Vicar of St Cuthbert’s Church in Norham, Reverend Rob Kelsey explains the origins of the River Tweed blessing ceremony. As part of the Tweed Stories project, oral historian, Harry Henderson recorded Rob in the church. Click on the video for more from Rob.
Years ago there was a lot of net fishing on the River Tweed. And from the Victorian era there was a ceremony of blessing the new salmon fishing season, which I think was at midnight on the 14th of February. That ceremony died when the net fishing finished. When I came to Norham in 2010, Jim Blythe a local angler, was very keen to promote community events. He suggested that we revive the ceremony, but for line fishing rather than net fishing because it’s all line fishing on the River Tweed now. So that’s what we did. We took the original order of service and tweaked it a little bit to make it appropriate for line fishing. But it’s pretty much the same, including what’s called the Pedal Prayer. Because the ceremony takes place at the Pedal Landing, which is just down from Norham. There was a fishing shiel there and that’s where the blessing took place.
Now it’s the on the 1st of February unless it’s a Sunday, in which case it happens the next day on the Monday, because you’re not meant to fish on a Sunday.
Part of the ceremony involves the casting of the first line. Somebody is chosen from the local angling society to cast a line on the river for the first time. The tradition is if he catches a fish, then that goes to the vicar. But it’s never happened in all my time and I suspect it never does. These days, of course, you have to put the fish back.
