"Here's to the devil, with his wooden spade and shovel,
Digging tin by the bushel, with his tail cocked up,"
And on the signboard of a public-house in West Cornwall a few years ago (and probably still) might be read—
"Come all good Cornish boys[1] walk in.
Here's brandy, rum, and shrub, and gin;
You can't do less than drink success
To copper, fish, and tin."
Miners believe that mundic (iron pyrites) being applied to a wound immediately cures it; of which they are so sure that they use no other remedy than washing it in the water that runs through the mundic ore.—A Complete History of Cornwall, 1730.
It is an easy transition from mines to fish, the next staple industry of Cornwall, and to the superstitions of its fishermen and sailors. Fish is a word in West Cornwall applied more particularly to pilchards (pelchurs). They frequent our coasts in the autumn.
"When the com is in the shock,
Then the fish are on the rock."
And if on a close foggy day in that season you ask the question,—"Do you think it will rain?" the answer often is—"No! it is only het (heat) and pelchurs," that sort of weather being favourable for catching them.
"A good year for fleas is a good year for fish," the proverb says; and when eating one the flesh must not be always taken off the bone from the tail to the head. To eat them from head to tail is unlucky and would soon drive the fish from the shore. There are many other wise sayings about pilchards; but I will only give one more couplet, which declares that—
"They are food, money, and light,
All in one night."[2]
Should pilchards when in bulk[3] make a squeaking noise, they are crying for more, and another shoal will quickly be in the bay.
