Water World as Another Home for the English Nation Reflected in the English Folklore

great loss of life. Some of the trouble was attributed to the story of a

riveter and his boy who were said to have been accidentally sealed to the

famous double hull. Unexplained knockings were heard at various times but

although searches were made, nothing was found. When the vessel was broken

up at New Ferry, Cheshire, in 1888 it was rumoured that two sceletons were

discovered, their bony fingers still clenched round the worn – down hammers

which had beaten in vain for rescue.

The “Victoria” was commissioned on Good Friday, the thirteenth of the

month – and if this were not ill-luck enough, the fact that her name ended

in ‘a’ was considered another bad sign. In 1893 she sank with heavy losses

after a collision during the manoeuvres in the Mediterranean off Beirut,

and interestingly, various things happened which indicated calamity: two

hours earlier a fakir had actually predicted disaster, and at the time of

the collision crowds had gathered at the dockyards gates in Malta, drawn by

an instinctive apprehension of impending doom. At the same time during

lunch at a Weymouth torpedo works the stem of a wine glass had suddenly

cracked with a loud retort; and in London’s Eaton Square the ship’s Admiral

Tryon was seen coming down the stairs at his home. He was in fact aboard

the “Victoria”, where he survived the impact but made no effort to save

himself. As he sank beneath the waves he is said to have lamented: “It was

all my fault” – and so it was, for he had given the incorrect order which

led to the collision.

Generations after her loss the “Titanic” is still a byword for

hubris. In 1912 the “unsinkable ship” struck an iceberg on her maiden

voyage and went down with 1 500 passengers and crew. Again, a variety if

omens anticipated the disaster: a steward’s badge came to pieces as his

wife stitched it to his cap, and a picture fell from the wall in a stoker’s

home; then aboard the ship a signal halliard parted as it was used to

acknowledge the ‘bon voyage’ signal from the Head of Old Kinsale lighthouse

– and the day before the collision rats were seen scurrying aft, away from

the point of impact. After the calamity Captain Smith, who went down with

the ship, is rumoured to have been seen ashore.

One cause of the “Titanic” disaster is said to have been an unlucky

Egyptian mummy case. This is the lid of an inner coffin with the

representation of the head and upper body of an unknown lady of about 1000

bc. Ill-fortune certainly seemed to travel with the lid – first of all the

man who bought it from the finder had an arm shattered by an accidental gun

shot. He sold, but the purchaser was soon afterwards the recipient of the

bad news, learning that he was bankrupt and that he had a fatal disease.

The new owner, an English lady, placed the coffin lid in her drawing –

room: next morning she found everything there smashed. She moved it

upstairs and the same thing happened, so she also sold it. When this

purchaser had the lid photographed, a leering, diabolical face was seen in

the print. And when it was eventually presented to the British Museum,

members of staff began to contract mysterious ailments – one even died. It

was sold yet again to an American, who arranged to take it home with him on

the “Titanic”. After the catastrophe he managed to bribe the sailors to

allow him to take it into a lifeboat, and it did reach America. Later he

sold it to a Canadian, who in 1941 decided to ship it back to England; the

vessel taking it, “Empress of Ireland” , sank in the river St Lawrence. So

runs the story, but in reality the coffin lid did not leave the British

Museum after being presented in 1889.

The former prime minister, Edward Heath, in his book “Sailing” (1975)

revealed that he too had experienced the warnings of ill omen. At the

launch of the “Morning Cloud 1” the bottle twice refused to break, and at

the same ceremony for the “Morning Cloud 111” the wife of a crew member

fell and suffered severe concussion. This yacht was later wrecked off the

South coast with the loss of two lives, and in the very same gale the

“Morning Cloud 1” was blown from the moorings on the island of Jersey, and

also wrecked. Meanwhile, the Morning Cloud 11” had been launched without

incident and was leading a trouble free life with the Australian to whom

she had been sold.

