedy consumption they are only half-dried. A barrel of
pickled eels contains one hundred and fifty pounds weight, and costs a
little more than ninety-seven francs. The fish of Comacchio are sent to
all parts of Italy, and in Venice, Rome, and Naples they are greatly in
demand.
As I have already indicated, the income obtained at Comacchio from this
one fish is something wonderful; labour being so cheap, the profits are
of course proportionately large. The population of the lagoon is about
seven thousand individuals, and, as I have endeavoured to show, their
mode of life is exceedingly primitive, the one grand idea being the
fishery, of the ingenuity and productiveness of which the population
are very proud.
The short and simple annals of the fisher-folk are all tinged with
melancholy—there is a skeleton in every closet. There is no household
but has to mourn the loss of a father or a son. Annals of storms and
chronicles of deaths form the talk of the aged in all the fishing
villages. The following narrative is a sample of hundreds of other sad
tales that might be collected from the coast people of Scotland. It
was related to a friend by a woman at Musselburgh:—“Weel, ye see, sir,
I hae’na ony great story till tell. At the time I lost my guidman I
was livin’ doon by at the Pans (Prestonpans, a fishing village). The
herrin’ season was ower aboot a month, and my guidman had laid by a
guid pickle siller, and we had skytched oot a lot o’ plans for the
futur’. We had nae bairns o’ oor ain, although we had been married for
mony years; but we had been lang thinkin’ o’ takin’ in a wee orphint
till bring up as oor ain; and noo that the siller was geyan’ plenty, we
settled that Mairon M’Farlane should come hame till us by the beginnin’
o’ November. My guidman was thinkin’ aboot buyin’ a new boat, although
his auld ane was no sae muckle the waur for wear. I was thinkin’ aboot
askin’ the guidman for a new Sunday’s goon; in fac’, we were biggin’
castles in the air a’ on the foundation o’ the herrin’ siller; but
hech, sir, it’s ower true that man—ay, and woman tae—purposes, but the
Great Almighty disposes. The wee orphint wasna till find a new faither
and mither in my guidman and me; the auld boat wasna till mak’ room for
a new ane; and my braw Sunday goon, which, gin I had had my choice,
would hae been a bricht sky-blue ane, was changed intae black—black as
nicht, black as sorrow and as death could mak’ it. There was a fine
fishin’ o’ the haddies, and the siller in the bank was growing bigger
ilka week, for the wather was at its best, and the fish plentifu’.
Aweel, on the nicht o’ the seventeent o’ November, after I had put a’
the lines in order, and gien Archibald his supper, aff he gangs frae
the herbour wi’ his boat, and four as nice young chiels as ye ever
set an ee on for a crew. An’ there wasna muckle fear o’ dirty wather,
although the sun had gaen doon rayther redder than we could hae wished.
Some o’ the new married, and some o’ the lasses that were sune tae be
married, used tae gang doon tae the herbour, and see their guidmen and
their sweethearts awa’. I was lang by wi’ that sort o’ thing; no that
my love was less, but my confidence was mair, seein’ that it had been
tried and faund true through the lang period o’ fourteen years. As I
was tidyin’ up the hoose afore gangin’ till my bed, I heard the men in
the boats cryin’ till ane anither, as they were workin’ oot intae the
firth. Tae bed I gaed, and lookin’ at the low o’ the fire, as it keepit
flichterin’ up and deein’ awa’, sune set me soond asleep. What daftlike
things folks think, see, and dae in their sleep. I dreamt that nicht
that I was walkin’ alang the sands till meet my guidman, wha had landed
his boat at Morrison’s Haven. The sun was shinin’ beautifu’, and the
waves were comin’ tumlin’ up the sand, sparklin’ and lauchin’ in the
sunlicht, dancin’ as if they never did ony ill. I saw my guidman at the
distance, and I put my best fit forrit till meet him. I was as near him
as tae see his face distinckly, and was aboot tae cry oot, ‘Archibald,
what sort o’ fishin’ hae ye had?‘ when a’ on a suddint a great muckle
hand cam’ doon frae the sky, and puttin’ its finger and thoom roond
my guidman, lifted him clean oot o’ my sicht jist in a meenit. The
fricht o’ the dream waukened me, and I turned on my side and lookit at
whaur the fire ought tae be, but it was a’ blackness. The hoose was
shakin’ as if the great muckle hand had gruppit it by the gavel, and
was shakin’ it like a wunnelstraw. Hech, sir, ye leeve up in a toon o’
lands, and dinna ken what a storm is. Aiblins ye get up in the mornin’
and see a tree or twa lyin’ across the road, and a lum tummilt ower the
rufe, and a kittlin’ or twa smoort aneath an auld barrel; but bless ye,
sir, that’s no a storm sic as we folk on the seaside ken o’. Na, na!
