RKGARD TO THE FRESH-WATER FISHERIES OF NORFOLK. 441 
old boat pulled up into a side dyke, and there he spends the night, 
listening for passing craft, in order to he at hand to lower his nets 
for their passage. Towards morning he raises his nets, and, if 
fortunate, may be rewarded by twenty, thirty, or even more, stone 
of Eels. Fabulous catches are on record j but, as his outfit will 
cost something like thh’ty pounds, and the labour is considerable, 
he generally earns all he gets. In the day-time the “ ])ods ” may 
be seen stretched out on the shore to dry, and, not untrequently, 
the fisherman also, seated at work making good any wear and 
tear or damage they may have received. 
Manship, in a manuscript history of Great Yarmouth written in 
IGIS), and published with continuations in 1854 by the late 
C. J. Palmer of Great Yarmouth, gives a list of those eel-sets and 
a great deal of curious information about them ; but a still more 
particular account of the customs connected with them will bo 
found in Swinden’s History of Great Yarmouth (1772), from which 
what follows is condensed. On the “sixte day of Mayo the 
XVllI yeare of our reigne, 1576,” Queen Elizabeth writes to “our 
trustie and welbelovod the bailiffes, burgeses and comynaltie of 
our towne, burghe, and libertie of Greatc Yarmouth in the Countye 
of Norfolke,” asking that “certen fishinge groundes and places 
called si'tfeti, to the number of XXXV named and specified in a 
schedule herein inclosed ” which had been let “ time out of mynde ” 
to very small profit, might be leased for a term of thirty years to one 
John Everest, “one of the ordynarye yeoman of our chamber,” and 
at that time the water bailiff of Yarmouth. This the town agreed 
to do, but failing, on account apparently of the ill health of the 
town clerk, to execute the lease before the time came round for 
the renewal of the licenses annually granted to the tenants of the 
eel-sets, the Pastous, a powerful family having large possessions 
along the river, declared that the corporation of Yarmouth had 
forfeited their rights over the river, and instigated the men to take 
possession of the eel-sets as usual. The Yarmouth authorities 
therefore lodged a “ complaint,” in which they recited the facts of 
the case from their own point of view, explaining the customs 
which had hitherto prevailed of the bailiffs of that town granting 
the right of fishing in the follo^ving terms : — “ In which said ry vers, 
there be used two kyndes of fishinge ; the oune for flote fyshes, 
and alwayes bathe byiine used in common for all fyshermen there 