As recently as December 1987 a strange case came to light as a result

of a Department of Health and Social Security enquiry into why members of a

Bridlington trawler crew were spending so much time unemployed. In

explanation, Derek Gates, skipper of the “Pickering”, said that putting to

sea had become impossible: on board lights would flicker on and off; cabins

stayed freezing cold even when the heating was on maximum; a coastguard

confirmed that the ship’s steering repeatedly turned her in erratic circles

and in addition, the radar kept failing and the engine broke down

regularly. One of the crewmen reported seeing a spectral, cloth-capped

figure roaming the deck, and a former skipper, Michael Laws, told how he

repeatedly sensed someone in the bunk above his, though it was always

empty. He added: “ My three months on the Pickering” were the worst in

seventeen years at sea. I didn’t earn a penny because things were always

going wrong”.

The DHSS decided that the men’s fears were a genuine reason for

claiming unemployment benefit, and the vicar of Bridlington, the Rev. Tom

Wilis, was called in to conduct a ceremony of exorcism. He checked the

ship’s history, and concluded that the disturbances might be connected with

the ghost of a deckhand who had been washed overboard when the trawler,

then registered as the “Family Crest”, was fishing off Ireland. He

sprinkled water from stem to stern, led prayers, and called on the spirit

of the dead to depart. His intervention proved effective because the

problems ceased, and furthermore the crew began to earn bonuses for good

catches.

SAILORS’ LUCK

Sailors used to be very superstitious – maybe they still are – and

greatly concerned to avoid ill-luck, both ashore and afloat. Wives must

remember that “Wash upon sailing day, and you will wash your man away”,

and must also be careful to smash any eggshells before they dispose of

them, to prevent their being used by evil spirits as craft in which to put

to sea and cause storms.

Luck was brought by:

- tattoos

- a gold ear-ring worn in the left ear

- a piece of coal carried

- a coin thrown over the ship’s bow when leaving port

- a feather from a wren killed on St. Stephen’s Day

- a caul

- a hot cross bun or a piece of bread baked on a Good Friday

The last three all preserved from drowning. David Copperfield’s caul

was advertised for sale in the newspapers “for the low price of fifteen

guineas”, and the woman from the port of Lymington in Hampshire offered one

in “The Daily Express” as recently as 23 August 1904. One Grimsby man born

with the caul has kept it to this day. When he joined the Royal Navy during

World War 11 his mother insisted that he take the caul with him. Various

other sailors offered him up to L20 – a large sum for those days – if he

would part with it, but he declined.

For over two hundred years now a bun has been added every Good Friday

to a collection preserved at the Widow’s Son Tavern, Bromley – by –Bow,

London. The name and the custom derive from an eighteenth – century widow

who hoped that her missing sailor son would eventually come home safely if

she continued to save a bun every Easter. Some seamen had their own version

of this, and would touch their sweetheart’s bun (pudenda) for luck before

sailing.

Other things had to be avoided because they brought ill-luck.

For example:

- meeting a pig, a priest or a woman on the way to one’s ship

- having a priest or a woman aboard

- saying the words: pig, priest, rabbit, fox, weasel, hare

- dropping a bucket overboard

- leaving a hatch cover upside down

- leaving a broom, a mop or a squeegee with the head upwards

- spitting in the sea

- whistling

- handing anything down a companionway

- sailing on a Friday

- finding a drowned body in the trawl (in the case of Yorkshire

fisherman)

Although many of these beliefs are obscure in origin, others can be

explained.

For example, the pig had the devil’s mark on his feet – cloven hoofs –

and was a bringer of storms; furthermore the drowning of the Gadarene swine

was a dangerous precedent. Then the priest was associated with funerals,

and so taking him aboard was perhaps too blatant a challenge to the malign

powers – if he were to be designated in conversation he was always “The

gentleman in black”. The pig was curly tail, or in Scotland “cauld iron

beastie” since if it were inadvertently mentioned the speaker and hearers

had to touch cold iron to avoid evil consequences; if no cold iron were

available, the studs to one’s boots would do. The other four animals were

taboo because they were thought to be the shapes assumed by witches who

were notorious for summoning storms.

