PLAN
The British are a most curious nation in many aspects. When a
tourist from
whatever continent comes to visit Britain the first conclusion he
arrives at is
how bizarre the people living there are. The main reason to their
uniqueness
will certainly lie on the surface: Great Britain is an island populated
by the
nation that had to grow up and go all the long way of its history alone
being
separated from the rest of the world by great amounts of water. This
very
characteristics turned them into not only a curious nation, but also an
interesting and special one, whose history and culture are one of the
richest
in the world. And the water surrounding the island played not a minor
part in
its forming. So the British people respect and cherish their
“watery” neighbour
who from the earliest stages of their history up to now gave them food,
drink,
work, power, respect of other nations, wealth and after all
entertainment. It
inspired a huge number of stories, tales, poems, superstitions and
prejudices
and it has always been worshipped by the people.
The studies of the British culture and therefore understanding
of the
national character of the English cannot stand apart from the research
of its
important product – folklore. By culture we mean the result
of the social
activity of people. Every new generation historically brings its piece
into the
whole process of the development of culture of this or that nation; so
culture
collects the values expressed through different means: literature,
architecture, music, sculpture, traditions, cuisine, etc. Cultural
development
of the nation is essential for the development of every person
belonging to it,
because his understanding and percepting of the world is formed
according to
the society he grows up in and is influenced by the norms and values of
this
society.
Arts in general are always meant to bring beauty into the life
of people and
educate them through it, make them better, kinder and wiser. National
folklore
is no exception in this sense. Even if it very often does not have a
human
being as the central figure it still bring forward ethical questions,
studies
human soul, its moral qualities. Accepting this aspect presupposes that
we
realize the educational side of the folkloric characters and understand
what
their creators wanted to tell us, or warn about, or what kind of an
ideal they
meant to form up. However, each folkloric hero or character is a
mixture of a
number of different qualities and its nature is not always clear and
easy to
interpreter. Therefore the aim and the meaning of a character should be
searched for in just one side of its complicated semantics.
So the aim of this work is to make a research in the part of a
rich field of
the British folklore concerning British water world through the means
of songs,
poems, stories, legends, fears, superstitions, tales. With the help of
this
material we shall study the changes and development of the English
character,
language, history and culture.
CHAPTER 1
The field of the country’s economy
connected with water was always a
great concern for those who ruled it for they naturally attached much
importance to it. From the times when the English society was being
born and
only beginning to take shape kings already would interest themselves in
the
conditions of trading across the sea. In the eleventh century Cnut on a
pilgrimage to Rome took the opportunity of obtaining from the Emperor
and other
rulers he met there greater security and reduction of talls for his
subjects,
traders and others, travelling in their lands. Already in the eighth
century an
English merchant called Botta was settled at Marceilles, perhaps as an
agent
for collecting goods to be sold in England. The Viking rades of the
late eighth
and ninth centuries disrupted trade on the Continent, but Englishmen
may well
have taken part in the Baltic trade opened up by this time. At least,
there is
no reason to deny English nationality to a certain Wulfstan who
described to
King Alfred a journey taken to the Frisches Haff; he has an English
name.
On the other hand, we hear of foreign traders in England from
early times.
Bede speaks of London as the “mart of many nations, resorting
to it by sea and
land” , and mentions the purchase of a captive by a Frisian
merchant in London.
But the strongest evidence for the amount of sea traffic in Frisian
hands is
the assumption of an Anglo-Saxon poet that a seaman is likely to have a
Frisian
wife:
Dear is the welcome guest to the Frisian woman when
the ship comes to
land. His ship is come and her husband, her own bread –
winner, is at home, and
she invites him in, washes his stained raiment and gives him new
clothes,
grants him on land what his love demands.
Men from other lands came also. At the end of the tenth
century a document
dealing with trade in London speaks of men from Rouen, Flanders,
Ponthieu,
Normandy, France; from about the same date comes a description of York
as the
resort of merchants from all quarters, especially Danes.
The merchants and seamen plied an honoured trade. The poets
speak with
appreciation of the seaman “who can boldly drive the ship
across the salt sea”
or “can steer the stem on the dark wave, knows the currents,
(being) the pilot
of the company over the wide ocean” , and it was at least a
current opinion in
the early eleventh century that the merchant who had crossed the sea
three
times at his own cost should be entitled to a thane’s rank.
