58 THE HERRING IN HISTORY 



inhabitants of the Hebrides as living on fish and 

 milk, and ignorant of the cultivation of grain : — 



" Hebrides quinque numero, quarum incolae 

 nesciunt fruges, piscibus tantum et lacte vivunt." 



SoLiN., "Polyh." c. 25, ed. Paris, 1503. 



The Dutch came to Scotland in the year 

 836 to buy salted fish of the Scottish fishermen, 

 whether herring or not is uncertain, although 

 several writers on the herring fishery assume 

 this statement to prove the earliest date for 

 herring fishing in British waters, Swinden, 

 however, in his " History and Antiquities of 

 Great Yarmouth " thinks that the herring 

 fishing started at Yarmouth soon after the 

 landing of Cedric the Saxon in 495. He states 

 that the Church of Saint Rennet's was built by 

 Felix, the Bishop of the East Angles, in 647, 

 on the Greenhill, " and a Godly man placed 

 in it to pray for the health and success of the 

 fishermen," and that men came to fish at Great 

 Yarmouth in the herring season. A second 

 church dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the patron 

 saint of fishermen, was afterwards built in the 

 same place. In 709 mention is made of the 

 herring fishery in the Chronicle of the Monas- 

 tery of Evesham. 



It is stated in the Saga of St. Olaf, dated 

 about the year 980, that Seigurd Sur enabled 

 his bondmen to buy their freedom by lending 

 them what was necessary for the fishing of 

 herring. About the same time, also, a herring 



