38 FISHES OF FANCY. 



disbursements up to the ei^d of the i6th century were her- 

 rings, " red and white," to the poor on Maundy Thursday. 

 Those who, in pious observance of Christian ordinances, 

 thus charged themselves with phosphorus were, let us 

 hope, not aware that they were simply perpetuating the 

 worship of Venus. Friday, again, is the dies Veneris, 

 and fish, her own symbol, is therefore appropriate food 

 for the day. The poisson (TAvril is the survival of the 

 old Spring offering to Aphrodite, under whose auspices 

 the constellation of the Fishes was then in ascendant 

 influence ; and through the interrogatories of the old Con- 

 fessional we can trace back some innocent, but significant, 

 customs of the English country folk of to-day to the 

 rites in honour of the goddess of Love, in the days when 

 the world was young. 



In connection with this pious fish-eating it is worth 

 noting that their error as to the true character of the ceta- 

 ceans betrayed our forefathers into breaking Lent, for under 

 the impression that the whale, porpoise, and seal were 

 fish, they ate them on fast-days. High prices, moreover, 

 were paid for such meats, and "porpoise pudding" was a 

 dish of state as late as the sixteenth century. 



In other aspects also the fish was eminently a Christian 

 symbol. It occurs frequently in the Roman catacombs, 

 bearing on its back a bowl with wine and covered with 

 wafers of bread ; and in many of the tombs are found small 

 fish in wood or ivory, while the simple figure of a fish on a 

 gravestone or monument was employed as an emblematic 

 acrostic * to point out to his co-religionists the burial-place 

 of a Christian without betraying the fact to their pagan 

 persecutors. It has been imagined that the pointed oval 



* I-ch-th-u-s being the initial letters of the Greek words for Jesus — 

 Christ — of God — Son — Saviour. 



