ANCIENT AND MODERN ANECDOTES 17 



good many years ago ; and trolling with a dead gorge, and 

 live-baiting more or less after the fashion of to-day, were 

 the methods most in vogue. Dame Juliana Berners, who 

 wrote the first book on angling that was ever penned, 

 gives some very queer and amusing instructions in the art 

 of catching pike ; here is an extract in the original spell- 

 ing : 



" Take a codlynge hoke, and take a roche or a fresh 

 heeryng, and a wyre with an hole in the ende, and put it in 

 at the mouth, and out at the taylle, down by the ridge of 

 the fresshe herryng ; and thenne put the hoke in after, 

 and drawe the hoke into the cheke of the freshe heeryng ; 

 then put a plumbe of lead upon your lyne a yarde longe 

 from your hoke, and a flote in mid waye betwene ; and 

 caste it in a pytte where the pyke usyeth, and this is the 

 best and moost surest crafte of takynge the pyke. Another 

 manere of takynge him there is ; take a frosshe (frog) 

 and put it on your hoke, at the necke, betwene the skynne 

 and the body, on the backe half, and put on a flote a yerde 

 therefro, and cast it where the pyke hauntyth, and ye shall 

 have hym. Another manere ; take the same bayte, and 

 put it in assafetida, and caste it in the water wyth a corde 

 and a corke, and ye shall not fayl of him." And then 

 again that good dame instructeth : " And if ye lyst to 

 have a good sporte, thenne tye the corde to a gose fote, 

 and ye shall have a gode halyngne, whether the gose or the 

 pyke shall have the better." 



This sort of sport, as recommended in such quaint 

 fashion, of tying a baited hook to the leg of a goose, seems 

 to have been a fashionable pastime, and highly popular in 

 former times ; for another old writer tells us that : 



" The principal sport to take a pike is to take a goose or 

 a gander, or a duck ; take one of the pike lines, tie the line 

 under the left wing, and over the right wing, about the 

 body, as a man weareth his belt ; turn the goose off into 

 the lake where the pikes are ; there is no doubt of sport, 

 with great pleasure, betwixt the goose and the pike ; it is 

 c 