Perhaps women were also shunned because they were considered potential

witches, although a good way to make a storm abate was for a woman to

expose her naked body to the elements. Bare - breasted figure – heads

were designed to achieve the same result. Nevertheless, during HMS “Durban”

’s South American tour in the 1930s the captain allowed his wife to take

passage on the ship. Before the tour was halfway through there were two

accidental deaths on board, besides a series of mishaps, and feeling

amongst the crew began to run high. At one port of call a group of men

returning to the ship on a liberty boat were freely discussing the run of

bad luck, attributing it to “having that bloody woman on board”. They did

not realize that the captain was separated from them by only a thin

bulkhead and had overheard the whole conversation. But instead of taking

disciplinary action, he put his wife ashore the next day; she travelled by

land to other ports, and the ship’s luck immediately changed for the

better.

Fridays were anathema – “Friday sail, Friday fail” was the saying –

since the temtation of Adam, the banishment from the Garden of Eden, and

the crucifixion of Christ had all taken place on a Friday. One old story,

probably apocryphal, tells of a royal navy ship called HMS “Friday” which

was launched, first sailed and then lost on a Friday; moreover her captain

was also called Friday. Oddly enough, a ship of this name does appear in

the admiralty records in 1919, but the story was in circulation some fifty

years earlier. This fear of Friday dies hard. A certain Paul Sibellas,

seaman, was aboard the “Port Invercargill” in the 1960s when on one

occasion she was ready to sail for home from New Zealand at 10pm on Friday

the thirteenth. The skipper, however, delayed his departure until midnight

had passed and Saturday the fourteenth had arrived.

Whistling is preferably avoided because it can conjure up a wind,

which might be acceptable aboard a becalmed sailing ship, but not

otherwise. Another way of getting a wind was to stick a knife in the mast

with its handle pointing in the direction from which a blow was required –

this was done on the “Dreadnaught” in 1869, in jury rig after being

dismasted off Cape Horn.

In 1588 Francis Drake is said to have met the devil and various

wizards to whistle up tempests to disrupt the Spanish Armada. The spot near

Plymouth were they gathered is now called Devil’s Point. He is also said to

have whittled a stick, of which the pieces became fireships as they fell

into the sea; and his house at Buckland Abbey was apparently built with

unaccountable speed, thanks to the devil’s help. Drake’s drum is preserved

in the house and is believed to beat of its own accord when the country

faces danger.

DENIZENS OF THE DEEP

With the mirror and comb, her ling hair, bare breasts and fish tail,

the mermaid is instantly recognisable, but nowadays only as an amusing

convention. However, she once inspired real fear as well as fascination and

sailors firmly believed she gave warning of tempest of calamity.

As recently as seventy years ago, Sandy Gunn, a Cape Wrath shepherd,

claimed he saw a mermaid on a spur of rock at Sandwood Bay. Other coastal

dwellers also recall such encounters, even naming various landmarks. In

Corwall there are several tales invilving mermaids: at Patstow the harbour

entrance is all but blocked by the Doom Bar, a sandbank put there by

mermaid, we are told, in relation for being fired at by a man of the town.

And the southern Cornish coast between the villages of Down Derry and Looe,

the former town of Seaton was overwhelmed by sand because it was cursed by

a mermaid injured by a sailor from the port.

Mermaid’s Rock near Lamorna Cove was the haunt of a mermaid who would

sing before a storm and then swim out to sea – her beauty was such that

young men would follow, never to reappear. At Zennor a mermaid was so

entranced by the singing of Matthew Trewella, the squire’s son, that she

persuaded him to follow her; he, too failed to to return, but his voice

could be heard from time to time, coming from beneath the waves. The little

church in which he sang on land has a fifteenth – century bench – end

carved with a mermaid and her looking – glass and comb.

On the other hand, mermaids could sometimes be helpful. Mermaid’s Rock

at Saundersfoot in Wales is so called because a mermaid was once stranded

there by the ebbing of the tide. She was returned to the sea by a passing

mussel – gatherer, and later came back to present him with a bag of gold

and silver as a reward. In the Mull of Kintyre a Mackenzie lad helped

another stranded mermaid who in return granted him his wish, that he cpuld

build unsinkable boats from which no man would ever be lost.

Sexual unions between humans and both sea people and seals are the

subject of many stories, and various families claim strange sea – borne

ancestry: for example the Mc Veagh clan of Sutherland traces its descent

from the alliance between a fisherman and a mermaid; on the Western island

of North Uist the McCodums have an ancestor who married a seal maiden; and

the familiar Welsh name of Morgan is sometimes held to mean “born of the

sea”, again pointing to the family tree which includes a mermaid or a

merman. Human wives dwelling at sea with mermen were allowed occasional

visits to the land, but they had to take care not to overstay – and if they

chanced to hear the benediction said in church they were never able to

rejoin their husbands.

