Worlebury

In Notes and Queries (I. ix. 536) I find, "On the highest mound of the hill over Weston-super-Mare, is a heap of stones to which every fisherman in his daily walk to Sand Bay, Kewstoke, contributes one towards his day's good fishing."

The same superstition is mentioned by Mr. Jackson in his "Visitor's Handbook to Weston": he gives the name of the mound as Peak Winnard.

On asking an old inhabitant of Worle if he knew the custom referred to, he replied that many a time he had thrown his stone upon the heap on his way from Worle down to the fishery at Birn-beck. Every one, he said, threw a stone, saying as he did so, "Pickwinna," (or rather) "Peek weena,
Send me a deesh of feesh for my deener."

Alas! the sprats have now forsaken Weston Bay and the sprat fishery seems likely to become a thing of the past. Had my old informant been alive he would, I doubt not, have ascribed their departure to the neglect of the due observance of Pickwinna.