St. Wilfrid (born 634) on his return from Friesland, where fishing yielded the staple of food, met with such success in his mission to the South Saxons that he not only converted them, “with all the priests of the Idols,” but also—“which was a great relief unto them”—taught them the craft of fishing, of which, save eeling, they wotted naught. Collecting under the Saint’s order eel-nets where they could, the first adventurers _meritis sui patris Divina largitate adjuti_[112] enmeshed three hundred fishes, which they equally divided between the poor, the net-owners, and themselves. The Celtæ, with some exceptions such as the scomber-catching Celtiberi, eschewed fish, probably from religious prejudices, which owing to their adoration of the springs, rivers, and waters prevented the eating of their denizens. Whatever the cause, Dion Cassius expressly comments on the abstinence of the Caledonians, although their seas and rivers abounded with food.[113] In time the example of the clergy and the ordinance of fast days gradually overcame—save in the case of Eels, which still remain to the Highlander an abomination—their obstinate antipathy. Across St. George’s Channel the Irish two centuries ago “had little skill in catching fish.”[114] But when the Western Highlanders did go a-fishing, their prayers and promises—prompted by the same principle of gratitude being a sense of favours to come—echo the prayers and promises, _Dis mutatis_, of the _Anthologia Palatina_. The seas differ, but the gods precated are the same. If in the following verses you substitute for “Christ, King of the Elements” Poseidon, King of the Waters, for “brave Peter” ruseful Hermes, and for “Mary fair” Aphrodite, you have the tutelary deities of fishing. The spirit of the prayer and promise of the firstling remain unchanged. For century after century the fishermen of the Isles have handed down orally to generation after generation the Gaelic prayer with which they set out to sea.[115] “I will cast down my hook: The first fish which I bring up In the name of Christ, King of the Elements, The poor man shall have for his need: And the King of the Fishers, the brave Peter, He will after it give me his blessing. Columba, tender in every distress, And Mary fair, the endowed of grace, Encompass ye us to the fishing bank of ocean, And still ye to us the crest of the waves!” The rarity—I have not met its mention—and curious nature of a volume published at Frankfort in 1611, even if more than a century after _The Boke of St. Albans_, compels some reference.