Our viands

There is a very curious old custom described by Tennant in his * Tour in Scotland/ in which a kind of custard was used as a propitiatory offering to animal gods or totems. ' A number of herdsmen at a certain season would form a square trench, leaving the turf in the middle. They next lighted a fire and cooked a dish composed of eggs, butter, oatmeal, and milk. They had also oatmeal cakes on which they raised nine square knobs. The ceremonies then began by spilling, as a libation, some of the dish prepared with eggs and milk. Each of the knobs on the cakes was dedicated to some particular being, the supposed protector of their flocks and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them. Each person, turning his face to the fire, broke off a knob from his cake, and flinging.it over his shoulder, said, "This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses ; " " This I give to thee, preserve DAIR Y PRODUCE 129 thou my sheep," and so on. After this they used the same ceremony to the noxious animals, saying, " This I give to thee, O fox, spare thou my lambs;" " This I give to thee, O hooded crow;" "This to thee, O eagle," etc., etc.'* A similar custom existed also in the Isle of Man, and probably in many other parts, for these old superstitions prevailed everywhere among dwellers in the country, having come down from very ancient pre-historic times when animals were looked upon as supernatural beings or ancestors, and were assumed as totems, having power to protect those who thus placed themselves under their care. * Archceological Review, June 1888. CHAPTER X FISH FISH, which is at once the most common of food and the most difficult to procure, has been esteemed by almost all peoples in all ages. Nevertheless, some tribes, even at the present day, reject fish altogether, whilst the Jews, in accordance with the law of Moses, abhor all fish destitute of fins or scales. There are few sights more charming than that of a fleet of fishing-boats putting off to sea, or returning after a successful cruise, and in watching them we are apt to forget the perils which these l Toilers of the Sea ' must encounter in search of our table luxuries. No wonder that in boisterous weather, as the old Scotch song has it, ' Wives and mithers, 'maist despairing ca' them lives of men.' Yet along our coasts thousands of men, women, and children get their daily bread by various industries connected with the extensive fisheries, always a most important branch of commerce among seafaring peoples. There is first the making and repairing of nets, the work mostly of women and children, although fishermen are also adepts in the mysteries of netting — an art handed down to us from the remotest ages, and practised by the most ignorant of savages, although requiring considerable skill. Nets, however, are now largely 130 FISH 131 made by machinery. Then there is the manufacture of fish hooks of various kinds — from the harpoon for the gigantic whale to the delicate hook, with artificial fly attached, for the capture of the wary trout. The making of these artifi- cial flies is an art requiring great skill, and the kinds made are innumerable, and many of them extremely natural and beautiful ; but the South Sea islanders take almost as much pains with their fish-hooks, which are attached to a piece of highly-polished shell, to attract and dazzle the fish.