Matthew Arnold’s poem “The Forsaken Merman” relates how one human wife

decides to desert her sea husband and children. There is also a Shetland

tale, this time concerning a sea wife married to a land husband:

On the island of Unst a man walking by the shore sees mermaids

and mermen dancing naked in the moonlight, the seal skins which they

have discarded lying on the sand. When they see the man, the dancers

snatch up the skins, become sea creatures again, and all plunge into

the waves – except one, for the man has taken hold of the skin. Its

owner is a mermaid of outstanding beauty. And she has to stay on the

shore. The man asks her to become his wife, and she accepts. He keeps

the skin and carefully hides it.

The marriage is successful, and the couple has several

children. Yet the woman is often drawn in the night to the seashore,

where she is heard conversing with a large seal in an unknown tongue.

Years pass. During the course of a game one of the children finds a

seal skin hidden in the cornstack. He mentions it to his mother, and

she takes it and returns to the sea. Her husband hears the news and

runs after her, arriving by the shore to be told by his wife: “

Farewell, and may all good attend you. I loved you very well when I

lived on earth, but I always loved my first husband more.”

As we know from David Thomson’s fine book “The People of the Sea”

(1984), such stories are still widely told in parts of Ireland and in

Scotland and may explain why sailors were reluctant to kill seals. There

was also a belief that seals embodied the souls of drowned mariners.

The friendly dolphin invariably brings good luck to seafarers, and has

even been known to guide them to the right direction. As recently as

January 1989 the newspapers reported that an Australian swimmer who had

been attacked and wounded by a shark was saved from death only by the

intervention of a group of dolphins which drove off the predator.

Also worthy of mention here is another benevolent helper of seamen

lost in open boats: a kindly ghost known as the pilot of the “Pinta”. When

all seems lost he will appear in the bows of the boat and insistently point

the way to safety.

Other denizens of the deep inspired fear and terror. The water horse

of Wales and the Isle of Man – the kelpie of Scotland – grazes by the side

of the sea or loch. If anyone is rash enough to get on him, he rushes into

the water and drowns the rider; furthermore his back can conveniently

lengthen to accommodate any number of people. There are several tales

believed of the water horse, for example, if he is harnessed to a plough he

drags it into the sea. If he falls in love with a woman he may take the

form of a man to court her – only if she recognises his true nature from

the tell-tale sand in his hair will she have a chance of escaping, and then

she must steal away while he sleeps. Legnd says that the water horse also

takes the shape of an old woman; in this guise he is put to bed with a bevy

of beautiful maidens, but kills them all by sucking their blood, save for

one who manages to run away. He pursues her but she jumps a running brook

which, water horse though he is, he dare not cross.

Still more terrible are the many sea monsters of which stories are

told. One played havoc with the fish of the Solway Firth until the people

planted a row of sharpened stakes on which it impaled itself. Another

serpent – like creature, the Stoor Worm, was so huge that its body curled

about the earth. It took up residence off northern Scotland and made it

known that a weekly delivery of seven virgins was required, otherwise the

towns and villages would be devastated. Soon it was the turn of the king’s

daughter to be sacrificed, but her father announced that he would give her

in anyone who would rid him of the worm. Assipattle, the dreamy seventh son

of a farmer, took up the challenge and put to sea in a small boat with an

iron pot containing a glowing peat; he sailed into the monster’s mouth,

then down into its inside – after searching for some time he found the

liver, cut a hole in it, and inserted the peat . The liver soon began to

burn fiercely, and the worm retched out Assipattle and his boat. Its death

throes shook the world: one of its teeth became the Orkney Islands, the

other Shetland; the falling tongue scooped out the Baltic Sea, and the

burning liver turned into the volcanosof Iceland. The king kept his

promise, and the triumphant Assipattle married his daughter.

Perhaps, the most famous of all water monsters is that of Loch Ness,

first mentioned in a life of St Columba written in 700 AD.