The sky—sky! there’s nae sky, a’ is as black as black can be; ye may
put your hand oot and fill your nieve wi’ the darkness, exceppin’ the
times when the lichtnin’ flashes doon like a twisted threid o’ purple
gowd; and then ye can see the waves lookin’ ower ane anither’s heads,
and gnashin’ their teeth, as ye micht think, and cryin’ oot in their
anger for puir folk’s lives. Siccan a nicht it was when I waukened. My
guidman had been oot in mony a storm afore, sae I comforted mysel’ wi’
thinkin’ that he would gey and likely mak for North Berwick or Dunbar
when he saw the wather airtin’ for coorse. I wasna frightened, yet I
couldna sleep for the roarin’ o’ the wind. Mornin’ cam’. I gaed doon
till the shore, and a’ the wives and sweethearts o’ the Pans gaed wi’
me. There was a heavy fog on the sea, sae thick that neither Inchkeith
nor the Law were to be seen. Naething was there but the sea and the
muckle waves lowpin’ up and dashin’ themselves tae death on the rocks
and the sands. Eastwards and westwards we lookit, an’ better lookit,
but naething was till be seen but the fog and the angry roaring sea—no
a boat, no a sail was visible on a’ the wild waters. Weel, we had a
lang confab on the shore as tae what our guidmen and our sweethearts
micht aiblins hae dune. It was settled amang us without a doot that
they had gane intill North Berwick or Dunbar, and sae we expeckit that
in the afternoon they would maybe tak’ the road and come hame till
comfort us. After denner we—that is, the wives and sweethearts—took the
gait and went as far as Gosfort Sands till meet our guidmen and the
lads. The rain was pourin’ doon like mad; but what was that till us?
we were lookin’ for what was a’ the world till our bosoms, and through
wind and weet we went tae find it, and we nayther felt the cauld blast
nor the showers. Cauldly and greyly the short day fell upon the Berwick
Law. Darker and darker grew the gloamin’, but nae word o’ them we loo’d
afore a’ the world. The nicht closed in at lang and last, and no a
soond o’ the welcome voices. Eh, sir, aften and aften hae I said, and
sang ower till mysel’, the bonny words o’ poetry that says—
‘His very foot has music in’t,
As he comes up the stair.’
But Archibald’s feet were never mair till come pap, pappin, in at the
door. Twa sorrowfu’ and lang lang days passed awa’, and the big waves,
as if mockin’ our sorrow, flang the spars o’ the boats up amang the
rocks, and there was weepin’ and wailin’ when we saw them, or in the
grand words o’ the Book, there was ‘lamentation and sorrow and woe.’ We
kent then that we micht look across the sea, but ower the waters would
never blink the een that made sunshine around our hearths; ower the
waters would never come the voices that were mair delightfu’ than the
music o’ the simmer winds when the leaves gang dancing till their sang.
My story, sir, is dune. I hae nae mair tae tell. Sufficient and suffice
it till say, that there was great grief at the Pans—Rachel weepin’ for
her weans, and wouldna be comforted. The windows were darkened, and the
air was heavy wi’ sighin’ and sabbin’.”
