Hi;::i: !-: "fW'If'ii'i.lf.jili.i'',')-! . r;. .: , ■'1';! Wi i (f s^^' ^. ^^' ^ ^0'S^':i~ ■ 0' c^^ ^ '^■-? '^° ■■ ;\^ ... '=^- * ff i-v"* v^f^;.^ ^^^,K ,i^ '-^^ rU /.. ^ ,0- xV' '. * o N .'^ -^ ^V -f ^^ % '^yi^^ ^ -^^ v^ c ;^ "'=^. v^^ > ^ ^ ^ « A > ,o^ .^^^ ^/^ O^ s "^^^ .x^^% ^V v^?^ .-^■' % ^ ^ ^:^ ^^-^- "^A *.M0^\< ^ \ ^> N c ':^ THE HAND OF SATAN ON THE SEA OF DARKNESS. LEGENDS SUPERSTITIONS SEA AND OF SAILORS In all Lands and at all Times. 2 6 BY FLETCHER S. BASSETT, LIEUTENANT U. S. NAVY. CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: BELFORD, CLARKE & CO 1885. ^'3 Copyright, 1885. F, S Bassett. t)oNOHUE & Henneberry, Printers and Binders, Chicaj THIS BOOK I DEDICATE TO MY WIFE, HELEN MAR PREFACE. THE present volume is an attempt at collecting the folk-lore of the sea and its belongings. Many of the myths here recorded are as old as history itself, and far older, and some of the most interesting legends have been frequently published ; but, so far as I am aware, no comprehensive collection of the legends relating to the sea has heretofore been made. It is not claimed that the present work is exhaustive, for much has been written concerning the mysterious sea, and much remains for some future folk-lore collector, but the greater part of the legends of the sea are here assembled. These legends are derived from various and widely- different sources. Comparative mythology has taught us not to despise the most frivolous tale, if we may, by com- parison, illustrate more sober myths or legends by its use. I have adopted, as a safe guide for the interpretation of the nature-myths of the sea and the air, the teachings of Cox, whose writings have generally received the sanction of scholars. The standard works of Smith, Anthon, Murray, Gladstone, Keary, Fiske and Kelly have also been freely consulted and quoted. These mythological ideas of early nations often serve as a key to the interpre- tation of more recent superstitions. "The religious myths of antiquity, and the fireside legends of ancient and modern times, have their common root in the mental habits of primitive humanity. They are the earliest recorded utterances of men concerning the visible phe- nomena of the world into which they were born."* Many writers on folk-lore have been consulted, and especially, as relating to the sea, " Melusine," a Parisian folk-lore journal, the publications of the Folk-lore Soci- ety, the works of Jal, of Jones, of Bottrell, Hunt, Gregor, '* Fiske— Myths and Myth-makers. 5 6 PREFACE. S^billot, Grimm, Thorpe, Kuhn and Campbell. Illustra- tions of our subject also come from the legends devised by monks and priests during the middle ages, who often availed themselves of the myths of antiquity and the superstitions of pagan people, to serve their purposes, and thus there grew up many legends of saints and de- mons, and many usages, observances, and ceremonies among sea-faring men. The writings of Maury, Collin de Plancy, Schindler, and many others furnish us with a host of these legends. The traditions, beliefs and customs of modern sailors have been culled from the various collections of folk-lore, and from the pages of nautical writers, such as Jal, Mar- ryat, Basil Hall, Melville, Cheever, Cooper, and others, mentioned in this work, and from the collections of voyages and travels of Pinkerton, Navarrete, Pigafetta, and others. Personal notes and observation made during a service of fourteen years in the navy have supplemented these observations. The poets and ballad writers have, again, furnished much valuable material. Their words are but the crystal- lized expression of popular ideas — the reflex of public opinion, clothed in elegant or musical form. " The old folk songs, as they are aptly termed, remain to us now a vast store-house of historical evidence of the manners and customs, of the thoughts and beliefs, of bygone times." There is a surprising amount of legend and folk-lore stored away in Shakespeare, Moore, Longfellow and other poets, not to speak of the ancient classics, which overflow with legends and traditions of popular origin. In attempting to solve the many problems presented in the various parts of this volume, I have endeavored to avoid a bias toward any theories. In general these super- stitions are the results of widely different causes, and it will be found that while originating, as did most myths of antiquity, from speculations upon natural phenomena, other influences have had an equal effect in elaborating the modern superstition. In fact there is often a rational basis underlying these traditions, which, if it has not given rise to the legends, has often perpetuated them. The uneducated sailor could know little of the ancient * PREFACE. 7 sea-gods, nereides, sirens, etc., but he could recognize in the seal, the manatee, or the dugong, the face and figure of a fish-tailed woman. He could know but little of the classical and biblical traditions concerning aquatic mon- sters, but he could see in the huge forms that sported about him the terrible kraken or the monstrous sea- serpent, or he could imagine the form of the latter in the floating sea weed. These natural causes have also been aided, in the perpetuation of these superstitions, by the conservatism of the sailor, who clings to his beliefs with great tenacity. Grimm illustrates this point when he says: "The early Christian Norseman believed in Christ, and yet he called upon Thor in voyages and difficulties." The sailor, as has often been remarked, is a credulous infant in many things. He often fears less a murderous volley than a corpse or coffin, and is less alarmed by the howling tempest than by fancied signs of wreck or disaster in the air or sea. Gibbons best expresses these facts : "There is but a plank between a sailor and eternity; and perhaps the occasional realization of that fact may have had something to do with the broad grain of super- stition at one time undoubtedly lurking in his nature. But whatever the cause, certainly the legendary lore of the sea is as diversified and interesting as the myths and traditions which haunt the imagination of landsmen, and it is not surprising that sailors, who observe the phenom- ena of nature under such varied and impressive aspects, should be found to cling with tenacious obstinacy to their superstitious fancies. ,The winds, clouds, waves, sun, moon, and stars have ever been invested with propi- tious or unlucky signs; and within a score of years we have met seamen who had perfect faith in the weather- lore and traditions acquired during their ocean wander- ings." Buckle gives an excellent reason for the sailors' be- lief in many of these superstitions: "The credulity of sailors is notorious, and every literature contains evidence of the multiplicity of these superstitions, and of the tenacity with which they cling to them. This is perfectly explicable. Meteorology has not yet been raised to a 8 PREFACE. science, and the laws which regulate winds and storms being in consequence still unknown, it naturally follows that the class of men most exposed to these dangers should be precisely the class which is most superstitious." Cooper also says: ''There is a majesty in the might of the great deep, that has a tendency to keep open the avenues of that dependent creduHty which more or less besets the mind of every man. The confusion between things which are explicable and things which are not, gradually brings the mind of the mariner to a state in which any exciting and unnatural sentiment is welcome. While it is true that the sailor is conservative in his beliefs, I do not believe that he is more superstitious than those of his class who dwell on the land. A comparison of his credulities with the superstitions of the same day and age of the world will not, I believe, result to his disadvantage. Superstition and credulity were rife every- where when most of the sailor traditions were born, and many of them, as will be shown, are but adaptations of similar beliefs on land — many were first imagined far inland, by people who never saw the sea. The old type of sailor, who believed in the mermaid, the sea-snake, and the phantom ship, is fast disappearing, and, with the gradual substitution of the steamship for the sailing-vessel, he is being replaced by the mechanical seaman, who sees no spectre in the fog, nor sign of dis- aster in the air, or beneath the wave. Scientific progress has demonstrated the non-existence of imaginary creatures beneath the waves ; better meteor- ological knowledge has banished the spectres of the air, and shown the unreliability of weather-indicators, and the decay of priestly influence has caused the abandon- ment of sacrifices and offerings to the sea, its deities or its saints. F. S. B. Chicago, March lo, 1884. CONTENTS. Page. J'reface 5 Chapter I. — The Sea-Dangers. Rocks, Water-spouts and Whirl- pools, Tides, Moon and Weather, Winds and Wind-Gods ... 