Three ancient Polish accounts of the artificial bow tie

THREE OLD POLISH TALES ABOUT THE ARTIFICIAL FLY   

Józef Borusławski was born in 1739 in Halicz; he left Poland around 1780 and never returned. He settled permanently in Great Britain. Due to financial difficulties, in 1788 he published his memoirs (a bilingual edition in French and English). They were very well received, so they were republished in 1792, 1801, and 1820 (not counting the German edition). The 1820 edition was significantly expanded and contains several interesting passages about fish. Here, I would like to draw attention to the metaphor on p. 240: „I found this rod and artificial fly catch fish from the deepest rivers.” A literal translation reads: „I found that this rod and artificial fly catch fish from the deepest rivers.” This is currently the oldest record I know of regarding fly fishing written by a Pole. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the metaphor of „catching someone on a fishing rod” was very commonly used in Poland. Women seeking romantic adventures were particularly adept at this. However, I am not aware of any metaphor recorded in our literature that features the motif of an artificial fly as bait.   

Undoubtedly, Prince Borusławski knew what he was writing about. The question remains, however, whether he was an angler and whether he fished with artificial flies. The answer is not straightforward, since virtually all information about him is contained in his own diaries. So what do we know about him?    First, he was a dwarf (he was about one meter tall; exactly 3 feet and 3 inches). This suggests that, for practical reasons, he was unable to wade in rivers. He could, however, fish from the shore or a boat, but even that was not easy.   Second, in his 1820 memoirs, he included several passages about fish, particularly concerning the period before 1780 (see pp. 25 and 74; also 216 and 286), which were not present in earlier editions. This, in turn, indicates that he had already taken an interest in fish during his youth, and the omission of this information in earlier editions of the memoirs should rather be attributed to the Polish tendency to downplay the importance of fishing. Presumably, his stay in the British Isles, during which he frequently encountered the aristocracy engaging in fishing, encouraged him to include passages about fish in his memoirs. Of course, fly fishing was very fashionable in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century.    Thus, I believe that Borusławski must have had some exposure to fly fishing—perhaps even frequent—though likely mainly as an observer.

The second-oldest Polish account of an artificial fly was written by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz. From the numerous diaries he left behind, a picture emerges of him as a lover of fish and angling. He even went fishing himself. In his diary entry dated May 19, 1832 (p. 282), he recounted what happened to him on the River Avon in Great Britain: „After a modest dinner at home, consisting of mackerel and potatoes, I went to spend the evening with a learned mineralogist and chemist; I found him busy preparing fishing rods and lures for catching trout; these lures imitated yellowish worms, which trout are very fond of.” This brief passage suggests that Niemcewicz witnessed the preparation of equipment for fly-fishing for trout using an artificial fly imitating Mayflies. The mention that trout are eager for these lures suggests that either he witnessed a very successful fly-fishing catch or that he received a great deal of information from the English about the effectiveness of these lures. Either way, Niemcewicz was impressed by artificial flies, leaving future generations a delightful and invaluable testament to his interest in fish—a fact that, unfortunately, few people are aware of today.   Niemcewicz knew a thing or two about fly fishing for trout. In his poem „The Fish,” we read: Beside a clear stream A man, lost in thought, Sat on the green bank,  He pondered—but what? He himself did not seem to know. Seeing, however, the lovely weather, And having a fishing rod, he cast it into the water.  He watches the float, and waits, and waits, Nothing comes… night is already near, But finally something tugged at the hook, The line trembled, the float dipped.  Impatient, he pulled it in hastily, and saw that he had caught a small trout.  Taking it, he says: „Oh, poor creature, How can you possibly crave those vile worms And take the hook that flashes treacherously?” — „That’s why,” the fish replies,  „Because I am driven by an unbearable hunger, That truly, as they say, Is nothing but hunger, not greed, For I swear to you on my honesty, That for a whole day, I ate nothing but a tiny fly.»   Jerzy Komar pointed out to me that Niemcewicz dated the fable to July 5, 1811 (1820 edition). The «ugly» little bug may or may not refer to natural bait, since the text later mentions a «little fly.” I interpret the shiny hook as a spinner, but this will be discussed in more detail in the history of spinners in Poland.

  Antoni Górecki (1797–1861) was from the Vilnius region. Due to his active political involvement, he was persecuted, and in the spring of 1832, following the November Uprising, he went into exile in France. He likely never returned to Poland. He left behind a substantial body of poetry. In the poem *The Fishing Rod and the Net*, written in Paris in 1841, we find an intriguing passage: A pair of pike once darted away from a gill net:  „Mommy! What a pretty fly!” they said to their mother. „Don’t swim over there—it’s a fishing rod,” said their old mother, „If they catch you on the hook, it’ll be worse than a net.”   What did Gorecki mean by this “lovely fly”? In my opinion, this is a reference to an artificial fly. Three arguments support this: * In his poetic works, Gorecki relatively often used fishing motifs (among other things, pike appear five times, catfish once, tench once, fishing nets four times, fishing rods twice, and cast nets twice). This, in turn, suggests that the author had a good understanding of fishing matters.

A fly is bait on a fishing line. I find it hard to imagine using natural bait (a fly) to catch a pike. It could, however, be caught with an artificial fly, though it cannot be ruled out that Gorecki, for literary purposes, used a pike with bait typical for catching salmonids in his poem. * Artificial flies are indeed beautiful and inspire widespread admiration. It is possible that Gorecki encountered flies that made a strong impression on him.   Gorecki likely encountered fly fishing in France, which was already a popular pastime in that country at the time. However, we have no evidence that he fished himself.

The information provided by Borusławski, Niemcewicz, and Gorecki does not allow us to determine whether fly fishing was introduced (or rather reintroduced, since it had long been known in the Carpathians) to Poland by members of our intelligentsia and aristocracy residing in Western Europe. However, they fit very well into the picture of the numerous encounters Poles had with fly fishing during their travels abroad in the 17th–19th centuries, a topic that will be discussed in greater detail in a separate publication.

References: [Borusławski, J.] 1820. Memoirs of Count Borusławski. Durham. Gorecki, A. 1886. Writings. Vols. 1–2. Leipzig. Niemcewicz, J.U. 1820. Fables and Parables. Warsaw. Niemcewicz, J.U. 1876–1877. Diary of a Stay Abroad from July 21, 1831, to May 20, 1841. Vol. 1–2. Poznań.