Siel vendoit & achatoit.
He took the sturgiun and the qual,
And the turbut, and lax withal,
He tok the sele, and the hwel, &c.
The list of fish here enumerated may be increased from l. 896, and presents us with a sufficiently accurate notion of the different species eaten in the 13th century. Each of the names will be considered separately in the Glossary, and it is only intended here to make a few remarks on those, which in the present day appear rather strangely to have found a place on the tables of our ancestors. The sturgeon is well known to have been esteemed a dainty, both in England and France, and specially appropriated to the King’s service, but that the whale, the seal, and the porpoise should have been rendered palatable, excites our astonishment. Yet that the whale was caught for that purpose, appears not only from the present passage, but also from the Fabliau intitled Bataille de Charnage et de Caresme, written probably about the same period, and printed by Barbazan. It is confirmed, as we learn from Le Grand, by the French writers; and even Rabelais, near three centuries later, enumerates the whale among the dishes eaten by the Gastrolatres. In the list of fish also published by Le Grand from a MS. of the 13th century, and which corresponds remarkably with the names in the Romance, we meet with the Baleigne. See Vie Privée des François, T. II. sect. 8.
Among the articles at Archbishop Nevil’s Feast, 6 Edw. IV., we find, Porposes and Seales XII. and at that of Archbishop Warham, held in 1504, is an item: De Seales & Porposs. prec. in gross XXVI. s. VIII. d. Champier asserts that the Seal was eaten at the Court of Francis I., so that the taste of the two nations seems at this period to have been nearly the same. For the courses of fish in England during the 14th and 15th centuries, see Pegge’s Form of Cury, and Warner’s Antiquitates Culinariæ, to which we may add MS. Sloane, 1986. [Cf. Babees Book, &c., ed. Furnivall, 1868, p. 153.]
[[784.] For setes we should probably read seten or sette, which would be as good a rime as many others. The scribe has probably made the rime more perfect than the sense. It must mean, “In the sea were they oft set.” We cannot here suppose setes = set es = set them.]
[839.] And seyde, Hauelok, dere sone. In the French, Grim sends Havelok away for quite a different reason, viz. because he does not understand fishing.
[903.] The kok stod, &c. Comp. the Fr. l. 242.