9 :i. — The Gods, Saints and Demons of the sea: Nick and Davy- Jones, The Virgin 55 :il. — Wind-Makers and Storm-Raisers: Witches, Weather-wise Animals, Storm-raising Deeds loi :V. — Water-Sprites and Mermaids. Sea-Giants and Dwarfs, Water- Horses and Bulls 148 7. — The Sea Monsters and Sea Serpents: The Kraken or Island- Fish, Sea Monks, Sea Snakes 203 71. — Legends of the Finny Tribes: Jonah Stories, Sharks, Por- poises and Seals, Fish Stories 233 711. — Stories of Other Animals: Shell-fish, The Barnacle-tree, Four-footed Animals, Birds and Insects 263 /III. — Spectres of the Sea: Apparitions, Ghosts, Spectral Lands, St. Elmo's Lights 283 :X. — The Death Voyage to the Earthly Paradise or Hell: Death-barks, Ocean Paradises, Canoe Burial 321 K.. — The Flying Dutchman: Phantom Boats, Intelligent Ships, Curious Barks, Ocean Wanderers 343 K;I. — Sacrifices, Offerings and Oblations 379 K^II. — Ceremonies and Festivals: Launching, Crossing the Line, Wedding the Adriatic, Fishermen's Feasts 399 Kill. — Luck, Omens, Images and Charms: Lucky Men. Unlucky Ships, Friday, Images on Ships, The Caul 426 XIV. — Miscellaneous: The Drowned and Drowning, Sunken Bells and Towns, The Loadstone, The Deluge, Famous Voyages. . 466 Index 492 CHAPTER I. THE SEA, THE WINDS AND THE WEATHER. "The tales of that awful, pitiless sea, With all its terror and mystery, The dim, dark sea, so like unto death. That divides and yet unites mankind." Longfellow. — Golden Legend, " Winds that like a demon Howl with horrid note, Round the toiling seaman In his bonny boat." MONG the many wonderful changes ; wrought in the various conditions of life by the progress of scientific investigation and modern achieve- ment, there are none so complete as those affecting the man of the sea. The swift journey to Europe has become an affair of so little moment to / many that it is hardly thought of until land fades from sight, and the modern ,/ traveler sets out on his voyage around /// the world with less trepidation than / the Roman poet felt and described, ''/^/f when he left his native city for the ' ' ' short journey that carried him across a , ..^ y narrow sea into temporary banishment. It is dif- '>y -X^ ficult, then, for us to realize the terrors which the ocean possessed for the ancient mariner — almost impossible for us to understand the implicit belief which he evidently held in the many monsters, fiends, physical dan- gers and curious phenomena that would now only serve to provoke laughter or astonishment. Not only was the sailor in ancient times exposed to greater sea peril by deficiencies in the construction of his vessel, but, in addition, his imagination created a host of 11 12 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS fancied dangers to terrify him. The dangers of the sea voyage are often portrayed by classical writers. Horace, in his third ode, in lamenting the departure of Virgil for Athens, paints these terrors in vivid colors; speaking of horrid sea-monsters and terrific waves, Andocides, accused before the courts at Athens, said, " The dangers of accusa- tion and trial are human, but the dangers encountered at sea are divine." "Sea voyages among the Egyptians were looked upon as sacrilegious." * Nor did these imaginary terrors disappear with antiquity. The first charts had portrayed on them numbers of huge monsters, horrible dragons, and terrific giants, scattered here and there like the ships marked on charts of more recent date. The land-locked ocean known to the ancients had been filled with unknown terrors, and the distant lands bordering on it, with wonders and strange inhabitants. Monsters abode in the waters, gods of monstrous shapes ruled them, en- chanting sirens, horrid giants, and terrible dragons inhabited the islets and rocks, and on the dry land beyond, there dwelt strange enchantresses, fire-breathing bulls, dwarfish pigmies, and man-eaters. The crude ideas concerning geog- raphy, making the earth now a disk, now a drum, a boat or a flat surface surrounded by water, aided in perpetuating to later ages these curious beliefs. Thus sailors as well as landsmen, in all ages, have been prone to indulge in fancies of all kinds concerning the winds and waves. Such notions are naturally directed to the weather, the object of so much care and solicitude to the mariner. In antiquity, the Great Ocean was thought to be unnavi- gable. Flowing around the world like a river, it became, as we shall see, a river, then a sea of death. This circumambient ocean was not peculiar to the Greeks. We find it in other cosrnogonies, as the Norse and Arab geographers, about 1300, revived the idea. As men became more and more acquainted with distant waters, their ideas concerning this unknown ocean ex- panded. At first it was the Central Mediterranean in which were located all the Homeric dangers of the ocean. This was gradually extended to the westward, and finally into the Great Western Sea, after the French discovery of the Canaries (1330). * Mure.-Hist. Gr. Lit. 1, p. 17. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 13 Another thing assisted the growth of the myths of sea dan- srs and perils. Many ancient tribes feared and detested the ta, as do some castes of Hindoos at the present day. Early avigators, when driven by stress of weather or impelled by •ve of gain or adventurous spirit beyond the usual limits, ;ported such things of the unknown seas, that others were :ten deterred from following in their footsteps, and thus rofiting by their discoveries. To these tales we owe many : the myths of sea and wave; others are doubtless em- ^diments of religious belief, or explanations of natural lenomena. It is thus with the first great sea epic — the Odyssey.* 1 its entirety it probably embodies a myth, but its details •e undoubted traditions of dangers encountered or related f early mariners. At first, then, these Homeric sea perils lay no farther est than the Sicilian isle. But gradually they were re- oved toward the setting sun. Scylax says the Straits of ibraltar are the end of the world, and ships can navigate D farther. Later traditions perpetuated this idea, even after ships id ventured beyond these gates. Edrisi,f an Arab writer, lys there was at Gibraltar a stone pillar, one hundred ibits high, with a brass statue on it, and an inscription ating this to be the limit of navigation. So El MasudiJ; says these pillars of King Hirakl carried 1 inscription warning mariners that no vessel could safely mture beyond into the sea of darkness. Ulysses tells Dante § that he had tried the voyage iyond these pillars, and had perished in sight of a mon- rous island, "for out of the new land a whirlwind rose, id smote upon the fore part of the ship." Thus of the gion beyond. And more yet. II Carthaginian sailors said that the South Atlantic be- )nd Cerne was not navigable because of floating seaweed id shallows. Herodotus says Sesostris was stopped by lallows in the Red Sea, which was long thought dangerous icause of its red color. To the time of Columbus these ncies prevailed, and his crew were terrified on entering le Sargasso Sea by the weeds and calms. *Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief. 299. •I- Geography.— In Jaubert, Res. des Voyages. t Golden Meadows. (954 A.D.) IPurgatorio. II Goodrich.— Man upon the Sea. 143. 14 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Plato* had long before said that whole continents sank into the Atlantic, and had rendered it so shallow that it was difficult to navigate. Sataspes, a noble Persian, condemned by Xerxes to cir- cumnavigate Africa, reported that he could not, saying that his ships were stopped by the mud in the shallow ocean.f Pytheas, the early Massilian explorer, reported that the neighborhood of Thule was a mixture of mud and air, re- sembling jelly-fish, where one could neither walk nor sail. This reminds us of the Magonia, or cloud-sea of the Middle Ages. Plutarch says a ship could with difficulty advance in the sea to the west of Great Britain. Athenseus says the Western Ocean is dense by reason of its saltness, sea-weeds and huge beasts; Aristotle and Seneca speak of the calms and muddy shallows of the ocean. HimilcOjJ the early Carthaginian navigator, was stopped by sea-weeds and monsters on his voyage to Cornwall. " He looked to where, amidst the seething waves, Were thickets vast, of dense and loathsome weeds, Which held his ship, nor scarcely let it float, In ocean's depths, but held it buoyed up." § It was afterward reported of St. Amaro, a mediaeval saint, that he was encompassed by sea-weeds in the Western Ocean. The ne plus ultra of Portuguese mariners was long at Cape Nun. II " Whoe'er would pass the Cape of Nun, Shall turn again, or else be gone." These southern waters were, in popular belief, unnavi- gable, and the bold mariner venturing beyond the **equator would be turned into a negro. After the Canary Islands were discovered, a giant was figured standing on them, brandishing a huge club, and threatening all who should venture further westward. Later, the Arabians represented the huge hand of Satan as rising out of the water ready to seize any one venturing out on the Sea of Darkness (Mare Tenebrosum) as the At- lantic was then called. *Timseus. •f Goodrich.