Some 150 years earlier one of the saint’s followers was apparently

swimming in the loch when the monster “suddenly swam up to the surface, and

with gaping mouth and with great roaring rushed towards the man”.

Fortunately, Columba was watching and ordered the monster to turnback: it

obeyed. The creature (or its successor) then lay dormant for some 1 300

years, for the next recorded sighting was in 1871.

However, during the last fifty years there have been frequent reports

and controversies. In1987 a painstaking and and expencive sonar scan of the

loch revealed a moving object of some 400 lb in weight which scientists

were unable to identify. Sir Peter Scott dubbed the monster “Nessiterras

Rhombopteryx”, after the diamond – shaped fin shown on a photograph taken

by some American visitors; the Monster Exhibition Centre at Drumnadrochit

on Loch Ness describes it as “The World’s Greatest Mystery”. Tourists from

all over the world flock to visit Loch Ness, monster and centre.

NAUTICAL CUSTOMS

The seas will always be potentially dangerous for those who choose to

sail them and most seafarers tried hard to avoid incurring the wrath of

Davy Jones – they once were sometimes reluctant even to save drowning

comrades lest they deprive the deep of a victim which would serve as a

propitiatory sacrifice though the dilemma could be resolved by throwing the

drowning man a rope or spar. This was a much less personal intervention

than actually landing a hand or diving in to help and therefore less risky.

Various shipboard ceremonies were observed and maintained religiously:

at Christmas a tree would be lashed to the top of the mast (the custom is

still followed, and on ships lacking a mast the tree is tied to the

railings on the highest deck). At midnight as New Year’s Eve becomes New

Year’s Day the ship’s bell is rung eight times for the old year and eight

times for the new – midnight on a ship is normally eight bells – the oldest

member of the crew giving the first eight rings, the youngest the second.

“Burying the Dead Horse” was a ceremony which was continued in

merchant ships until late in the nineteenth century, and kept up most

recently in vessels on the Australian run. The horse was a symbol for the

month’s pay advanced on shore (and usually spent before sailing); after

twenty-eight days at sea the advance was worked out. The horse’s body was

made from a barrel, its legs from hay, straw or shavings covered with

canvas, and the main and tail of hemp. The animal was hoisted to the main

yardarm and set on fire. It was allowed to blase for a short time and was

then cut loose and dropped into the sea. Musical accompaniment was provided

by the shanty “Poor Old Horse”:

Now he is dead and will die no more,

And we say so, for we know so.

It makes his ribs feel very sore,

Oh, poor old man.

He is gone and will go no more,

And we say so, for we know so.

So goodbye, old horse,

We say goodbye.

On sailing ships collective work at the capstan, windlass, pumps and

halliards was often accompanied by particular songs known as shanties.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries big, full-rigged

vessels were bringing cargoes of nitrate, guano and saltpetre to Britain to

South America ports. When a ship was loaded and ready to sail round Cape

Horn and home, the carpenter would make a large wooden cross to which red

and white lights were fixed in the shape of the constellation known as the

Southern Cross. As this was hoisted to the head of the mainmast, the crew

would sing the shanty “Hurrah, my boys, we’re homeward bound”, and then the

crew of every ship in harbour took turns to cheer the departing vessel.

Seafarers crossing the equator for the first time – and sometimes the

tropics of the polar circles – are often put through a sort of baptism or

initiation ceremony. The earliest recorded reference to such a ritual dates

back to 1529 on a French ship, but by the end of the following century

English vessels were involved in the same custom, which continues to this

day in both Royal Navy and merchant service.

One of the crew appears as Neptune, complete with crown, trident and

luxuriant beard; others represent Queen Amphitrite, a barber, a surgeon and

various nymphs and bears. Neptune holds court by the side of a large canvas

bath full of sea - water, and any on board who have not previously crossed

“the Line” are ceremonially shaved with huge wooden razors, then thoroughly

ducked. Finally, the victim is given a certificate which protects him from

the same ordeal on ane future occasion. Even passengers are put through a

modified form of the proceedings, though women are given a still softer

version of the treatment.

When a naval captain leaves his ship he can expect a ritual farewell.

