HERRING. 103 



And this reward the ferryman, regards as of high value — 

 "Thou talk'st like a Lord of wealth and power." 



The Herrings must have hcen carried with him as food, as he 

 actually gives them on the spot to the giant ferryman. 



In Blount's "History of Strange Tenures of Land," we are 

 told that in the charter of the town of Yarmouth, which town 

 has ever hcen famous for its share in the Herring fishery, the 

 corporation are required to send a hundred Herrings, baked 

 in twenty-four pasties, to the Sheriffs of Norwich, who were to 

 deliver them to the Lord of the Manor of East Carlton. And 

 at the same time Eustace de Carme and others, who probably 

 were the same Sheriffs, are said to have held thirty acres of 

 land by the service of carrying to the king, wherever he should 

 happen to be in England, twenty-four pasties of fresh Herrings 

 at their first coming in. But in still more ancient times they 

 formed an important source of income; for Sir Henry Ellis 

 informs us in his Introduction to Domesday Book, that Hugh 

 de Montfort's manors in Suffolk yielded numerous rents of 

 Herrings; and the manor of Beccles, in that county, in the 

 time of King Edward the Confessor, yielded thirty thousand 

 Herrings to the Abbey of Saint Edmond, and in the days of 

 the first William this number was increased to sixty thousand. 

 But the Abbey of Saint Edmondsbury was not so fortunate; 

 since in the fourteenth year of Edward the First, the expen- 

 diture of the monks in the fast of Lent for Herrings was 

 £25., when the yearly expenditure of the kitchen for food in 

 general, including other fish, was £520., and a fat ox was 

 purchased for four shillings. 



That we may not further extend this reference to ancient 

 customs, we come down to Tusser, who says — 



Let Lent, well kept, offend not thee, 

 For March and April breeders be; 

 Spend Herring first, save salt-fish last, 

 For salt-fish is good when Lent is past. 



The most usual manner of fishing for Herrings docs not differ 

 greatly from that already described, as employed in the open 

 sea for Pilchards; but the meshes of these drift-nets are a 

 little larger; the distance being allowed of an inch and a quarter 