— Man Upon The Sea. p. 69. $ Festus.— Avienus, in Heeren. Com. Af . Nations. §Herrera Hist, del Almirante, c. 19. II Goodrich.— p. 115. ** Goodrich.— p. 15. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 15 After Gonzalez and Vaz,* in 1418, had discovered Porto Santo, they feared to advance farther, terrified b}^ the dark :loud hanging over Madeira, and it was only after much arging, and amidst the terrors of their crews that they inally reached that island. The sailorsf of Pinzon's fleet were terrified at the absence 3f the pole-star on crossing the equator in 1499. So the first adventuresome navigators brought fabulous iccounts of the inhabitants of the lands visited by them, mch as the land where dwelt the Lotus-eaters, and where ;he tree grew whose fruit p' Which whoso tastes Insatiate riots in the sweet repasts, Nor other home nor other care intends, But quits his house, his country, and his friends;" ind the more terrible Cyclopean land, the cave and island )f Calypso, and JEx, the abode of Circe, — "A dangerous coast! the goddess wastes her days In joyous songs; the rocks resound her lays." These were in the narrow Western Mediteranean, and ;he Cimmerian Land of Darkness lay beyond, pictured in ;he following words by Ulysses, — §"When, lo! we reach'd old Ocean's utmost bounds, Where rocks control his waves with ever-during mounds; There, in a lonely land and gloomy cells, The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells. The sun ne'er views the uncomfortable seats, When radiant he advances or retreats." These dangers, whether fancies of the brain or real tra- iitions, of impediments to navigation, were ever present to ;he Greek and Roman sailor. There were the Sirens, too; — ** Their song is death and makes destruction please." These fabled daughters of Achelous and Calliope had :harmed all navigators until Ulysses approached the coast, — II " And lo! the Siren shores like mists arise; Sunk were at once the winds; the air above And waves below at once forgot to move; Some demon calmed the air and smoothed the deep, Hush'd the loud winds, and charmed the waves to sleep." * Goodrich.— Man Upon the Sea. p. 140. § Pope's Odyssey. Bk. xi. + Goodrich.— Man Upon the Sea. p. 160. || Pope's Odyssey. Bk, iy, ^Pope's Odyfcsey, Bk. iv. 16 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS These charmers were anciently represented as having the bodies and wings of birds, with the face of a beautiful maiden. Ceres had given them wings to aid in her search for Proserpine. * " With golden wings o'er foamy waves you fled." f AppoUonius thus describes them: " And fallacious shew A virgin face, white-wing'd like fowls they flew; On a bright eminence the charmers stand, And watch the vessels as they tug to land; Full many a mariner their songs betray, Who lists and lingers till he pines away," The oracle condemned them to die when a man should pass without stopping. Ulysses, warned of the danger, stopped his ears with wax, and safely passed them, bound to the mast. So they were changed into rocks, off Sor- rento, where they still exist, a terror to mariners. J; Another legend says they became rocks because Orpheus surpassed them in singing. The sirens were three in number, and their names betray their nature: § Ligea is harmony, Leucothea is white, and Parthenope is virgin face. The latter was buried at Naples, according to later tradition, and the city was first named after her. They were especially venerated on the south- west coast of Italy. Pliny says Dinon,|| Clearchus' father, asserted that sirens existed in Indian waters, and lulled mariners to sleep by their songs. In antiquity they were never maidens in form, but in later times they became confused with the nereids, and were given a fish-tail and green hair. These seductive forms, while typifying in the Odyssean voyage the usual idea of death, doubtless received their characteristic nature from natural phenomena. They repre- sent the white and shining surf, whose harmonious mur- murs and seductive brightness allures, but destroys the mariner who attempts to land (for this is always required for the success of the spell). Eustathius' saying that their song stills the wind, and- Homer's lines, given above, indicate the fact that after the rushing wind, comes the sound of the sighing surf, only growing in the calm that ensues. * Ovid's Metamorphoses. § Cox.— Aryan Mi'thology. + Argonautics.— Fawkes' Trans. II Landrin,— Les Monstres Sarins, * Cox.— Aryan Mythology, Bk. ii, 242. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 17 It is the same with the Cyclops, those terrible one-eyed monsters that nearly destroyed the crew of Ulysses' ship. Their names betray their meaning. Brontes* is the roll, Steropes the flash, and Argis the whiteness, of lightning, and they represent the Storm-fiend, whom we shall again encounter, raising hurricanes and tempests against the mediaeval mariner. Polyphemus f is the stormy sky, and his one eye is the 5un (Kuklos — a circle); or it is the weather-gall (Ochsen- luge, QEuil de Boeuf) still seen by sailors, a clear spot in a :loudy sky. So the gray-haired Graiae and the snaky Gorgons were ioubtless, say modern mythologists, figurative representa- :ions of the white-capped and angry waves. But further tales were told of unmistakable maritime iangers. The trembling Argonauts feared the moving Symple- ^ades, fabled to crush ships passing between them. The ivaves dashed up the Cyance^ so as to endanger passing ships. Two similar wave-beaten rocks on the lUyrian :oast were also reported to threaten destruction to the Dassing ship. Festus says that the waves dash upon the 'ocks at the Canaries with so much violence that it is iangerous to approach, and the islands tremble from the shock. The poet of the Argonauts again speaks: :j:"Two rocks will rise, tremendous to the view, Just in the entrance of the watery waste. Which never mortal yet in safety passed; Not firmly fixed; for oft with hideous shock Adverse they meet, and rock encounters rock." Here, too, a literal interpretation is impossible, while we may allege a rational foundation for the myth. Lubbock >ays it is possible that in these moving islands we have a Lradition of the floating ice-masses, which, in the glacial period, must have issued from the Black Sea. But we must not forget that we are talking yet of mythical voy- agers, and are considering another soul journey, or sun voyage — this time to the eastward and not west into the Sea of Death. These rocks are the gates of hell, typified by the moving cloud-barrier to the sun's journey. We learn *Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief, 307. i- Cox.— Aryan Mythology, Bk. ii, ch. iii. ;|: AppoHonius Rho4ius, Argonautioa.— FawKes' Translation, 18 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS from comparative mythology that similar opening and shutting rocks are encountered by the soul-bark in Mexi- can,* Burmese,! and Mongol | legends. Fiske,§ then, rightly interprets the myth: "In early Aryan mythology, there is nothing by which the clouds are more frequently represented than by rocks or mountains. Such were the Symplegades, which, charmed by the harp of the wind-god Orpheus, parted to make way for the talking ship Argo, with its crew of solar heroes." So a rock, said to have resembled a woman in form, was, traditionally, Scylla, daughter of Typhon, changed into the rock-monster with twelve feet and six barking dogs about her waist. In this locality, says Homer, — II " Here Scylla bellows from the dire abodes: Tremendous pest, abhorred by man and gods, Hideous her voice, and with less terrors roar The whelps of lions in the midnight hour." Twelve feet, deformed and foul, the fiend dispreads, Six horrid necks she rears, and six terrific heads; Her jaws grin dreadful, with three rows of teeth. Jaggy they stand, the gaping jaws of death." And Virgil, — " But Scylla from her den, with open jaws, The sinking vessel in her eddy draws." Greek artists never pictured so horrid a monster, whose portrait here drawn might serve for a poetical description of the devil-fish of Victor Hugo's narrative. One** pictures her as woman to the waist, fish below, with a fish head and snout below the waist, horned and toothless. In another representation she is figured as a ter- rible woman with a fish-tail, under which are sea monsters who seize three men. Others show her a woman with a fish-tail, and dogs at her waist. Virgil, Lucretius and Sta- tius place her with Cerberus and the female Centaurs at the gates of hell, so here we again find repeated the gates of hell with Scylla on the one hand and Charybdis on the other. It was death by drowning, the most terrible of all, that awaited the ancient mariner who was engulfed in *Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana. XIII 47, in Tyler, P. C. +Jour. As. Soc. of Bengal, 1865. P. ii, 233-4. :t;Gesser Chan.