Resuming our tour, I may hint to the reader that it is well worth
while, by way of variety, to see the fishing population of the various
towns on the Moray Firth. Taking the south side as the best point
of advantage, it may be safely said that from Gamrie to Portgordon
there may be found many studies of character, and bits of land-, or
rather sea-scape, that cannot be found anywhere else. Portsoy, Cullen,
Portessie, Buckie, Portgordon, are every one of them places where
all the specialities of fisher life may be studied. Buckie, from its
size, may be named as a kind of metropolis among these ports; and
it differs from some of them inasmuch as it contains, in addition
to its fisher-folk, a mercantile population as well. The town is
divided and subdivided by means of its natural situation. There is
Buckie-east-the-burn, New Buckie, Nether Buckie, Buckie-below-the-brae,
Buckie-aboon-the-brae, and, of course, Buckie-west-the-burn. A curious
system of “nicknames” prevails among the fisher-people, and most
notably among those on the Moray Firth, and in some of the Scottish
weaving villages as well. In all communications with the people
their “to” (_i.e._ additional), or, as the local pronunciation has
it, “tee” names, must be used. At a public dinner a few months ago
several of the Buckie fishermen were present; and it was noticeable
that the gentlemen of the press were careful, in their reports of the
proceedings, to couple with the real names of the men the appellations
by which they were best known—as “Mr. Peter Cowie, ‘langlegs,’ proposed
the health, etc.” So, upon all occasions of registering births,
marriages, or deaths, the “tee” name must be recorded. If a fisherman
be summoned to answer in a court of justice, he is called not only by
his proper name, but by his nickname as well. In many of the fishing
villages, where the population is only a few hundreds, there will not,
perhaps, be half a dozen surnames, and the whole of the inhabitants
therefore will be related “through-ither,” as such intermixture is
called in Scotland. The variety of nicknames, therefore, is wonderful,
but necessary in order to the identification of the different members
of the few families who inhabit the fishing villages. The different
divisions of Buckie, for instance, are inhabited by different clans;
on the west side of the river or burn there are none but Reids and
Stewarts, while on the east side we have only Cowies and Murrays. Cowie
is a very common name on the shores of the Moray Firth; at Whitehills,
and other villages, there are many bearing that surname, and to
distinguish one from the other, such nicknames as Shavie, Pinchie,
Howdie, Doddlies, etc., are employed. In some families the nickname
has come to be as hereditary as the surname; and when Shavie senior
crosses “that bourne,” etc., Shavie junior will still perpetuate the
family “tee” name. All kinds of circumstances are indicated by these
names—personal blemishes, peculiarities of manner, etc. There is,
in consequence, Gley’d Sandy Cowie, Gley’d Sandy Cowie, dumpie, and
Big Gley’d Sandy Cowie; there is Souples, Goup-the-Lift, Lang-nose,
Brandy, Stottie, Hawkie, etc. Every name in church or state is
represented—kings, barons, bishops, doctors, parsons, and deacons; and
others, in countless variety, that have neither rhyme nor reason to
account for them.
As an instance of the many awkward _contretemps_ which occur through
the multiplicity of similar names in the northern fishing villages, the
following may be recorded:—In a certain town lived two married men,
each of them yclept Adam Flucker, and their individuality was preserved
by those who knew them entitling them as Fleukie (Flounder) Flucker,
and Haddie (Haddock) Flucker. Fleukie was blessed with a large family,
with probable increase of the same, and cursed with a wife who ruled
him like a despot. Haddie had possessed for many years a treasure of a
wife, but prospect of a family there was none. Now these things were
unknown to the carrier, who had newly entered on his office. From the
store of an inland town he had received two packages, one for Haddie (a
fashionable petticoat of the gaudiest red), and the other for Fleukie
(a stout wooden cradle), to supply the place of a similar article worn
out by long service. The carrier, in simplicity of ignorance, reversed
the destination of the packages, which, of course, were returned to the
inland merchant with threats of vengeance and vows never to patronise
his store again.
