OCTOPUS AND TOBACCO— LEISTERING i79 



" By those who curious have their art defined, 

 Four sorts of fishers are distinct assigned. 

 The first in Hooks dehght : here some prepare 

 The Angle's Taper Length, and Twisted hair. 

 Others the tougher threads of flax entwine, 

 But firmer hands sustain the sturdy Line. 

 A third prevails by more compendious ways, 

 While numerous Hooks one common Line displays." 

 We then pass to fishing by Nets, Mazy Wed, and Spears 

 or Tridents. A spirited passage, spoilt in the translation by 

 superfluous verbiage, sings of nocturnal fishing with spears 

 and an attracting light. The method probably obtained the 

 world over, certainly in China, Rome, and Greece, where 

 Plato {Soph., 220 D.) classes it under the heading TrvpwTiKy 

 next to Angling. In Scotland it prevailed extensively, if 

 illegally, as Burning the Water, or Leistering, a Norse term, 

 and practice which Thor himself did not disdain. A passage 

 from a lost comedy— TA^ Trident— pevh^L^s by Philippides, 

 shows a fisher armed with a three-pronged fork and horn- 

 lantern off a-Tunnying.i 



The lines ring as true to-day as when Oppian 2 penned them. 

 " Erected torches blaze around the Boat, 

 And dart their pitchy Rays . . . 

 Admiring shoals the gaudy flames surround, 

 And meet the triple spear's descending wound," 

 while if fishing were legally permitted only to those who came 

 up to his ideal of what an angler should be (III. 29-31), 

 " First be the Fisher's limbs compact and sound. 

 With solid flesh, and well braced sinews bound, 

 Let due proportion every part commend, 

 Nor Leanness shrink too much, or Fat distend," 



1 IV. 640. Cf. Oppian, cyneg.. 4, 140 ff. for a similar description. 



3 This method, originating from the curiosity of fish and their desire (in 

 Shelley's words) " to worship the delusive flame," is especially successful in rivers 

 at the spawning season. In the Rhodian Laws— a code for the government of 

 mariners and fishermen originally promulgated by Tiberius— occurs a special 

 proviso, re fishing by means of torches, forbidding fishermen to display lights 

 at sea, lest thereby they should deceive other vessels. It has been suggested, 

 prettily, but I fear not practically, that leistering was learnt from the hunting 

 habit and natural endowments of the Halcyon or Kingfisher ; just as to the 

 brilliancy of its colours and splendour of its flash the fish are attracted so 

 to the brightness of the torches and the shimmer of their rays come the 

 salmon, etc. 



