THE SEINE NET

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 110, 11 May 1935, Page 31

THE SEINE NET

FISHING IN CORNWALL

MAINSTAY OF PEOPLE

As much as any other part of England West Cornwall is a victim of the guide-books. One of these works arrived recently whose author had evidently got as far as Newlyn. He was fairly correct in his patter about the fishing there. Then, as is inevitable, he went on to talk about Land's End and the strange village of Sennen that lies in its own bay round a corner of the coast. He added that it was said that until quite recently the; ancient business of fishing with a seine net was practised there. IJe could hardly believe it; in these day's of progress it could not possibly be true; but there the statement was.. It might surprise that writer to learn that so far from being an ancient and legendary object the great seine net, ■much the same as that used by St. Peter on the Lake of Galilee, is the chief support of every living soul in Sennen Cove, writes Mary Butts in the "Manchester; Guardian." There are other supports—individual fishing from boats, crabbing and crab-pot making, and,,of course,'in summer the visitors. But' the mainstay of : the place is,the net, nearly,two.hundred feet long, ' costing several . hundred pounds to buy and forty men to move, and ' round whose nature ' and use through the,' centuries a whole technique, a whole;ritual, and a state of mind haye'been evoked arid upon whose existence something more than the mere,physical life.of these men and their families depends. "'/...• "All spring,? autumn, and whiter the great1 fish'shoals nose their way round the coasts. Bass and pollock are there and the precious grey mullet— add'- sometimes in spring a fresh-run salmon- glorious from the sea, making its'; way. round 'to -the- Severn : or .the Wye or 'the,"Usk. It is a mystery to any "foreigner" how they know, -but down in;'the Cove in each.generation men are born with, an eye for, the ways of the fish in the. sea, for the subtle changes in sea-colour which mark the arrival of a shoal. They can tell what kind:. of fish1, they are; and but t 'of [ twelve thousand odd in an estimate of number, be no more than a hundred out; can tell, as weir by night as by day. ■ ■'■'■■ •■.-. ':.-■ ■' THE "HUEtJR. ','," • To these men is given the ancient name of "Htieur"; and it is their business, whenever the fish -are expected, to waUc{the; cliffs' night, and day. until within the great sweep of the bay (and the use of the;seine necessitates a wide stretch ■of .sand).J a- ; change invisible. to any eyes but' theirs .means that;- the! mackerel or the bass are in,' "\Vhenj the fish come they,*, come/. -by -: :the; thousand, timid as hares; as apt: to! scatter as a flock of starlings,- desperately quick of hearing, and fast to take' cover among the rocks where no net can reach. • Then ~it,is possible to see .what .is becoming, alas!* a rare-tiun'g,^'.primi-tives community : , in action.. -The men are silent, infinitely quick,/infinitely skilled." rThe Vwomen:': and ' children vanish indoors; (Until, lately/ not one woulddare > to. show. her face, least of -'all^cbmD^Tierh'fiair, until the fish- had - "broken - sand.") In the •boathouse- forty men are unwinding the vast net, which is carried to the shore and piled in the special broad-be,amed row boat, called the* mullet boat, and worked by a few men with oars, while the ;-est gather in line along the shore. Sbftty-and' "quickly; the- rowers-put out, ■and as they row .their eyes are not on the sea but inland to the top of the high cliff. For there, on the highest convenient pointi a rock worn smooth by centuries of ( fee"t- the Hueur stands, with a. great bunch of furze, directing them. Down at the tide edge the men ,are quiet, but a quarter of a mile back, high in air, the Hueur is howling like a' man possessed. "Heeval Heeva!" he cries, leaping up, throwing his body about, whirling his staff, signalling in a fury of gesticulation, .his head back, his eyes rolling, his feet dancing, 'his body swinging from the waist, the sweat pouring oil him, One has seen him, too, at night, with his staff in, flames, the sparks scattering," as ina'frerizy of passion he directs, strains, "magics" the boat into position. Meanwhile the men, passing 'along the outer edge of the shoal, with' exquisite judgment pay- out the net, laying it on the water so as to enfold the fish, until the whole is "shot" and the shoal enclosed within it. FILING THE CATCH. As soon as .the net is shot and drawn ;Up,; "breaking . sand," it js as though another Sennen 'has been -jjorn. The intimate operation carried out by three or four men in a,boat and a line of men who are not spectators but, in a final sense, participators in their act— an act which is a life act, a play of man seeking his bread out of deep waters, of "men against the sea"—is changed for a road of general activity, when wives, children, the very old, stray passers-by, and stray visitors rush out of doors and race one another across the sand. The Hueur, exhausted, is lying on the ground; practice varies, but for the quietest of bis craft the strain is intense. But everyone else in Sennen is down on the shore getting that catch up the beach. Then it is piled up; to each who has a share in the boats a pile. Until lately a pile was assigned to each widow or orphan also, but now the women, who usually have charge in Sennen of all finance, have traded this privilege for a free hand with the visitors in summer an'dthetakings from their particular indus- v try. It is piled on'the smooth rocks above high water, where for centuries the catch has been laid, .each pile mairked with a token,, a brask snuffbox; a bright pebble, so that each man may knoiv.'his' own!; The cjatch, -if taken iij the-morning,:is left! till the. afternoon; if later,- all ■ night; until, as soon as'may be,' the 'buyers; usually: from Newlyn, arrive; .arid a chosen fisherman; with extreme relish, imagery, and shrewdness, auctions each heap.