Let the reader take, as an example of the quaint ways and absurd
superstitions of the Moray Firth fisher-folk, the following little
episode, which took place in the Small-Debt Court at Buckie, at the
instance of a man who had been hired to assist at the herring-fishery,
and who was pursuing his employer for his wages:—
On the case being called, the pursuer stated that he had been dismissed
by the defender from his employment without just cause, indeed without
any cause at all; and the defender, on being asked what he had to say,
at once admitted the dismissal, and to the great astonishment of the
Sheriff, confessed that he had nothing to assign as a reason for it,
except the fact that the pursuer’s name was “Ross.”
“Ye see, my Lord, I did engage him, though I was weel tauld by my
neibors that I sudna dee’t, and that I cudna expect te hae ony luck wi’
him, as it was weel kent that ‘Ross’ was an unlucky name. I thocht this
was nonsense, but I ken better noo. He gaed te sea wi’ us for a week,
and I canna say but that he did’s wark weel eneuch; but we never gat a
scale. Sae the next week, I began to think there beet te be something
in fat my neibors said; sae upo’ the Monday I wadna tak’ him oot, and
left him ashore, and that very night we had a gran’ _shot_; and ye ken
yersel’, my Lord, that it wad hae been ower superstishus to keep him
after that, and sae I wad hae naething mair te dae wi’ him, and pat him
aboot’s business.”
The Sheriff was much amused with this novel application of the
word “superstitious;” but, in spite of that application, he had no
difficulty in at once deciding against the defender, with expenses,
taking occasion while doing so to read him a severe lecture upon his
ignorance and folly. The lecture, however, has not been of much use,
for I have ascertained that the “freit” in question is still as rife as
ever, and that there is scarcely an individual among the communities
of white-fishers on the Banffshire coast who, if he can avoid it, will
have any transaction with any one bearing the obnoxious name of “Ross.”
I should now like to give my readers a specimen of the patois or
dialect spoken by the Moray Firth fisher-folk, although it is
somewhat difficult to do it effectively on paper; but I will try,
taking a little dialogue between the fishermen and the curer about a
herring-fishing engagement as the best mode of giving an idea of the
language and pronunciation of the Buckie bodies:—
SCENE—_A Curer’s Office_. PRESENT—_The_ CURER _and the three_ “SHAVIES.”
_Curer_—Well, Shavie, ye’ve had a pretty good fishing this year.
_Shavie senior_—Ou ay, it’s been geyan gweed.
_Shavie tertius_—Fat did ye say, man? gweed—it’s nae been better than
last.
_Curer_—Well, laddie, what was wrong with last year’s fishing?
_Bowed Shavie_—Weel awat, man, it was naething till brag o’, an’ fat’s
mair, I lost my beets at it; ye’ll be gaun till gie’s a new pair neist
fishin’.
_Shavie senior_—Ay, that was whan he _k_-nockit his _k_-nee again the
boat-shore and brak his cweet.
_Curer_—Well, but lads, what about next fishing?
_Shavie senior_—Ou, is’t neist fishin’ ye’re wantin’ till speak o’?
_Curer_—Yes; will you engage?
_Shavie junior_—Fat are ye gaun till offer?
_Curer_—Same as last.
_Bowed Shavie_—Fat d’ye say, man?
_Curer_—Fourteen shillings a cran and fifteen pound bounty.
_Shavie senior_—Na, na, Maister Cowie; that winna dee ava, man.
_Bowed Shavie_—We can get mair nor that at Fitehills.
_Shavie junior_—I’ll be fuppit, lathie, if I dinna hae mair siller an’
mair boonty tee.
_Curer_—Well, make me an offer.
_Shavie senior_—Ou ay, man; we’ll tak’ saxteen shillin’ the cran an’ a
boonty o’ twunty pound, an’ a pickle cutch, an’ a drappie whisky; an’
that’s ower little siller.
_Curer_—Well, I suppose I must give it.
_Bowed Shavie_—Gie’s oor five shillin’ then, an we’re fixed wi’ you an’
clear o’ a’ ither body.
