To Make a Hero by Randall Garrett

Human beings are notoriously rapid breeders. Give a group of men and women a chance, and, with plenty of room to spread, they will nearly triple their population in each generation. Many will die, if the circumstances are adverse, but many more will live. Thus, in spite of the depredations of the Plague, the population of Cardigan's Green when Hale landed was well over thirty thousand souls, scattered thinly across the rich farmland near the coast of the channel.

On the coast itself, near the edge of a rocky outcropping which sheltered a tiny harbor, was the fishing village of Taun. The colonists of Cardigan's Green had learned quickly enough which of the local fauna and flora were edible and which were not; it was a case of learn or die. Those sea denizens which could be eaten were in great demand, and commanded a fairly large price; those who were successful in catching them were affluent men of position in Taun.