58 INTRODUCTION 



For century after century the fishermen of the Isles have 

 handed down oraUy to generation after generation the Gaelic 

 prayer with which they set out to sea.^ 



" I will cast down my hook : 

 The first fish which I bring up 

 In the name of Christ, King of the Elements, 

 The poor man shall have for his need : 

 And the King of the Fishers, the brave Peter, 

 He will after it give me his blessing. 

 Columba, tender in every distress. 

 And Mary fair, the endowed of grace. 

 Encompass ye us to the fishing bank of ocean. 

 And still ye to us the crest of the waves ! " 



The rarity — I have not met its mention — and curious 

 nature of a volume published at Frankfort in 1611, even if 

 more than a century after The Boke of St. Albans, compels 

 some reference. 



Conjecturce HalieuticcB by Raphael Eglinus consists of a 

 long dissertation based on the strange markings of three 

 fishes (pictured on its title-page), two caught in Scandinavia 

 on the same day, November 21, 1587, and the third in 

 Pomerania on May 21, 1596. These markings, supposedly 

 chronological, provide their author with a basis for various 

 prophecies and warnings of the evils to come in Central Europe, 

 especially in Germany. 



As neither text nor type peculiarly tempt to perusal, I 

 have not found it easy to disentangle the disasters or allot to 

 each country its individual woe. Deductions from Daniel, 

 the patriarch Joseph, and of course the Apocalypse enable 

 Eglinus to establish definitely to his own satisfaction the 

 future advent, in one or other of the Central Kingdoms, of 

 Antichrist. 



Nor, again, is it easy to gather whether a time-limit is set 

 for his appearance, or whether the prophecies apply to 

 twentieth-century events, Alas ! also, the data do not 

 enable me with certainty from the very promising entries from 

 Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria to single out the precise 



^ Alexander Carmichael. Carmina Gcelica (Edinburgh, 1900), vol. i. p. 325. 