The merchant in
Aelfric’s “Colloquy” stresses the dangers
of his lot:
I go on board my ship with my freight and row over
the regions of the
sea, and sell my goods and buy precious things which are not produced
in this
land, and I bring it hither to you with great danger over the sea, and
sometimes I suffer shipwreck with the loss of all my goods, barely
escaping
with my life.
As we see people working in the sea or over the
seas gained much
respect in the society and were loved by others. But so much for the
economical
aspect. The water, as we already mentioned earlier, was one of the
greatest
attractions as a source of entertainment.
Fishing, like hunting, was highly popular in England, but
these were
pleasures reserved for the nobility. In the twelfth century, when the
kings had
normally been so strong, they had claimed such oppressive fishing
– rights that
all the classes had united in protest. One of the demands of the rebels
in 1381
was that hunting and fishing should be common to all; not only was this
refused, but in 1390 Parliament enacted a penalty for one
year’s imprisonment
for everyone who should presume to keep hunting – dogs or use
ferrets or snares
to catch deer, rabbits, or any other game. Fishing and hunting, said
the
statute, was the sport for gentlefolk.
So this is a sketch or an outline of reasons explaining why
our ancestors
valued so much the rivers, lakes, seas of their land – and it
is worth
mentioning that their land abounds in all that – and why they
respected the
work of sailors, merchants or travellers. All this is important for the
understanding of how it was becoming an inseparable part of their
culture and
how it is reflected in their culture.
CHAPTER 2
What is folklore? Funk and Wagnall’s
“Standard Dictionary of Folklore,
Mythology and Legend” (1972) offers a staggering 22
definitions, running to
half a dozen pages. In recent years definitions have tended to be all
–
embracing in their simplicity: folklore is made up of “the
traditional stories,
customs and habits of a particular community or nation” says
the “Collins
Cobuild Dictionary” of 1987.
More specific definitions also abound; perhaps, folklore
should be
identified as the community’s commitment to maintaining
stories, customs and
habits purely for their own sake. (A perfect example of this would be
the
famous horse race at Siena in Italy: the p a l i o attracts many
thousands of
tourists, yet if not a single outsider attend, the people of the
community
would still support the event year after year) .
But what about those events or beliefs which have been
recently initiated or
which are sustained for reasons of commercial gain or tourism? Many
customs are
not as ancient as their participants may claim but it would be foolish
to
dismiss them as irrelevant. Some apparently ancient customs are, in
fact,
relatively modern, but does this mean they cannot be termed as
folklore? The
spectacular fire festival at Allendale, for instance, feels utterly
authentic
despite the fact that there is no record of the event prior to 1853.
There are
many other cases of new events or stories which have rapidly assumed
organic
growth and therefore deserve the status of being recognised as
folklore.
Any work covering the question of folklore must be selective,
but here we
shall attempt to explore and celebrate the variety and vigour of
Britain’s
folklore concerning “waterworld” traditions,
beliefs and superstitions. A wide
geographical area is covered: England, Scotland and Wales with some
reference
to Ireland and other territories.
Entire books – indeed, whole libraries of books
– have been written on every
aspect of folklore: on epitaphs and weather lore, folk medicine and
calendar
customs, traditional drama and sports and pastimes, superstitions,
ghosts and
witchcraft, fairs, sea monsters and many others. While trying to cram
much into
little work I have avoided generalisation. Precise details such as
names, dates
and localities are given wherever possible and there are some
references to
features that still can be seen - a mountain, a bridge, a standing
stone or a
carving in a church.
Classic folklore belongs within the country to the basic unit
of the parish.
Most parishes could produce at least a booklet and in some cases a
substantial
volume on their own folklore, past and present. It would be a mistake,
however,
to think that rural customs, dance and tale were the whole picture,
because
there is a rich picture of urban and industrial folklore as well
– from the
office girl’s pre-wedding ceremonies to urban tales of
phantom hitchhikers and
stolen corpses.