— Bk. iv, in Tyler, P. C. § Myths and Myth-makers. II Pope's Odyssey, Bk. iv. ** Bmnchi,— Mythology of Greece and Rojne. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 19 these dangers, and beyond lay hell. So here were the gates. Nor was the real physical element of danger wanting in this representation. These dangers are located by Plutarch at the straits of Messina, where we find to this day a formidable whirlpool, and its opposing wave-beaten rock. So the tale of some ^venturesome sailor was deftly woven into the mythical soul- i^oyage by the ancient singer, as other dangers, perhaps as real, had served as instruments for his muse. These dan- gerous rock monsters are not uncommon in maritime Deliefs. In fact, every dangerous rock had its legend to the incient and mediaeval navigator. So early navigators called ;he Bermudas the Devil's Islands, because of the storm- lends supposed to haunt them; and a Hell Gate exists on 3ur own coast. * Two rocks near the Cornish coast are called the Parson- and his Clerk. The story goes that they sold ;hemselves to the devil, and move about occasionally as lis steeds. The parson exclaimed to his clerk who had misled him: ' I would rather have the devil for a guide than you! " The ievil appeared and changed them into stone. Cornish legends declare that if anyone landed at a rock :alled the Ness, near Westray Firth, with iron about him, :he rising and dashing waves would endanger him, until the ron was thrown overboard. Iron controls the water fiends, ;o would be supposed efficacious against them here. A rock dangerous to ships was removed to a point nearer ;he shore by St. Baldred, and is still called by the name of 5t. Baldred's boat. f Indians believed that a rock in Corlear's Lake was mder a spirit's control, and that when the waves dashed up le was angry, and so they sacrificed to him. Offerings are nade to a dangerous rock in a river in North Africa, and Indians offered tobacco to appease the spirit of the Missis- ;ippi, at a rock in the upper river.J The Delawares§ showed Marquette a steep rock in the ■iver, swept by powerful currents where the evil spirits tried ;o wreck their boats. Natives of Hawaii feared to approach a certain rock, * Bottrell.— Traditions and Fireside Stories of West Cornwall, •i-^ee Chapter xi. i Loskiel.— Indians of North America, p. 145. § Brinton.— Myths of the New World. 20 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Kaveroka, where a jealous husband threw his wife down the cliff, deeming it haunted, and that their boats would be wrecked. Beliefs similar to these existed concerning other dangers to navigation. Whirlpools were long an object of dread to the smaller vessels of antiquity. The mariner escaping from Scylla's rocks, was threatened by the whirlpool of Charybdis, famed as the transformed thief of Hercules' oxen. It was thus seen by Ulysses. * " Close by a rock of less enormous height Break the wild waves, and form a dangerous strait; Full on its crown a fig's green branches rise, And shoot a leafy forest to the skies; Beneath, Charybdis holds her boisterous reign 'Midst roaring whirlpools, and absorbs the main. Thrice in her gulfs the boiling seas subside, Thrice in dire thunders she refunds the tides." The fig-tree serves as a landmark to avoid the abyss. This was more dreaded than Scylla, for ^Eneas is told, — f " Ah! shun the horrid gulf! by Scylla fly. 'Tis better six to lose, than all to die." The Syrtes, on the African coast, were also regarded with fear and dread. Appollonius says: I" Burst from its black abyss, the boiling flood, Upheaves its shaggy weeds, involved in shoals of mud, With the far spreading spray the sands arise," Early Norse legends represent whirlpools as the boiling kettle of Hymer, a sea-god. In Austrian tales they are spirits of evil, Strudel and Wirbel. St. Bruno is said to have narrowly escaped the clutches of one of these at Ben Strudel, on the Danube, being warned in time by an angel. The devil's mother came on earth to reside near here, and a fine palace was built for her, but she coveted divine honors, so her dwelling was swept into the river and over it is Ben Strudel.§ St. Bruno, in another tale, sailing with Henry III., heard a voice saying, "Whither art thou travel- ing? Thou shalt sail with me to-night! " He was killed by a rafter of the house, while at a banquet that night. * Pope's Odyssey. Bk. xii. + Dryden's J^neid. , i Argonautics.— Fawkes' Trans. § See Chapter viii. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 21 *Beattie tells us of Ben Strudel: "The first sight of this used to create no little excitement and apprehension on board. The master ordered strict silence to be observed, the steersman grasps the helm with a firm hand, the pas- sengers move about, etc. Each boatman with head uncov- ered muttered a prayer to his guardian saint." The devil is also said to exhibit false lights in an old ruin near Wirbel, and decoys ships to their destruction. The great Maelstrom has been the subject of various stories, although but one of many celebrated whirlpools. It was once thought to be a subterranean abyss passing into the centre of the earth. We are reminded by this legend of " Symmes' Hole," the theory of a latter-day genius, that the waters rush through from pole to pole, f The Saermundr Edda tells us that Mysing, the rover, carried off two maidens grinding corn with a quern, Grotti. While at sea, they con- tinued their task and ground salt until the ship sank; the ocean was made salt, and the quern still continued its mo- tion, causing the great whirlpool. Pentland Firth was the fabled location of this great whirlpool, but it was variously placed, now in the Faroe Islands, now on the Swelkie near the Orkneys. It is situated near the Loffoden Islands, on the Norway coast. Jin a folk-tale, "Why the Sea is Salt," a captain buys this quern of an old man who got it from the devil, and sets it grinding. It grinds what he wishes, but when he sets it to work grinding salt, it fills the ship full, sinks it, and makes the sea salt. Another version says the quern was given to a younger brother by the devil in exchange for a shoulder of beef, and he can always obtain food from it by the charm: " Grind both malt and salt, Grind in the name of the Lord.' His elder brother cozens him out of the treasure, puts to sea with it, but forgets the charm, and says: " Grind both malt and salt, Grind in the name of the Devil," when it fills the ship, sinks it, and thus makes the sea salt. But there is no mention of the maelstrom in the folk-tales. * Wm. Beattie.— The Danube, in Conway, Demonology, I., p. 115. + GlrStta Song-.— Saemundr Edda, in Thorpe I., p. 308. * Dasent.— Tales of the Norse. 22 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Olaus Magnus * gives another legend of the great whir pool. " The whirlpool or prister, is of the kind of whales,' two hundred cubits long, and very cruel. This beast hath a large and round mouth, like a lamprey, whereby he sucks in his meat or water, and will cast such floods above his head that he will often sink the strongest ships. He will some- times raise himself above the sailyards, and cruelly over- whelm the ship like any small vessel, striking it with its back or tail, which is forked, wherewith he forcibly binds any part of ship, when he twists it about." He says a trumpet frightens it, but a cannon-ball is of no use, by reason of its great rampart of fat! ! Palsgrave, an old English etymologist, defines thus: "Whirlpool — a fissche — chaudron de mer — chauderon — dolphin." Early accounts all grossly magnify the terrors of this whirlpool. It can endanger no ship of any size, but when at its height would probably engulf a boat. As to the quern, it is the sun, the mill of the summer god Freyr, that grinds food from the earth. Drayton tells us that, — f " One Nicholas of Lyn The whiripools of the sea did come to understand, For such immeasured pools philosophers do agree r the four parts of the wind undoubtedly there be, From which they have supposed Nature the winds doth rain, And from them, too, proceed the flowing of the sea." Nicholas was an Oxford scholar who maintained these absurd beliefs. El KazwiniJ tells us that a ship was embayed near a certain whirlpool in the Persian Gulf. One man was chosen by lot for sacrifice, and was left on a desert island near by, when he successfully conjured the demon of the place by beating a drum, and the ship then safely emerged from her peril. In Russian legend, § a whirlpool exists over every Vody- anny's (water-sprite's) house. An offering of bread or salt must be thrown in to appease the spirit of the place. Many Indian traditions relate to whirlpools.! Marquette and Joliette relate that they saw Indians at various times * History of the Goths (1658) . + Polyolblon (1622). t Marvels of Creation. §Ralston,— Songs of the Russian People. U Loskiel.— Indians of North America, 1^5. