OHKONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HERRING-FISHEKY. 131 



■writers on the herring-fishery assume this statement as 

 proving the early period of the herring-fishery. 



In the absence of any immediate authority of so 

 early a date as to Scotland, we have analogous data as 

 to the herring-fishery in England, — namely, at G-reat 

 Yarmouth. Swinden, in his " History and Antiquities 

 of Great Yarmouth,"* supposes that the herring-fishery 

 commenced there soon after the landing of Cedric the 

 Saxon, in 495 ; and states that the Church of St 

 Bennet was built upon the Greenhill, " and a godly man 

 placed in it, to pray for the health and success of the 

 fishermen that came to figh at Yarmouth in the herring 

 season," and that it was supposed to have been built by 

 Felix I., Bishop of the East Angles, in 647, and that 

 afterwards a church, dedicated to St Nicholas, the patron 

 of fishermen, was built upon the Greenhill ; and that 

 valuable antiquarian work " Doomsday Book " (a survey of 

 England made in the twentieth year of the reign of William 

 the Conqueror, in 1086) mentions Yarmouth as contain- 

 ing seventy burgesses, and notices Garteston, an adjacent 

 place, as having " 'three salt pans," and twenty-four fisher- 

 men in Yarmouth belonging to this village. 



And Laing, in his valuable book on Norway, quoting 

 from the " Saga of St Olav," written about the tenth cen- 

 tury, says that Sigurd Sir enabled his " troelle " (slaves, 

 thralls, or bondsmen) to purchase their freedom by lending 

 them what was necessary for the fishing of herrings, f 



The following extract from Olaf Tryggveson's " Saga " 

 also proves that, previous to his time, the Norwegians were 

 engaged in the herring fishery, — namely, near the end 

 of Hakon Adelsteensfostre's reign, about the year 952 : — 



* Swinden. pp. 8, 10, 12, 13, 16, 20. f Laing's Norway, p. 370. 



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