Sunday fishing and earthquakes? What do you think...

Money Up The River? - Couric & Co.

There was one particular sin which was thought to have had a great concern in bringing about the earthquake - namely, the salmon-fishing practised on the Dee on Sunday. Accordingly, the proprietors of the salmon-fishings were called before the session, and rebuked. ''Some,'' says the session record ''promist absolutely to forbear, both by himselfs and their servands in time coming; other promised to forbear, upon the condition of subseryvant; and some plainly refusit anyway to forbear." - Nov 8, 1608 "Domestic Annals of Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution" by Robert Chambers. 1874. In the footnote: "The fishing of salmon in the river Dee on Sunday was a custom of some antiquity, as it had been expressly warranted by a bull of Pope Nicholas V. in 1451. The privilege was limited to the Sundays of those five months of the year in which salmon most abound; and the first salmon taken each Sunday was to belong to the parish church. The bull recites that both by the canon and the common law, the right of prosecuting the herring-fishing on Sunday was conceded to all the faithful." ? p. 416 On Dec. 1, 1608, shortly thereafter it's cited women were seized as witches and burnt alive, "...albeit they perservered constant in their denial to the end..." in Broughton. Posted by georgejmyers at 03:42 PM : May 25, 2008