Springfield Globe Republic

Fishermen Superstitious Regarding Swine

My father, an officer in the British service, was an enthusiastic amateur sea fisherman. It was he who taught me to catch mackerel with a trout rod and fly or rather with a white or gray feather tipped with scarlet and made in the form of a fish-not a fly. The good old gentleman was genial and garrulous, and nothing delighted him more than to converse with the rough but honest fishermen of the coast.

On one occasion, on the east shore of Fife-shire, Scotland-near Pittenweem, I think-a group of fishermen were seated on the beach lazily mending their nets at a distance of fifty yards or so from a boat that had been drawn up above high water mark. Two or three pigs were rooting for mussels at some further distance off.

Happening to point to the animals and making some remarks respecting those swine, my respected progenitor was astonished to see every man leap to his feet and with horror depicted on his face run at utmost speed and place his finger on a nail, or ringbolt or thole pin or other piece of iron of the boat, to break the spell. At the same time my amazed parent was solemnly warned never again to utter the word swine on the seacoast. If he should have occasion to mention the malign animals at all, he was to call them beasties.

Subsequent inquiry could only elicit a confused statement that the devil enters into swine (not beasties,) causing them to run down a steep place into the sea and spoil the fishing.-American Angler.