YossSteady as she goes.
She's a washThere's a washout (hole) here.
Double poleTwo people poling: (starboard poler sets pace and starts call).
Tie-upAny tie made to shore or boat; (2)
a metal tie-ring for mooring.
Night-tieMooring fore and side for stability.
Full-tieSame procedure as night-tie.
Jury-tieA quick tie to one point.
HofOff! Back away!
HawStop! hold it!
Get aslant ofTake objection to; blockade; oppose
Ne(neh) (1) Now. (2) Wait.
Ney(nay) No.
Yey(Expresses agreement, consent ac knowledges an order or request).
Yey and haw(lit. yes and stop) Give yey and haw: tell someone what to do.
Not know hin from hey(lit. not know turn-signal from collison-warning) Varies according to application: (1) of a canaler: he's stupid; (2) of a landsman: he's ignorant.
Merovan Sea Life
The Merovan oceans cover a great portion of the globe and abound with life both bathic and free-swimming. Some of the creatures are legendary, such as the many-armed Kra-ken, alleged to inhabit the deeps of the Sundance. Others are merely rare, such as the seaflower, which spreads jelly-like polychrome veils over a good three meters of surface.
Certain areas such as the Falken Isles and the Wold Sea and the Black Sea support major fishing industries.
The Det estuary is heavily reliant on fish but does not export much in the way of fish products. Known in Merovingen are, of sea fish caught by Merovingian coasters:
The whitetail: a slender, silver fish with a notable white streamer flowing from its topmost tail fin: delicate of flavor, rare, and expensive. Rarely tops five kilos in weight.
The silverbit. a prolific breeder and common foodfish with a rich, oily flavor. About a handspan in length and caught by trawling in great abundance.
The sailfin: a green to silver cartilaginous-skeletoned fish two to three meters in length, caught by hook. The meat is flavorful but has a toxin requiring care in the preparation.
The sea eel: as the name implies, an eel-like creature with impressive teeth, brown to black in color, edible, but difficult to take. Top size is two meters, top weight 13 kilos.
The whale: a slender-bodied, large mammal with a catlike face and numerous teeth. General color is ink black. It is forbidden to hunt this creature, which occurs primarily in antarctic waters, but in some seasons ventures to the equator. It is predatory toward other sea mammals and fishes. It is not known to attack humans. Top size, reported 100 meters. Weight unknown.
The sherk: a quick-moving, primitive fish known to travel in schools. Up to 15 meters long, but most specimans are from two to five meters, and a known hazard to fishermen. The sherk will attack anything less than its own size. Its general color is green to black. The meat is palatable if heavily seasoned.
Estuary
An estuary fish travels freely between salt and fresh water. The Det River has a wide variety of such fish perhaps due to the complex nature of its estuary, which ranges from still, almost stagnant shallows, to deep harbor.
Notable are:
The freshwater eel: brown to black and about a meter or less in length, flourishing in the worst water. A food staple among the poor.
The razorfin: a voracious, spiny, needle-toothed fish needing careful handling. Top weight is 5 kilos. It is lively on the line and a destroyer of nets. A good food fish with a white, delicate meat.
The yellowbelly: a mild toxin in the fins and a painful bite makes this fish another difficult one to handle. Sometimes taken in nets, it tops 10 kilos and provides a bland if pleasant meat.
The prickleback: bony, with a good assortment of spiny fins which lay fiat until grasped. A fat, toothless bottom-feeder of about 3 to 6 kilos, excellent food fish if properly filleted.
The fathead: a big bottomfeeder with a conspicuous fleshy prominence above the eyes, toothless but voracious and omnivorous. It may top 30 kilos and tends out to sea past its first few years, where it grows above 100 kilos in weight.
The redfin: named for its beautiful red-orange tail and dorsal fins, this small fish (about two handspans in length at maximum) is an excellent but troublesome foodfish. Its bite is notoriously painful.
The deathangel: most beautiful of estuary fish, with trailing fins of black on a yellow and silver body, the deathangel is aptly named. The three banner-spines and the ventral spine carry a toxin so lethal and so long-lasting that the dried spine of a deathangel can kill a victim weeks afterward, if the poison sac at the ventral side of the spine is intact. If the spines and the internal glands are removed, the deathangel, about a kilo of platter-shaped fish, is delicious and mildly intoxicating, though overindulgence can lead to toxic reaction. In a few sensitive individuals this reaction comes much sooner, and one fatality from the meat alone has been recorded in Merovingen.
Merovingian Music
Music on Merovin has the same roots as language, [see Language] both ethnic and popular. It is also influenced by the spacer-chanteys, which are both ethnic and varied, and which are a ship's living history.
Some songs survived the Scouring; others are hero ballads out of the Scouring and the Re-establishment [QV] which relate tales of the resistance and the rebuilding.
There are love songs and a rich and varied liturgical music; marches and work-songs and working sea-chanteys and popular dirties which come and go by fashion, many of which are disguisedly political.
Principle instruments are: the horn, a brass, lip-modulated instrument of increasingly complex shapes and tones.
The drum: drummers are a popular holiday street entertainment; and drums also signal executions and solemn occasion.
The gitar: a stringed, long-necked instrument
The sither: another variety of gitar but much larger, having drone-strings and a round sounding-chamber: this instrument is Merovan in origin, by extensive modification of a Terran instrument. Common in the Chattalen, and known in the north and in Nevander, it plays often in accompaniment to drums and chimes.
The harp: a vertical stringed instrument of ancient origins, reproduced on Merovin in imitation of traditional description.
Chimes: all sorts of bells.