Note 458 — Chapter XIII · AUSONIUS—SALMO, SALAR AND FARIO—FIRST MENTION OF THE PIKE

The value of the herring (Clupea harengus) was unknown to the Greeks and Romans, and so remained generally till the Middle Ages. “Ignorance, presumably of the real nature of the Cetaceans betrayed our forefathers into breaking Lent, for under the impression that the whale, porpoise, and seal were fish, they ate them on fast days. High prices, moreover, were paid for such meats, and porpoise pudding was a dish of State as late as the sixteenth century” (P. Robinson, Fisheries Exhibition Literature, Pt. III. p. 42). Some laxity may, I think, be pardoned, for the very name “porpoise” (in Guernsey pourpeis)—derived apparently from porc-peis (porcum + piscem)—implies that the creature was regarded as a “pig-fish.”