In this age of fragmentation, speed and stress, people often
seem to thirst
for something in which they can take an active part. There is a need to
rediscover something which is more permanent and part of a continuing
tradition. By tapping into our heritage of song and story, ritual and
celebration, our lives are given shape and meaning.
In some cases all we have to do is join in with an activity
which is already
happening; in others it will perhaps mean reviving a dance or a
traditional
play. But however we choose to participate, as long as we continue to
use,
adapt and develop the elements of our folklore heritage it will
survive.
So this work may be regarded as an attempt to encourage us all
to seek out
the stories and customs of country, county, town, village, to
understand and
enjoy them and to pass them on.
THE WATERY WORLD Not a single town or village in
England is situated
more than a hundred miles from the sea, except for a few places in the
Midlands, and most of those in Wales and Scotland are nearer still. The
coastline lies for thousands of miles, with a host of off-shore islands
ranging
from Scilly to Shetland and Wight to Lewis. It is hardly surprising
then that
our long and eventful maritime history is complemented by a rich
heritage of
nautical stories and superstitions, beliefs and customs, many of which
continue
to affect our daily lives – even oil rigs, very much a
twentieth – century
phenomenon, have tales of their own. Inland water, too, are the
subjects of
stories which echoes the folklore of the coasts and seas.
BENEATH THE WAVES Many tales are told of submerged
lands, and of
church bells ringing ominously from beneath the waves. Between
Land’s End and
the Scilly Islands lies a group of rocks called The Seven Stones, known
to
fishermen as “The City” and near to which the land
of Lyoness is believed to
lie, lost under the sea. There is a rhyme which proclaims: Between
Land’s End
and Scilly Rocks Sunk lies a town that ocean mocks.
Lyoness was said to have had 140 churches. These
and most of its
people were reputed to have been engulfed during the great storm of 11
November
1099. One man called Trevilian foresaw the deluge, and moved his family
and
stock inland – he was making a last journey when the waters
rose, but managed
to outrun the advancing waves thanks to the fleetness of his horse.
Since then
the arms of the grateful Trevilian have carried the likeness of a horse
issuing
from the sea. A second man who avoided the catastrophe erected a chapel
in
thanksgiving which stood for centuries near Sennen Cove.
Another area lost under water is Cantre’r Gwaelod,
which lies in Cardigan
Bay somewhere between the river Teifi and Bardsey Island. Sixteen towns
and
most of their inhabitants were apparently overwhelmed by the sea when
the
sluice gates in the protective dyke were left open. There are two
versions of
the story as to who was responsible: in one it is a drunken watchman
called
Seithenin; in another, Seithenin was a king who preferred to spend his
revenue
in dissipation rather than in paying for the upkeep of the coastal
defences.
A moral of one kind or another will often be the basis of
tales about inland
settlements lost beneath water. For example Bomere Lake in Shropshire
– now
visited as a beauty spot was created one Easter Eve when the town which
stood
there was submerged as a punishment for reverting to paganism. One
Roman
soldier was spared because he had attempted to bring the people backto
Christianity, but he then lost his life while trying to save the woman
he
loved. It is said that his ghost can sometimes be seen rowing across
the lake
at Easter, and that the town, s bells can be heard ringing. There is
another
version of the same story in the same place, but set in Saxon times:
the people
turn to Thor and Woden at a time when the priest is warning that the
barrier
which holds back the meter needs strengthening. He is ignored, but as
the
townsfolk are carousing at Yuletide the water bursts in and destroys
them.
There is a cautionary tale told of Semerwater, another lake
with a lost
village in its depth. Semerwater lies in north Yorkshire not far from
Askrigg,
which is perhaps better known as the centre of “Herriot
country” , from the
veterinary stories of James Herriot. The story goes that a traveller
–
variously given as an angel, St Paul, Joseph of Arimathea, a witch, and
Christ
in the guise of a poor old man – visited house after house
seeking food and
drink, but at each one was turned away, until he reached a
Quaker’s home, just
beyond the village: htis was the only building spared in the avenging
flood
that followed.