And so, on the payment of these five shillings by way of arles, the
bargain is settled, and the men engaged for the next herring-season.
As will be inferred from these details, the fisher-folk, as a body,
are not literary or intellectual. They have few books, and many of
them never look at a newspaper. It is not surprising, therefore, that
only one author has arisen among the fisher-people—Thomas Mathers,
fisherman, St. Monance, Fifeshire. We have had many poets from the
mechanic class, and even the colliers from the deep caverns of the
earth have begun to sing. Mathers’ volume is entitled, _Musings in
Verse by Sea and Shore_. The following lines will at once explain the
author’s ambition and exhibit his style:—
“I crave not the harp o’ a Burns sae strong,
Nor the lyre o’ a sweet Tannahill;
For those are the poets unrivalled in song,
Can melt every heart, and inspire every tongue,
Frae the prince to the peasant, at will.
“To weep wi’ the wretched, the hapless to mourn,
To glow wi’ the guid and the brave;
To cheer the lone pilgrim, faint and forlorn,
Wi’ breathin’s that kindle and language that burn,
Is the wealth and the world I would crave.”
The British fisher-people as a class are very sober and industrious,
and they are becoming more intelligent, and, it is to be presumed,
less superstitious. The children in the fishing villages are being
educated; and in time, when they grow to man’s and woman’s estate,
they will no doubt influence the fisheries for the better. Many of the
seniors are now teetotal, and while at the herring-fishing prefer tea
to whisky. The homes of some of the fisher-folks, on the Berwickshire
and Northumberland coasts, are clean and tidy, and the proprietors seem
to be in possession of a great abundance of good cheer.
It is, no doubt, considered by some to be an easy way to wealth to
prosecute the herring or white fisheries, and secure a harvest grown
on a farm where there is no rent payable, the seed of which is sown
in bountiful plenty by nature, which requires no manure to force it
to maturity, and no wages for its cultivation. But it is not all gold
that glitters. There are risks of life and property connected with
the fishery which are unknown to the industries that are followed on
the land. There are times, as I have just been endeavouring to show,
when there is weeping and wailing along the shore. The days are not
always suffused in sunshine, nor is the sea always calm. The boats go
out in the peaceful afternoon, and the sun, gilding their brown sails,
may sink in golden beauty in its western home of rosy-hued clouds;
but anon the wind will freshen, and the storm rise apace. The black
speck on the distant horizon, unheeded at first, soon grows into a
series of fast-flying clouds; and the wind, which a little ago was
but a mere capful, soon begins to rage and roar, the waves are tossed
into a wilder and wilder velocity, and in a few hours a great storm is
agitating the bosom of the wondrous deep. The fishermen become alarmed;
hasty preparations are made to return, nets are hauled on board, sails
are set and dashed about by the pitiless winds, forcing the boats to
seek the nearest haven. Soon the hurricane bursts in relentless fury;
the fleet of fishing-boats toss wildly on the maddening waves; gloomy
clouds spread like a pall over the scene; while on the coast the waters
break with ravening fury, and many a strong-built boat is dashed to
atoms on the iron rocks in the sight of those who are powerless to aid,
and many a gallant soul spent in death, within a span of the firm-set
earth. Morning, so eagerly prayed for by the disconsolate ones who
have all the long and miserable night been watching from the land,
at length slowly dawns, and reveals a shore covered with fragments
of wood and clothes, which too surely indicate the disasters of the
night. The _débris_ of boats and nets lie scattered on the rocks and
boulders, dumb talebearers that bring sorrow and chill penury to many
a household. Anxious children and gaunt women—
“Wives and mithers maist despairin’”—
with questioning eyes, rush wildly about the shore, piercing with
their frightened looks the hidden secrets of the subsiding waters; and
here and there a manly form, grim and stark and cold, cold in the icy
embrace of death, his pale brow bound with wreaths of matted seaweed,
gives silent token of the majesty of the storm.