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 23 )ffer sacrifices to the spirit of whirlpools in rivers. An ;ddy in the upper falls of the Mississippi was thought to be launted by a demon, to whom sacrifices were made. Ca- ladian Indians thought the spirit of a drowned man launted an eddy, and that it drew down sticks that were hrown in. In Mexico, children were offered to Tlaloc in a whirl- )ool.* The bore, that sometimes is found in tidal rivers, has )een the subject of many fancies. f A bore on the southwest coast of Ireland is called the .venging wave. A man killed a mermaid here, and the ^ave suddenly rushed to engulf him (the next time he 'entured out); and so each time until he was drowned; and t even chases his descendants, the story tells us. The bore that occurs in the mouths of some rivers has ►een thought a demon or dragon. Its name, Eagi^e, is hought by some to be a corruption of Eagle.\ The ilgyptians had a tradition that that bird caused whirlpools n the Nile, and the Phoenix was fabled to appear with the nundation. § Chinese fire cannon-balls at the bore in "anton river, while some shoot arrows. A certain gov- rnor, not succeeding in these methods, threw himself in, .nd exists as a water-spirit. The bore at Hangchow is hought to be caused by a spirit. The bore is called Hygra in Gloucester and in the lumber.] Blind** thinks this a corruption of ^gre, rom CEgir, the Norse sea-god. Carlyle says: "Now to his day, on the river Trent, the Nottingham bargemen all it ^gre. They say, 'Have a care; the ^ger is com- ng.* The older Nottingham bargemen had believed in the ;od CEgir." It is so named by Drayton in '^ Polyolbion." A legend of St. Patrick says the waves are caused by erpents, which that redoubtable saint inclosed in a box, i^hen he cast them out of Ireland. If we are to believe modern mythologists, breakers are iften personified in Greek tales as wild bulls, and the xploits of heroes, from Perseus to St. George, are, most of hem, traditions of the defeat of waves beating on the coast. * Bancroft.— Native Races, vol. iii. i- Jones.— Credulities, 3. $Gr. Massey.— Book of the Beginnings. § Dennys.— Folk-lore of China. II Brewer.— Header's Handbook.— Hygra. ♦* Contemporary Review, 1881. S4 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS *A Norse tradition reports that the noise of waves on a certain beach is the whisper of an old king and his queen, buried in mounds near there. The "moan of the sea" at Elsinore, in Denmark, is said to portend death, or to " want some one." In "The Fisherman," Phoebe Cary says: "And I hear the long waves wash the beach, With the moan of a drowning man in each." In Moray Firth, the fishermen call the noise of the waves "the song of the sea."f The sighing noise of a wave on the coast of Cork is believed to portend the death of some great man. So, J not more than thirty years ago, the hollow, mourn- ful sound of the waves on the coast of Cornwall was said to be a spirit, Bucca (Puck), and foretold a tempest. The sound of the Nasjoir, or death wave, of Icelandic legend, was said to resemble the struggles of a dying man. The waves are still called in French **Moutons" (sheep), when whitened by the coming breeze. §So in Ariosto,— "And Neptune's white herds low above the waves." So, in Scotland, the waves preceding a storm are " dogs afore the maister"; those following, "dogs ahin' the mais- ter." El Masudi || tells us the Arab sailors believed that the "blind waves," or high seas of the Abyssinian coast were enchanted, and they said verses to charm them, as they were lifted up on them. Cambry** says the inhabitants of Finisterre divined events by the movements of the waves. Fishermen on our own coasts call the swell sometimes seen during a fog, the fog-swell, and believe it is caused by the fog. It is really the swell caused by the incoming tide. An idea long existed that the ninth or tenth wave was greater and more powerful than others. This belief existed in Ovid's time, who says,ff " The wave that is now coming * Dasent.— Popular Tales from the Norse. + Kennedy .—Fireside Stories of Ireland. * Hunt.— Romances and Drolls of the west of England. § Hoole's Translation. II Golden Meadows, 954 A.D. ** Voyage Dans la Finisterre. •H Fasti. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 25 >'ertops all the others; 'tis the one that comes after the linth and before the tenth." The fluctus decuman?ius, or tenth /ave, was then preferred. THE NINTH WAVE. Allatius* writes thus, during a voyage from Messina to [alta, " I saw the captain, who was accounted an experi- iced and skillful mariner, standing at the bow, while he luttered and pointed at something with his finger. I ap- roached, and inquired what he was doing. The old man, ith a cheerful countenance, answered, ' I am breaking the )rce of a fatal wave, and am making the sign of the cross, id saying the prayers proper for the occasion.' I said ' Do 3u, then, know, amongst all these waves, which is the fatal *Allatius.— De Griecorum Hodie quandorum opinationibus (1645). ^6 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS one ? ' ' Yes,' he said, 'by so many waves by which the ship is tossed, none but the ninth can sink it/ And as the ship was immediately driven more violently, and the water sud- denly beat high over it, * This,' said he, 'is the ninth, take the number count on.' Strange it is that every ninth wave was much greater than any of the others, and threatened the ship with immediate destruction. This wave, however, whenever it approached, the captain, by his muttering and signing of the cross, seemed to break, and the danger was averted." Forbes* says the ninth is thought the greatest wave by the Hindoo boatmen. The Welsh bard, Taliesin,f refers to it as greatest. An old Welsh sea-poem says the dead are buried "where the ninth wave breaks." In a Bardic story, " a fleet is destroyed by the ninth wave." WelshJ fishermen called the ninth wave the " ram of Gwenhidwy," the other waves her sheep. Sir Thomas Browne § refutes the tenth wave superstition. II Tennyson thus speaks: — "And watched the great sea fall Wave after wave, each mightier than the last, 'Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep, And full of voices, slowly rose, and plunged, Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame." Hone** says: "A common affimation is that the tenth wave is the greatest, and always the most dangerous." In an account of the loss of the ship '' Fanny," in this century, the tenth wave is said to have risen above the rest. A modern novelist ff says, "Our fishermen (in England) call it the death wave, not always the ninth." In a late tale, a sailor says: " I made de sign of de holy cross, an' de wave broke before it reached us." H In Scotland a distempered cow could be cured by being washed by nine surfs. In the trial of Margaret Ritchart, witch of the eighteenth century, we read of the further efficacy of the water from the ninth wave.§§ " Go thy way to the sea-syd, and tell nyne heave of the sea cum in, that is to ♦Oriental Memoirs. + G. Massey.— Book of the Beginnings. i Brewer.— Readers' Hand Book. § Vulgar Errors, 1644. II Holy Grail **Gregor.— Folk-lore of Scotland. •HMary C. Hay. ttC^apt. Hall.— Adrift in the Ice Fields. §§The Lancashire Witches. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 27 5ay, nyne waves of the sea, and let the hind-most go of the [lyne back again, and the nixt theraifter, take three looffuls ^spoonsful) of the water, and put within the stoupe, and :[uhen thou comes hame, put it in thy kime, and there will ret thy profit back again." * There is a belief among Shetland fishermen, that water )ut of the "third die," if gathered up, had great medicinal ind mischief-working power. So old fishermen believed :hey could find their way in a fog by their knowledge of ' da moder-die," or wave tending toward land. Icelandic f fishermen say there are three great waves :hat follow in succession, in which boats should not be aunched. These waves are called Olag, and boats should )ut to sea in the lag, immediately following them. Should I boat's crew be wrecked in the operation, they say a great :alm comes over the sea, called Dauthaldg (death's calm), luring which other boats are safe. Breakers called Naoldur death's breakers) are often seen at sea, redder or bluer han the surrounding waves. When two of these waves clash ogether, they make a sound called " death's clash," and )ortend wreck. These curious beliefs have no foundation in fact. It was loubtless noticed that there were waves greater than those )receding and following, but no regularity can be observed n these. The mystic numbers three, nine (3 x 3), and en, were not unusually chosen when any doubt existed, vlassey thinks the idea is connected with the nine months )r ten moons of gestation, and the new birth or resurrection hus typified. We need not, however, go so far as this in )ur imagery. The tides, those mysterious pulsations of the ocean, have )een the theme of many curious speculations. JAristotle and Heraclitus say they are caused by the sun, vhich moves and whirls the winds about, so that they fall vith violence on the Atlantic, which thus swells and causes he tides. Pliny § believed in tides of extraordinary height. Pytheas aid they were caused by the increase of the moon, and Plato accounted for them as caused by an animal living n a cavern, which, by the means of a mouth or orifice * K. Blind.