One lost land off the Kent coast can be partially seen at high
tide:
originally, the Goodwin Sands were in fact an island, the island of
Lomea which
according to one version disappeared under the waves in the eleventh
century
when funds for its sea defences were diverted to pay for the building
of a
church tower at Tenterden. The blame for that is laid at the door of a
n abbot
of St Augustine’s at Canterbury who was both owner of Lomea
and rector of
Tenterden. However, sceptics say that Tenterden had no tower before the
sixteenth century, nor can archaeologists find any trace of habitation
or
cultivation of the sands. Even so, the tales continue to be told; one
of these
blame Earl Godwin, father of King Harold, for the loss of the island.
He earl
promised to build a steeple at Tenterden in return for safe delivery
from a
battle, but having survived the battle, he forgot the vow and in
retribution
Lomea, which he owned, was flooded during a great storm. The Sands
still bear
his name.
Yet worse was to follow, for scores of ships and the lives of
some 50 000
sea farers have been lost on the Goodwins, and ill-fortune seems to dog
the
area. For example, in 1748 the “Lady Lovibond” was
deliberately steered to her
destruction on the Sands by the mate of the vessel, John Rivers. Rivers
was
insanely jealeous because his intended bride, Anetta, had foresaken him
to
marry his captain, Simon Reed. The entire wedding party perished with
the ship
in the midst of the celebrations, but the remarkable thing is that the
scene
made a phantom reappearance once every fifty years – until
1948, when the “Lady
Lovibond” at last failed to re-enact the drama.
Another fifty - year reappearance concerns the Nothumberland;
she was lost
on the Goodwind sands in 1703 in a storm, along with twelve other men
– of -
war, but in 1753 seen again by the crew of an East Indiaman –
sailors were
leaping in to the water from the stricken vessel though their shouts
and
screams could not be heard.
The Nothumberland was under the command of Sir Cloudesley
Shovel, to whom is
attached a further tale. Three years afterwards, the
admiral’s flagship, the
Association, was wrecked on the Gilstone Rock near the Scilly Isles.
The fleet
was homeward bound after a triumphant campaign against the French and
some
maintain that the crews were drunk. But the story which Scillonians
believe to
this day is that a sailor aboard the flagship warned that the fleet was
dangerously near the islands, and that for this he was hanged at the
yardarm
for unsubordination, on the admiral’s orders. The man was
granted a last
request to read from the Bible, and turned to the 109 psalm:
“Let his days be
few and another take his place. Let his children be fatherless and his
wife a
widow” . As he read the ship began to strike the rocks.
The admiral was a very stout man and his buoyancy was
sufficient to carry
him ashore alive, though very weak. However, official searches found
him dead,
stripped off his clothing and valuables, including a fine emerald ring.
The
body was taken to Westminster Abbey for interment, and his widow
appealed in
vain for the return of the ring. Many years later a St Mary’s
islander
confessed on the deathbed that she had found Sir Cloudesley and had
“squeezed
the life out of him” before taking his belongongs. The hue
and cry had forced
her to abandon the idea of selling the emerald, but she had felt unable
to die
in peace before revealing her crime.
A commemorative stone marks the place where the
admiral’s body was
temporarily buried in the shingle of Porth Hellick, on St
Mary’s Island. No
grass grows over the grave.
THE WRECK OF THE RAMILIES Many hundreds of
shipwrecks have their own
songs and stories. Although the Ramilies, for example, was wrecked well
over
200 years ago, tradition perpetuates the event as clearly as if it had
happened
only yesterday. In February 1760 the majestic, ninety – gun,
triple decked ship
was outward bound from Plymouth to Quiberon Bay when hurricane
– force winds
blew up in the Channel and forced the captain to turn back and run for
shelter.
Sailing East, the master thought he had passed Looe Island, and had
only to
round Rame Head to reach the safety of Plymouth Sound. In fact the ship
was a
bay further on and the land sighted was Burgh Island, in Bigbury Bay.
The
Promontory was Bolt Tail with its four hundred foot cliffs, and beyond
lay no
safe harbour at all, but several miles of precipitous rocks. As soon as
the
sailing master realised his mistake the ship was hove to, but the wind
was so
violent that the masts immediately snapped and went overboard. The two
anchores
that were dropped held fast, but their cables fouled each other, and
after
hours of fierce friction, they parted and the ship was driven to
destruction on
the rocks.
