Art: The Herring Fishers Pursued by the Bhodry-More

This month’s cover is once again from the archives of the British Library. It is an internal illustration from a series of books called The Casquet of Literature, edited by Charles Gibbon and Mary Elizabeth Christie and first published in 1888. There were six volumes in all, and it is not clear which book this illustration came from.

The artist is George Percy Jacomb-Hood. A variety of artists were used for the illustrations.

The book set is subtitled: Being a Selection in Poetry and Prose from the Works of the Most Admired Authors. That included Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lord Byron and Robert Burns. The British Library doesn’t explain which story the illustration belongs to, but I believe it is “A Night at the Herring Fishing” by Scottish author, Hugh Miller, which you can read here.

I assumed that the Bhodry-More is a genuine piece of Scottish folklore, but I knew nothing more about it. So I talked to my friend Meg Hyland who is doing a PhD in Edinburgh on the songs of women in the Scottish herring industry. You would have thought that someone would have made a song about this terrible beastie. But Meg had not heard of it either, nor has she been able to find any references to it other than Miller’s story. Right now we are leaning towards the conclusion that Miller made the whole thing up, but if we find out more I will let you know.

As usual, a larger and unadorned version of the art is available below.