2 FLY FISHING FOE TROUT. 



there is no reason to doubt the truth of this, the 

 fact is interesting rather than important, and 

 for this reason. It had no influence on subse- 

 quent development : it stands by itself, and was 

 unknown until a modern writer quoted it as a 

 curiosity. And as such we can leave it. We 

 will merely give it a glance as we go by, this 

 river of Macedon, which no doubt existed and 

 no doubt held trout, for we have the best reason 

 for knowing that there were salmon in it The 

 true history of fly fishing starts with the 

 Treatise of Fishing with an Angle, attributed 

 to Dame Juliana Berners and printed in 1496 

 by Wynkyn de Worde, and is continuous to the 

 present day. But we cannot understand the 

 book or realise its measure and importance 

 without regard to the age in which it appeared, 

 and to the sporting literature out of which it 

 arose. 



England, rich though she is in books 

 describing the pursuit of game, drew almost 

 all that she knew from French origins. The 

 sporting literature of Europe during the Middle 

 Ages was almost exclusively French. If two 

 easily remembered dates are taken, the signing 

 of Magna Charta in 1215 and the battle of 

 Agincourt exactly two centuries later, that 

 period comprises everything that appeared upon 

 sport before the earliest book on fishing was 

 written. Now there were eight books of 

 importance written during those two centuries. 

 Of these five are entirely French, one other was 



