534 ON THE PRICE OF FISH. 



century of the mariner's compass, and ventured on the terrors 

 of the tempestuous Northern Ocean. Their courage was suc- 

 cessful. 



The names given to the different kinds of salt cod-fish 

 are very numerous. Besides cod, ling, and salt fish, we find 

 cheling or kelyng, lob fish, stock fish, Bednel fish, orgays, orkays, 

 organ (by which it appears is meant fish from the Orkneys or 

 Orcades), hard fish, fungiae (interpreted by the accounts to 

 mean cod or stock fish), hake, mulvell, dogdrave, haburdens or 

 aburden 1 (also interpreted to be identical with cheling and dog- 

 drave), green fish, mud fish, morucae, Scarborough fish, Cornish 

 fish, scrayes; Helmerden fish, Iceland fish, great, mean, or 

 middle, and least ling, tail, small and seal fish, but fish, made 

 fish, blote, old ling, staple, salsamenta, great Holland fish, 

 sawl fish (which I suspect to be a misspelling for salt fish); 

 Shetland fish, Salt Island fish, and Islandici, which are, I pre- 

 sume, the same as Iceland fish. Some of these names may 

 still exist in the trade. In the royal accounts (Wardrobe) the 

 whole are grouped under one name, Mores. 



The measures by which these kinds of fish are bought are 

 various. The commonest is by number, and then most fre- 

 quently by the hundred (<:), though less and larger quantities 

 are frequently found. They are also bought by the warp, 

 especially at Cambridge, and the couple or pair at the same 

 place. It seems that these two measures are identical. They 

 are also bought by the burden at Pershore and Netley Abbey. 

 Stock fish is also purchased for the navy by the last of 1000. 

 The use of the warp is continued nearly through the whole 

 period, though it is infrequent towards the conclusion, when 

 the hundred is by far the commonest measure. The cheapest 

 kind of salt fish is throughout stock fish, next hard fish and cod. 

 The dearest is ling, especially that described as orgas or organ 

 ling. But the price varies greatly from year to year, and even 

 in the same year, and it is obvious that each parcel of a hundred 



1 These fish are almost certainly cod from Aberdeen. See Macpherson's Annual, i. 

 436, note. 