— Contemp. Review, September, 1883. i- Maurer.— Islandische Sagen. $ Plutarch.— Morals. Goodwin's Trans., Vol. III. §Bk. II., Ch. 99. II Plutarch.— Morals. Goodwin, Vol. III. 28 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS causes the alternations of ebb and flow. He also says the winds, falling from the mountains of Celtic Gaul into the Atlantic, causes a tide. ^ Seleucus said that the motion of the earth and moon produce a wind, which, pressing on the Atlantic, causes a tide, f Vegetius says they are a natural movement of respiration of the sea. I El Masudi records the Mediaeval beliefs among the Arabs. He says some think them caused by the moon's heating the waters so that it swells and rises higher; others, that they are caused by vapors generated in the bowels of the earth; others, that its movements were like the tempera- ments of men, without rule and reason. Others said they were caused by the alternate decomposition of the sea by the air, and of the air by the sea, thus causing the ebb and flow. § Brunetti Latini, in the 13th century, said the tides are caused by the efforts of the earth to breathe. This had been asserted in antiquity, and refuted by Pytheas. St. Jerome says they come from caves by a law of Nature. II Bede (the false) says they are caused by a great serpent which swallows and vomits the water. ** Another old author says they are caused by the ice melting at the poles. ffBlind says Shetlanders believed they were caused by a monster living in the sea, or in the words of an old fisher- man, "a monstrous sea-serpent that took about six hours to draw in his breath, and about six to let it out again." II The Chinese believe that supernatural beings cause the tides, and Japanese legends of the " ruler of the tides," still exist. § § The Malay Nias say they are caused by the move- ments of a huge crab. III Respect to the god Somnath causes the tides, say mod- ern Hindoos. *** Michael Scott, the great wizard, was popularly said to have controlled the tides. He sent a man to run on the * Plutarch.— Morals. Goodwin, Vol. III. + In8t. R. Mllit, Vol, XII. :|: Golden Meadows, 954 A.D. § Tresor. II De Mundi Constitutlone in Theo. Martin Notices des Anciens, sur la maree, 1866. ** B. do St. Pierre, Etudes de la nature. •H Contemporary Review, September, 1881. t :|: Dennys.— Folk-lore of China. §§ Rosen berg.— Q. in Melvisinc, Novembei-, 1884. II II Tarikh Mahmud in Panjab Notes and Queries. *** Conway.— Deraonolof?y ^nd Devil-lore. I., U§, OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 29 )anks of the Wambeck, the tide following up, so long as he lid not look behind. Terrified by the noise of the advanc- ng waves, he disobeyed the injunction, and the tide stopped. In Russia the tides are popularly said to be controlled )y the water king's daughter. There is a superstition in many places that people die )n the ebb of the tide. This is as old as Pliny, who says, '"Aristotle says that no animal dies except at the ebb of the ide." He further says it has been proven true only as regards nan. Dickens alludes to this notion in " David Copper- ield." So, in another part of England, it is believed that a hild born at the rising of the tide will be a male, and in Scot- and,f good wives set eggs for cocks at flood, for hens at ebb. I At Hull, in Cornwall and in Northumberland, it is be- ieved that people wait for the tide. So Shakspeare makes he hostess say of Falstaff, — § " 'A parted even just between twelve and one, even at he turning o' the tide.'' II Marryat thus chronicles the belief. " Dr. Mead has ob- erved, that of those who are at the point of death, nine out if twelve quit this world at the turn of the tide." ** "In Brittany death usually claims his victims at ebb." ff On Cape Cod, and in many other districts along the view England coast, it is firmly believed that a sick man cap ot die until the ebb tide begins to run. Watchers by beds f sickness anxiously note the change of the tides, and if he patient lives until the flood begins to set in again he will ive until the next ebb. The most intelligent and best ed- cated people born and brought up on the New England oast are not entirely free from this superstition, and to hem there is a weird meaning in the words of Dickens in escribing the death of Barkis: " And it being high water, e went out with the tide." Water spouts, destructive to the smaller vessels formerly ised, have always been objects of dread to the mariner. They were called Prester§§ by the Greeks, whence prob- bly the name prister^ used by Olaus Magnus for the whirl- >ool. Lucretius says: *Bk. II., Ch. 47. + Greg-or.— Folk-lore of Scotland. * Choice Notes, p. 164. § King Henry V. Act ii, scene 3. II King-'s Own. ** L. de Sauve in Melusine, September, 1884, ++ Boston Transcript, 1885. $:): Jones.— Credi^litvies, p. 77. 30 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS " Hence with much ease, the meteor we may trace, Termed from its essence, Prester by the Greeks." * Pliny says of it, calling it Typhoon, " It may be counter- acted by sprinkling it with vinegar when it comes near us— this substance being of a very cold nature." El Masudif thus reports beliefs current in his day: "There are Timmins (dragons) in the Atlantic seas. Some believe this is a wind arising in a whirling column from the bottom of the sea. Some say it is a black serpent rising in the air, and succeeded by a terrible wind; some that it is a terrible animal living in the bottom of the sea; some say they are black serpents, passing from the desert into the sea, and living five hundred years. Abbu Abbas says they are killed in the clouds by cold and rain." ;[ Especially were they objects of superstition in the Mid- dle Ages, as is manifest from their popular title, " dragons de mer," or sea dragons. Various ways were adopted of get- ting rid of these troublesome visitors. Cannon-shot were fired into the solid column. P. Dan, in his "History of Barbary " (1649), says that custom was even then followed, and it has been continued to much later times. He also says it was conjured away by presenting a black-handled knife placed at the extremity of a mast or spar, repeating prayers, Signing the cross, etc., meanwhile. John of Brompton tells us,§ "Another very extraordinary thing happens once in every month of the year, in the gulf of Salato; a great black dragon is seen to come from the clouds, and puts its head into the water, and its tail seems as though it were fixed in the sky; and this dragon drinks up the waters so greedily, that it swallows up along with them any ships that may come in the way, along with their crews and cargo, be they ever so heavy. And those that would escape the dragon, must, as soon as they see the dragon, make a great noise, with loud shouting, and beating on the deck; and when the dragon hears the tumult and the shouting, he will move off to a distance." II Pere Rene Frangois also tells us: " Dragons of the sea are very great whirlwinds that will sink a ship, which they pass over. The sailors, when they see them coming afar *Nat. Hist.— Bk. TI., Ch. 41. + Golden Meadows, 954 A.B. :t: Aiibin.— Dictionnaire d-o Marine, 1702, § Chronicle in An^l. Scriptorium. Tylor P. C., I., 265. IIMerveilles de La Nature, in Jal. Gloss^ire Nautique, " Dragons,'' PRAYER IN THE HOUR OF PERIL. 31 32 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS off, raise their swords, and beat them against each other in the shape of a cross, holding that this causes the monster to flee from alongside. * The weather was thick and we went spooning towards Gardafu, when suddenly we saw a shape like a black and thick cloud, falling at some distance from us into the sea. One of our Greeks from Chios took his sword and said several prayers with the sign of the cross, and commenced to hack at the deck, from which he cut two or three pieces. . . . There were some Indian gentlemen who took their alfanges or scimiters, to defend themselves from this restless demon." f So B. Crescentio: "This column, pillar or water spout, the sailors, credulous ^in infidel things, and firm in their faith, hold that it will disappear by taking a knife with a black handle, and saying the evangelist of St. John, and the Pater Noster, without saying " et in terra," etc., and by making three crosses in the air, and at every cross sticking the point of the knife in the side of the ship." JPurchas chronicles similar beliefs: "Often they see come afar off, great whirlwinds, which the mariners call dragons; if this passeth over their ship, it breaketh them and overwhelmeth them in the waves. When the mariners see them come, they take new swords and beat one against the other in a cross, upon the prow or toward the coast from whence the storm comes; and hold that this hinders it from coming over their ship, and turneth it aside." §A little later Thevenot is an eye witness of such a scene. " One of the ship's company kneels down by the mainmast, and, holding in his hands a knife with a black handle (with- out which sailors never go on board for that reason), he reads the gospel of St. John, and when he comes to the words, * Et verbum carne factum est et habitant in nobis,' the man turns toward the waterspout, and with the knife cuts the air toward that spirit, as if he would cut it; and they say then, it is really cut, and lets all the water fall with a great noise." II Fere Dan is also a witness. After hearing an account of the terrors of the approaching monster: "This account gave us very great alarm, and sent us to our prayers, and insomuch as we were told by the sailors that in such * Les Voyages du Sieur Vincent le Blanc, 15G9, in Melusine. + Nautica Mediterranea, 1637, in Jal. (Gloss.) Nautique, " Dragons." * Pilgrims, 1646. § Travels.