Besides the yard-lands there were belonging to each hamlet the numerous fisheries--_cytweras_ and _hæcweras_--some on the Severn and some on the Wye. What were these '_cyt_' and '_hæc_' weirs? They certainly were not the ancient dams or banks across the river which are now called 'weirs,' over which the tidal wave sweeps, thus-- 'Hushing half the babbling Wye.' It is impossible that there can have been so many of these as there were _cytweras_ and _hæcweras_ 900 [p152] years ago--as many as thirty together at Street, fourteen at Middletune, and twenty-one at Cingestune. The fact is that the old Saxon word _wera_ meant any structure for entrapping fish or aiding their capture. And no doubt arrangements which would not be called 'weirs' now were so called then. The words _cyt_ and _hæc_ weras seem to point rather to wattled basket and hedge weirs than to the solid structures now called weirs. But the best illustration of what they were may be derived from the arrangements now at work for catching salmon in the Wye and Severn. «Cytweras.» «Hæcweras.» The stranger who visits this locality will find here and there across the muddy shore of the Severn structures which at a distance look like breakwaters; but on nearer inspection he will find them to be built up of rows two or three deep of long tapering baskets arranged between upright stakes at regular distances. These baskets are called _putts_ or _butts_ or _kypes_, and are made of long rods wattled together by smaller ones, with a wide mouth, and gradually tapering almost to a point at the smaller or butt end. These _putts_ are placed in groups of six or nine between each pair of stakes, with their mouths set against the outrunning stream; and each group of them between its two stakes is called a 'puttcher.' The word 'puttcher' can hardly be other than a rapidly pronounced _putts weir_, _i.e._ a weir made of _putts_. If the baskets had been called 'cyts' instead of 'putts,' the group would be a _cytweir_. So, _e.g._, the thirty _cytweras_ at Street would represent a breakwater such as may be seen there now, consisting of as many puttchers. This use of what may be called basket weirs [p153] is peculiar to the Wye and the Severn, and has been adopted to meet the difficulty presented by the unusual volume and rapidity of the tidal current. [Illustration: Group of Puttchers on the Severn near Tedenham.] Then as to the _hæcweras_ there is nothing unusual in the use of barriers or fences of wattle, or, as it is still called, _hackle_, to produce an eddy, or to entrap the fish. Thus a statute (1 Geo. I. c. 18, s. 14) relating to the fisheries on the Severn and the Wye uses the following words: 'If any person shall make, 'erect, or set any bank, dam, _hedge_, stank, or net across the same,' &c.