Even Prince Charles was unable to escape when in 1976 he relinquished

command of the minesweeper, HMS “Bronington”; he was seized by white –

coated doctors (his officers), placed in a wheelchair and “invalided out”

to the cheers of his crew members who held up a banner inscribed: “Command

has aged me”.

Other marines departed in a less jovial manner. When a man died at sea

his body would be sewn into canvas, weighted, and committed to the deep.

The sailmaker was responsible for making the shroud, and would always put

the last stitch through the corpse’s nose, ensuring that there was no sign

of life and that the body remained attached to the weighted canvas. This

practise was followed at least until the 1960s, the sailmaker receiving a

bottle of rum for his work. Nowadays the bodies are seldom buried at sea

but are refrigerated and brought back to land. However, those consigning a

body in this way still receive the traditional bottle of rum for their

trouble.

CHAPTER 3

We have had a look at some samples of well and carefully preserved

British folklore that tells about the British “waterworld”. But a question

of our time no less important is whether the people with such an affection

for their land try to preserve it from the harm that may cause our age of

highly developed machines, ships, tunkers, etc.

Britain’s marine, coastal and inland waters are generally clean: some

95% of rivers, streams and canals are of good or fair quality, a much

higher figure than in most other European countries. However their

cleanliness cannot be taken for granted, and so continuing steps are being

taken to deal with remaining threats. Discharges to water from the most

potentially harmful processes are progressively becoming subject to

authorisation under IPC.

Government regulations for a new system of classifying water in

England and Wales came into force in May 1994. This system will provide the

basis for setting statutory water quality objectives (SWQO), initially on a

trial basis in a small number of catchment areas where their effectiveness

can be assessed. The objectives, which will be phased in gradually, will

specify for each individual stretch of water the standards that should be

reached and the target date for achieving them. The system of SWQOs will

provide the framework to set discharge consents. Once objectives are set,

the enterprises will be under a duty to ensure that they are met.

There have been important developments in controlling the sea disposal

of wastes in recent years. The incineration of wastes at sea was halted in

1990 and the dumping of industrial waste ended in 1992. In February 1994

the Government announced British acceptance of an internationally agreed

ban on the dumping of low- and intermediate – level wastes was already

banned. Britain had not in fact dumped any radioactive waste at sea for

some years preveously. Britain is committed to phasing out the dumping of

sewage sludge at sea by the end of 1998. Thereafter only dredged material

from ports, harbours and the like will routinely be approved for sea

disposal.

Proposals for decommissioning Britain’s 200 offshore installations are

decided on a case – by – case basis, looking for the best practicable

environmental option and observing very rigorous international agreements

and guidelines.

Farm Waste

Although not a major source of water pollution incidents, farms can

represent a problem. Many pollution incidents result from silage effluent

or slurry leaking and entering watercourses; undiluted farm slurry can be

up to 100 times, more polluting than raw domestic sewage. Regulations set

minimum construction standards for new or substantially altered farm waste

handling facilities. Farmers are required to improve existing installations

where there is a significant risk of pollution. The Ministry of

Agriculture, Fisheries and Food publishes a “Code of Good Agricultural

Practice for the Protection of Water”. This gives farmers guidance on,

among other things, the planning and management of the disposal of their

farm wastes. The Ministry also has L2 million research and development

programme to examine problems of farm waste and to minimise pollution.

Britain is a signatory to the 1992 North East Atlantic Convention,

which tackles pollution from land – based sources, offshore installations

and dumping. It also provides for monitoring and assessment of the quality

of water in the convention’s area. In order to minimise the environmental

effects of offshore oil and gas operations, special conditions designed to

protect the environment -–set in consultation with environmental interests

– are included in licences for oil and gas exploration.

Pollution from ships is controlled under international agreements,

which cover matters such as oil discharges and disposal of garbage. British

laws implementing such agreements are binding not only on all ships in

British waters, but also on British ships all over the world. The Marine

Pollution Control Unit (MPCU), part of the Coastguard Agency, is

responsible for dealing with spillage of oil or other substances from ships

in sea.

So great care is being taken to manage to preserve all that precious

that Britain has. Keeping the waters in a good conditions would help to

keep the traditions connected with it as well, and to pass them on to other

generations.

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