THE PIKE 



fright, mistaking for the head of a person whom he 

 had killed a pike's head on the table? 



Leland, it is true, states that a monster pike came 

 out of Huntingdonshire in the year 958, during the 

 reign of King Edgar, and it appears as a marketable 

 article, priced a little higher than the salmon, in the 

 time of Edward III. Yarrell seems to imagine that, 

 although pike existed, they were very rare in England, 

 though it is he who first began to point out that the 

 fish was held in good estimation in the latter part of 

 the thirteenth century, when the Edward above-named, 

 as the father of his good people, fixed the prices of 

 the different sorts of fish then brought to market, and 

 ranked the pike not only above salmon, but as being 

 ten times more valuable than the best turbot or cod. 

 It is Yarrell who calls Chaucer into the witness-box, 

 with his : 



Full many a fair patrich hadde he in mewe, 

 And many a Breme and many a Luce in stewe. 



An Act of the sixth year of Richard II. relative to 

 the fish of the market mentions the pike, and among 

 the annals is an account of the great feast given by 

 George Nevill, Archbishop of York, in the year 1466, 

 pike being one of the dishes served up. Yet the 

 species might have been fished out to some extent in 

 the reign of Henry VIII. , for the same authority tells 



