4/2 INTRODUCTORY 



Section III.— Superstitions Connected with 

 THE Herring. 



In Banffshire some two centuries ago, when 

 the herring fishing was unsuccessful, effigies 

 of men and women were burnt on suspicion of 

 their having caused a bhght on the fishing ; 

 and as late as 1855 it was recorded in the 

 Banff Journal that the herring fishery having 

 been very backward, some of the fishermen 

 of Buckie dressed a cooper in a flannel shirt 

 with bars stuck all over it, and wheeled him in 

 procession through the town in a hand barrow 

 to bring better luck. 



In Norfolk, according to Notes and Queries, 

 October 7th, 1865, a queer legend existed that 

 fleas and herrings came together. As an old 

 Cromer fisherman said, " Times is as you may 

 look in my shirt, and scarce see a flea, and then 

 there won't be but few herring. But when you 

 see my shirt alive with fleas, then there is 

 certain to be a good tidy lot of fish." It is also 

 a common belief that herrings desert their 

 ordinary haunts when the boats put out on the 

 Sabbath day. 



The fishermen of the Outer Hebrides object 

 to Sunday fishing on other than purely religious 

 grounds. They say rightly that men work 

 better for the week-end rest to body and mind, 

 and that if the herring are allowed to rest on 

 Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday morning, 

 they settle, by being left alone, take confidence. 



