The AFU and Urban Legend Archive
Misc
 boring salmon




From: Lizz Holmans <dillo@jackalope.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: A salmon's a salmon for a' that.
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 21:20:57 +0100

Thanks to Charles Dimmick giving me some very good pointers, I found an early reference to the 'servant-salmon' problem.

In 1724 a book was printed, part of a trilogy about travelling in the UK, written by one John Macky. I reproduce the title page in toto:

A JOURNEY THROUGH SCOTLAND

The familiar letters from a Gentleman Here to his Friend Abroad

Being the Third Volume, which completes Great Britain

By the Author of The Journey thro' England

London:
Printed for J. Pemberton, at the Buck and Sun, and J. Hooker, at the Flower-de-Luxe, both against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet street.

MDCC XXIIL

(now this is the relevant stuff)

Page 119

The other diversions of Aberdeen-Shire is called the Buchan, which gives the title of the Earl to an ancient branch of the Name of Erskin, and the present Earl is one of the Sixteen Peers of the British Parliament. There is neither fine architecture nor Gardening in this large Shire, but an abundance of Good Chear and good Neighborhood, and the City of Aberdeen furnishes them with good Wine, and all other Foreign Comestibles: The Rivers Dee and Don afford Salmon in the greatest plenty that can be imagined, to that degree, that in some of the Summer Months the Servants won't eat them but twice a Week, they are so fat and fulsome...

(Then he goes into the breeding cycle of the salmon, which while fascinating, isn't really the point we're trying to make, I expect)

I left out the italics and the funny 's', as there seemed no right way to type it in without making it unreadable. Otherwise the spelling and capitalization is as in the original.

Charles and I believe that this is the earliest cite for the story that salmon/oysters/whatever is refused by servants as being 'too common.' We therefore offer it to the AFU Documentation Project.

Charles did the finding, and I did the footwork.

Lizz 'fat and fulsome' Holmans


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