— 1687. II History Barbary, 1649, in Jones' Credulities, p. 77. OP THE SEA AND OP SAILORS. 33 xtremity they were accustomed to recite the evangelist f St. John, that commences 'In Principio,' etc., I said them ery loud, and we perceived, a little after, that the meteor lelted away." *When this failed, two men fought with black-edged words, making them cross. In one of Columbus' voyages, assages from the "Evangelist" were read to dissipate a waterspout. fAubin says Catholic mariners say the "Evangelist," nd others pray to dissipate them. He says some think [lem water drawn up by the sun, and sailors think they iresage great storms. These curious ideas with regard to the waterspout were ot confined to sailors, nor to the middle ages. XWe read in the Arabian Nights: "The sea became roubled before them, and there arose from it a black pillar, scending toward the sky, and approaching the meadows; nd, behold! it was a Jinnee of gigantic stature." § Greeks of the middle ages called these phenomena '^rester, and thought them a fiery fluid, because lightning nd sulphurous smells sometimes accompany them. II Wainaku Africans told Dr. Krapf of a great serpent hat arose like a column from the sea, bringing rain. In mythology** and folk-lore, the rain is often figured as a erpent. A Finnish legend says the waterspout is Vidar, a water- ;od. ff Chinese and Japanese say these phenomena are caused >y dragons, and affirm that they have been seen going up .nd down in them. Drums and gongs are beaten to dissi- )ate them. Japanese call them tatsmaki (spouting-dragon).J3; Falconer in the "Shipwreck," and Camoens in the " Lu- iad," allude to firing cannon at them. Russian peasants )retend to dispel whirlwinds by cutting the air with crossed :nives. The twisted column was readily imagined a serpent or Iragon, and the name endured after the conception of the inimal nature of the meteor was lost. Doubtless can- * Jones.— Credulities, p. 78. + Dictionnaire de Marine. 1703. % Lane.— Arabian Nights, Vol. I, 30-7. § Jones.— Credulities, p. 77. II Krapf .—Travels in Africa, p. 198. **Goldhizer. — Mythology Among the Hebrews. •H-Doolittle.-The Chinese. 11.265. W Kaempfer.— Japan in Pinkerton, VII, 634. 34 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS non were at first fired at them, for the same reason that gongs were beaten, and swords clashed together to terrify them — and not with the modern idea of breaking the column. There were various other things imagined of the sea. From it came all the universe, according to the writer of Genesis, where we are told the earth was without form, but "darkness moved upon the face of the waters." Geology has proven that the sea at one time covered much of what is now dry land; and bones of extinct sea-monsters, alluded to in another chapter, have been found on inland plains, and even on high table-lands. Not only the Hebrews, but other nations held these same ideas.* "The theory of a wet origin is traceable in Vedic, Assyrian, Hebrew, Greek, German, and other cosmogonies," says Blind. According to Pherecydes and Thales, the sea was the first of all elements. A Frenchman f wrote a book to prove that not only the earth, but the entire animal and vegetable king- doms, came out of the ocean, in which existed the egg of all creation. | Shakspeare hints that the sea is the origin of dew. From the ocean came many of the gods, and in the ocean was their abode, as we shall see in another chapter. So in it was, in many beliefs, the heaven or the hell. Esquimaux placed there the better of their two heavens; there Typhon and many demons abode, and there, as we shall also see, in middle-age belief, lay purgatory and para- dise. Nastrand, the Norse shore of the dead was there, and there the Taouist placed his sixth court of hell. So from the sea came riches and knowledge, as well as living beings. § From it arose Cannes, Hea, Quealzcoatl, Viracocha, Manco Capac, Bochica, and other primitive heroes, who brought the arts and sciences with them. Lakshmi, the Hindoo Venus; Kama, the Cupid; Aphro- dite, and Viracocha sprang from the foam of the sea. In Greek mythology, semi-divine heroes are the offspring often of a sea-steer, a river-god, or a stream, and many heroes are descendants of the Cceanids. There is a Buddhist legend that living beings were created out of sea-foam. Pierre de San Cloud || says Adam * Scottish and Shetlandic Water-gods, Contemporary Review, August, 1883. + M. Maillet.— Telramund. $ Antony and Cleopatra. Act iii.; scene 3. §SeeCh. II. II Baring Gould.— Legends of Old Testament Characters. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 35 ind Eve created animals from the sea by striking it with •ods — the former bringing forth beneficent animals, the atter evil ones. In Norse legend, the sons of Borsford, a primeval giant, ind two pieces of wood floating, and from them form man ind woman. The sea-animals and its fabled inhabitants are wise and )eneficent, powerful and malignant, and the marvelous rich loard of the Niflungs was robbed to furnish the wonderful [uantities of gold brought to man by the mermaids and vater-sprites of story and song. Perhaps in this Niflung hoard is typified the close con- lection of the water and fire cult, and at the same time the intagonism between the lunar and solar worships often >bserved in antiquity. Blind* shows many things in sup- )ort of the first: "This hoard is probably but the phos- )horescent color of the sea-foam. Poseidon and Amphi- rite dwell in golden palaces beneath the seas; and the ea-hall of the mer-lady's offspring, Grendel, glowed with iery glimmer. From the lakes and marshes comes the ire-drakes, or the will-o'-the wisp, and the wonderful St. Llmo light, and fiery dragons; Loki and Apollo, both sun- ^ods changed to fish. Aphrodite weds Hephaistus, fire- ^''orker; Indus is fire and water-god; Varuna also. Fire ontrols water," etc. To these hints we may add that the un in antiquity was supposed to rest at night in the ocean, nd here, doubtless, is the cause of the splendor of these ea-palaces, and the hoard is stolen splendor from the lord •f day. These ideas also illustrate the fabled regenerative )Owers of the sea. The animals of the sea were also fabled o possess great regenerative powers, and the fish early tecame a phallical animal in folk-lore. The efficacy of ea-water in the rites of baptism has been stoutly main- ained, and its medicinal character and virtues often cele- >rated. This worship of water and this belief in it as the origin •f all things is a natural one, and is very ancient. The arly Aryans saw no difference between the waters of the ir and the streams of the earth, and from adoring the sky .nd its many gods it became easy and natural for their iescendants to worship the sea and its fancied gods, and to * Contemporary Review, September, 1882, 36 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS fear it in its anger and propitiate its demons. From the primitive conception of the sea itself as a god, it was but a step to the notion that it was ruled by its resident deities, who must be worshiped and propitiated. Water containing all the germs of development, in it the future must be hidden; and thus we find its gods and its residents empowered to know the future. Thence arose a belief in the indications of waves and other natural phe- nomena, instances of which we shall often encounter in these pages. But the mariner was more nearly concerned in the winds that raised these mighty waves and meteors, and the resources of his arts and prayers were expended to obtain favorable breezes, to allay the storm, or dissipate the calm. His prin- ^cipal deities had most to do with the winds that either brought him good fortune, or wreck and disaster. Gods of the wind have ever been powerful divinities. * " In