History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 178

fishing terms were adopted from Du., it is probable that meash (shortened to mesh)
and mash represent adoptions respectively of the M.Du. forms maesche and masche.
Mass (1641, S. Smith, Herring Buss Trade), a mesh; ad. Du. maas.
Lask (1864), a hook baited with a slice from the side of a mackerel; perhaps ad.
M.Du. lasche (Du. lasch), piece cut out, flap.
5. 5.
A few miscellaneous terms of fishing and the fish trade remain. Two of them refer to
the curing of fish.
Corved, ppl. adj. (1641, S. Smith, Herring Buss Trade), herrings in salt pickle for a few
days before they are to be made into red herrings; apparently the same as the M.Du.
korfharinck, mentioned under Corver (see p. 95), of which the exact sense is equally
obscure; a suggestion is that as tonharing is barrelled herring, korfharing may be
herring not barrelled, but brought ashore in baskets; corved would then be ‘put in a
corf or corves’.
Rowerback (1641, S. Smith, Herring Buss Trade), a trough in which herrings are
stirred amid salt; ad. Du. roerbak.
A term for an operation in catching fish is Balk (1603), to signify to fishing-boats the
direction taken by shoals of herring or pilchards as seen from heights overlooking the
sea, done at first by bawling or shouting, subsequently by signals; probably ad. Du.
balken, to bray, bawl, shout, cognate with OE. baelcan, to shout, which would itself
have given balch. The sb. Balker (1602) occurs a year earlier; a man who gives such
signals; from balk and -er.
A term which comes in from the large Dutch trade in the Middle Ages from the Rhine,
Holland, and Zeeland in dried and smoked eels is Palingman (1482), a man who
deals in eels; ad. Du. palingman, from paling, eel, and man.
A term of the fish trade is Bummaree (1707), a middleman in the fish trade at
Billingsgate; Bense says that this is probably a corruption of the earlier bummery (see.
p. 63), which according to the English Dialect Dictionary is London slang, and has also
the sense of usurer, while it occurs as a verb meaning ‘to buy up large quantities of
fish to sell retail’, and ‘to run up a score at a newly opened public house’.

Chapter VI
English and Low Dutch Intercourse through Whaling
6. 1.
THE first of the northern whale fisheries was off the coast of Greenland. As early as
1552 there is record of clashing there between the English and the Dutch, for in that
year the Dutch whalers were driven v