The River Tweed is one of Scotland’s most famous salmon rivers – but as Antoine says in The Trail of Blood “where salmon gather, so do villains.” I wanted to use poaching as a storyline because it was such a serious crime back then (it still occurs today, but thankfully the death sentence no longer applies for repeat offenders).
Back then, as now, the criminals organised themselves in gangs and set off in distinctive flat-bottomed boats called cobles. But whereas the modern criminals use nets, their predecessors used a technique known as “burning the water”. As the river bailiffs explain to Antoine in the book, this involved burning tar-soaked rags to bring the fish to the surface, then spearing them with great five-pronged forks known as leisters. These were attached to ropes, so the catch could be hauled in afterwards.
These days, salmon is something of a rare treat but back in the 1500s, the fish was a regular fixture in the diet, as there were so many non-meat days in the calendar. There are even reports of people feeding it to their pigs, which you wouldn’t try with your Gravadlax from Waitrose…
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