2 ANGLING. 



flows into the Rhine on the northern frontier of the country. The 

 old chroniclers and scholastic writers often mention the piscatory 

 art; and the Church, then in full power, took the subject of fish 

 generally under its own guidance, and regulated both the sport in 

 taking them, and the using of them for food. In every country in 

 Europe, where any degree of progress had .been made in learning 

 and civilization during the middle ages, we find numerous traces of 

 fishermen and their labours, even long before the art of printing 

 became known and practised. 



It is now an established fact, admitted by all writers, that the 

 English nation has been, from the earliest days of its history, the 

 most distinguished and zealous propagators of the art of rod- 

 fishing. And it is interesting to remark, in passing, that the 

 historical memorials we possess, of the state of the angling art 

 among the Anglo-Saxon tribes who first settled in this country, 

 throw a great light on the origin of this striking predilection for 

 the sport. The Anglo-Saxons, we are told, ate various kinds of 

 fish, but the eel was a decided favourite. They used these fish as 

 abundantly as swine. Grants and charters are sometimes regulated 

 by payments made in these fish. Pour thousand eels were a yearly 

 present from the monks of Ramsay to those of Peterborough. 

 We read of two places purchased for twenty-one pounds, wherein 

 sixteen thousand of these fish were caught every year ; and, in one 

 charter, twenty fishermen are stated, who furnished, during the 

 same period, sixty thousand eels to the monastery. Eel dykes are 

 often mentioned in the boundaries of their lands.* 



In the dialogues of Elfric, composed for the use of the Anglo- 

 Saxon youth in the learning of the Latin tongue, we find frequent 

 mention made of fishermen, and matters relating to their craft. 

 In one dialogue the fisherman is asked, "What gettest thou by 

 thine art ? " " Big loaves, clothing, and money." " How do you 

 take them ? " "I ascend a ship, and cast my net into the river ; I 

 also throw in a hook, a bait, and a rod." " Suppose the fishes are 

 unclean?" "I throw the unclean out, and take the clean for 

 food." " Where do you sell your fish ? " "In the city." " Who 

 buys them?" "The citizens; I cannot take so many as I can 

 sell." " What fishes do you take ? " " Eels, haddocks, minnows, 

 and eel-pouts, skate, and lampreys, and whatever swims in the 

 rivers." " Why do you not fish in the sea ? " " Sometimes I do ; 

 but rarely, because a great ship is necessary here."t 



The historian Bede tells us, that Wilfrid rescued the people of 

 Sussex from famine in the eighth century, by teaching them to 

 catch fish : " for though the sea and their rivers abounded with 

 fish, they had no more skill in the art than to take eels. The 

 servants of Wilfrid threw into the sea nets made out of those by 

 which they had obtained eels, and thus directed them to a new 

 source of plenty."* 



* Dugdale's Monas., p. 2M. 

 t Turner's Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii. p. 23. J Bede, lib. 4. 



