‘You’ve missed the tide, my beauty!’
It seems that he had been so busy tallivating himself up, touching himself up red in places, that he forgot how time went. When he found that the herring had been chosen, he twisted up his mouth on one side, and says he:
‘An’ what am I goin’ to be then?’
‘Take that,’ says Scarrag the Skate, and he ups with his tail and gives the Fluke a slap on his mouth that knocked his mouth crooked on him. And so it has been ever since.
And, maybe, it’s because the Herring is King of the Sea that he has so much honour among men. Even the deemsters, when they take their oath, say: ‘I will execute justice as indifferently as the herring’s backbone doth lie in the midst of the fish.’
And the Manx people will not burn the herring’s bones in the fire, in case the herring should feel it. It is to be remembered, too, that the best herring in the world are caught in this place off the Shoulder, where the fish held their big meeting, and that is because it is not very far from Manannan’s enchanted island.
THE SILVER CUP
There was once a man living in the south of the island whose name was Colcheragh. He was a farmer, and he had poultry on his street, sheep on the mountain, and cattle in the meadow land alongside the river.
His cows were the best cows in the parish. Nowhere could you see such a fine head of cattle as he had; they were the pride of his heart, and they served him well with milk and butter.