Of more than seven hundred men on board only about two dozen
reached safety.
Led by Midshipman John Harrold, they scrambled up the cliffs, by pure
luck
choosing the one place where this was possible. Next day a certain
William
Locker travelled to the scene to try to find the body of his friend,
one of the
officers. Locker himself would have been aboard the
“Ramillies” but his
lieutenant’s commission had come from the admiralty too late,
arriving just a
few hours after she had sailed. He found the shores of Bigbury Bay
strewn with
hundreds of corpses, their clothing torn away by the sea’s
pounding, their
features unrecognisable. The village nearest to the scene of the wreck
was
Inner Hope, and some there still maintain that a Bigbury man aboard the
“Ramillies” pleaded with the captain to alter
course; but he was clapped in
irons, and went down with the ship. They say that only one officer
survived
because others were prevented from leaving the stricken vessel.
Most of the bodies were washed ashore at Thurlestone, a few
miles to the
west. There used to be a depression in the village green which marked
the place
where many of the seamen had been buried in a mass grave; this has now
been
asphalted to make a carpark. Then in the mid – 1960s a child
digging in a sand
dune found a bone. He showed it to a man on the beach who happened to
be a
doctor and identified it as human. Further digging revealed the
skeletons of
ten men, small in stature and buried in five – foot intervals
-- perhaps these
had been washed up after the mass burial. No scrap of clothing or
equipment was
found, and finally the bones were thrown into a lorry and consigned to
a
rubbish tip. Even though two centuries have elapsed since their deaths,
one
feels that the men of the “Ramillies” deserved
better. The ship still lies six
fathoms down in the cove which has borne her name since 1760, and
Wise’s Spring
on the cliffs is called after one of the seamen who scrambled ashore
with the
tiny band of survivors.
PORTENTS OF DISASTER Great pains are taken when
first launching a
vessel so as to ensure good fortune, and one of the most important
portents is
the ritual bottle of champagne which must break first time (the liquid
may be a
substitute for the blood of a sacrifice) . It is interesting that the
various
ships to bear the name “Ark Royal” have always been
lucky; for example when the
World War 11 vessel sunk there was minimal loss of life. The original
ship
dated from Elizabethan times and had a crucifix placed beneath the
mainmast by
the captain’s mistress; this apparently secured the good
fortune for all her
successors. On the other hand there are vessels which seem perpetually
unlucky,
some even jinxed and quite incapable of escaping misfortune.
Brunel’s fine ship the “Great
Eastern” was launched in 1858 after several
ominously unsuccessful attempts. She ruined the man in whose yard she
was
built, and caused a breakdown in Brunel’s health –
he died even before her
maiden voyage. And despite her immense technical advantages, she was
never
successful as the passenger - carrying vessel.
In 1895 she was in port in Holyhead. When the “Royal
Charter” sailed by,
homeward bound from Australia, the passengers expressed a desire to see
her and
their captain was only too pleased to oblige. However, the ship strayed
off
course and a wild storm blew up. The ship was wrecked, with great loss
of life.
Some of the trouble was attributed to the story of a riveted 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 skeletons 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 halyard 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:
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
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 “could 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 temptation 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
long 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 involving 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 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 could 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. Legend
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 expensive 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
halyards 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 relates about the British
“waterworld” . But the 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
previously.
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.
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.
There is no other way to understanding people, their
character, past and
present but through its linguistic and cultural inheritance. If a
person is
determined to get a closer acquaintance with the inner world of the
French,
Italian or English, he should study their language and culture, because
only
through this he can really get in touch with a strange nation. Finding
out some
facts, materials on this or that country he would no more than get
informed,
develop his intellectual abilities and that of the rational memory. But
linguistic and cultural education inspires imaginative thinking,
influences his
emotions and forms his taste. Linguistic materials, and the national
folklore
is certainly an important part of it, are inseparable from the
language: the
language itself plays the part of the informational source of the
national
history and culture.
So in this work we showed the essential role of the English
folklore
relating about the water world of the country in the development of the
English
language, forming of the national identity and character and its close
connection with the British history.