fishwife

Alloa-born artist David Allan created drawings of ordinary people going about their daily lives in Edinburgh, including soldiers, coalmen, fishwives, sedan chair porters, firemen and officers of the city guard.

“I’m not a very loyal fishwife,” she tells Lu when they meet, then proves it.

In addition to Brecht’s typical didacticism, there is a haunting passage for a fishwife whose son died in one of Lucullus’s campaigns.

There is nothing sentimental in the depiction of fishwives in several paintings, and “Wreck of the Iron Crown” illustrates the dangers of the harsh environment in which fishermen strove for a living and drowned.

Mrs. van D. wheeled around and gave me a tongue-lashing: hard, Germanic, mean and vulgar, exactly like some fat, red-faced fishwife.