THE UNLUCKY P-I-G
Writing about pigs that swim, a friend sends me a cutting from the Berwick Journal describing the adventures of a pig that fell into the river at Tweedmouth—it died from shock and did not cut its throat with its forefeet--and remarks that the word tpig' is hyphenated throughout the account, appearing as P-IG. 'You will know,' he says, 'that fishermen often have a superstition about the word and here the writer is playing upon it. I do not know if fishermen in the north-east are still as suspicious of the word as they used to be, but I have heard it said that at one time if they even saw a pig when on the way to their boats to fish they would turn back and not put out. I know that there are still Holy Islanders who will not even write the word.' The superstition was one of which I had not heard, but I was told once that some fishermen have the same feeling about the word 'rabbit.' There will be no catch if the word is used afloat. I was amused, for it seemed an unlikely word to crop up until one thinks of the hours spent drifting or baiting lines and the topics of conversation that must then arise.
Previous page