the polytheism of the lower as of the higher races, the wind-gods are no unknown figures. The winds them- selves, and especially the four winds in their four regions, take name and shape as personal divinities, while some deity of w4der range, a wind-god, storm-god, air-god, or the mighty heaven-god himself, may stand as compeller or con- troller of breeze and gale and tempest." Neither time nor space can here be allotted to an extended study of the •mythology of the winds, a subject ably treated by Cox, Brinton, Tylor and others, but it is pertinent to our pur- pose to give some brief account of the wind-gods, their powers and attributes. Legends of the winds are so numerous, that a volume would scarcely contain them. We shall see the appearance of the spectre-ship and of the St. Elmo light connected with premonitions of wind and storm. These were only two of the many apparitions, that, like those of the moon and planets, were deemed indications of coming tempests, or prognostications of fair weather. Doubtless the very name of wind, animos or spiritus^ meaning also breath and soul, animal and spirit, favored the formation of legends concerning the winds, as we still see the outcome of these in the similarity between gust and ghost, the spirit in the breath being the spirit of the air. This has been observed of many languages.f The same ♦Tylor.— Primitive Culture, II., 266. •!■ Brinton.— Myths of the New World. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 37 ords express wind, spirit, life and breath in Hebrew, Greek, ,atin and other European tonges, as well as in Dacota, Choc- iw, Netela and Esquimaux. This resemblance of the ir to the breath, of the wind to the soul, accounts for lany legends connected with these subjects, and partly for le prominence given to the winds in mythology. The ancients attributed to many of their gods power ver the elements. Jupiter or Zeus, above all, brought impests. As, says Homer, — " Sudden the Thunderer blackens all the skies." And Sophocles, — " But Jove denies A favorable wind." s chief god and storm god, he controlled all other wind ods, and navigators sacrificed to him. As Jupiter Pluvius, rains were sent by him. Poseidon r Neptune, Oceanus, Nereus, Pontus and other sea-gods lised storms, and sacrifices were made to them, and to the inds themselves, which were personified, and depicted ac- )rding to their several characters. *Eurus, the southeast, was a gay young man; Auster, le south wind, bringer of rain, a gloomy old man (whence Lir word austere)', Zephyus, southwest, was figured as a Dung and gentle youth, and Boreas, the rugged north ind, as a rough and wild old man. Boreas was the princi- al storm wind, and to him numerous altars were erected. The Greeks sacrificed to him when about to encounter le Persian fleet at Magnesium, and accounted its destruc- on as an answer to their prayers. Hesiod says Boreas, ephyrus, and Notus were sent from heaven; the other inds were Typhonic. These winds were controlled by ^olus in his wind cav- :n in the island of ^Eolia, and ^neas finds him, — f "Where, in a spacious cave of living stone, The tyrant ^olus, from his airy throne, With power imperial curbs the struggling winds. And sounding tempests in dark prison binds." ^olus could confine the winds in a bag, and so for Eneas, — " The adverse winds in leathern bags he braced, Compressed their force and lock'd each struggling blast.' * Murray.— Hand-book of Mythology. i- Dryden.— ^neld, Bk. I, 38 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS (So Abbuto, the Japanese wind-god, is depicted with a bag between his shoulders.) He gave them to Ulysses, liberating the one fair wind, but the curious crew freed the others, and the ship was driven back again. This abode of the winds changed from time to time. Diodorus Siculus says the priests of Boreas lived in Buto (Great Britain). There is a French tale of a Russian prince who entered a cave in a forest during a storm. He met an old woman, who informed him that this was the cave of the winds, and these soon after entered. With Zephyr, a hand- some youth, the prince traveled to Felicity. Virgil locates the cave of the winds at Lipari islands. Diodorus makes ^olus a real monarch of Sorrento, who invented sails and storm signals — ancient prototype of "Old Probabilities." His island,* ^olia, with its triple wall of brass and perpetual delights, was a sort of terrestrial para- dise; the first of many in Homer's poems. Other Greek divinities were fabled to possess power over the winds. Poseidon, Amphitrite, and even inferior deities, as Triton, were said to possess this power to a limited extent. Minerva gave to Iphigenia a fair wind, from Tauris, and Vulcan sent a storm against the Argonauts, until the more powerful Juno interfered, when f " His bellows heave their windy sides no more, Nor his shrill anvils shake the distant shore." So Others possessed these magic powers. Calypso could control the winds, the Sirens invoke them, and Circe gave to Ulysses a fair wind | " A freshening breeze her magic power supplied, While the winged vessel flew along the tide." The winds were doubtless anciently represented under other forms. For such is Orpheus, with his lyre, who charms fish, moves the Argo, and fixes the Symplegades. This wind-lyre is represented in folk-lore by numerous harps that have lured mermaids from their caves, or § " Harpit a fish out o' saut water." *Keary.— Outlines, etc., p. 308. + Ap. Rhoflius, Argonautlcs.— Fawkes' Trans, *4; Pope.— Odyssey. Bk. X. % Jamieson.— Scottish Ballads, 1-98, OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 39 *" Orpheus, who charms by his lyre, the Sirens with their alluring lay, and the piper, with his baneful tune, are but the wind." Mercury or Hermes, the winged messenger, was doubtless the wind. The harpies were storm gusts, that with the two sons of Boreas, fight for the mastery. " This,"f says Ruskin, "in its literal form, means only the battle between the fair north wind and the foul south one." They were repre- sented as foul birds. Amphion, Pan and Zethios represented the winds.J Storms and tempests came from Typhon. Hesiod says:§ " Lo! from Typhoeus is the strength of winds." II The Hermean zodiac from Egyptian temples shows us Typhon causing winds and lightning. He was the demon of the lower world, or night. ** Rimmon or Mirmir, was a Chaldean wind-god. ff In Hindoo lore, the Ribhus were storm-demons, as also the Maruts, offspring of Rudrae, and attendants of Indra. Hamamunt is son of the winds, and travels on the storm- clouds. Another Vedaic storm-deity is Rudra or Briga^ a. word from the same root as brew. So the phrase " brew- ing a storm " has been referred to the soma, nectar, and ambrosia distilled at godlike banquets. In Germany, mists are yet said to be brewed by witches, elves, or dwarfs. Vayu,J;|; or Indra was, however, chief god of the winds and atmosphere. The winds, in Vedaic legends were twenty- one, each guarded by an elephant. The Pitris were wind- gods, and the Rakshasas, wolf-shaped storm demons. §§ In Semitic lore, Samael was a known storm-demon, and from his name we have the samiel or simoom. Zoro- aster believed in a wind-causing spirit, Vato or Vad, a Dev, or evil one. Semkail was also an oriental wind-god. We read in Mottalib,|||| "I keep the winds in awe with the hand which you see in the air, and prevent the wind Haidje from com- ing forth. With my other hand, I prevent the sea from overflowing." * Fiske.— Myths and Myth-makers. i Queen of the Air t Cox.— Aryan Mythology, II., 251. § Theogony. II Gr. Massey.— Book of the Beginnings. ** Brewer.— Reader's Hand Book. i'+ Kelly.— Indo-Eviropean Folk-lore. # Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Beliefs, 142. §§ Brewer.— Reader's Hand Book. II II History of Abd-el-Mottaiib,— Trans, by Compte de Caylus, 174?, 40 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Eight angels, subject to Solomon's will, rule the winds in Talmudic and Koranic legends. Rabbinical"* legends also tell of the Simorgue, a great bird that causes the wind by moving its wings. Bechard is a wind-causing demon in the "Clavicle of Solomon." fEl Kazwini says: " The winds come from the bottom of the sea," as Pliny likewise asserts concerning Auster. In Arab legend, Sakina, an angel, presides over the winds. The Norse Sagas represent Odin as the great wind-god, who swept along the sky with a retinue of souls. The gusts preceding a storm were said to be the souls of women hunted by Odin and his gang. From this legend doubtless descended the many tales of the wild huntsman, still heard in storms by the German peasant. JCarinthian and Swabian peasants still set out a bowl of meal for the wind-god in gales, saying, " There, meal thou hast for thy child, but thou must be off." These attendant demons of the winds are, like the Greek Harpies, gusts of the coming storm. Husi was the Finnish storm- demon, especially of the north wind, and was attended by a retinue of cats, dogs, etc. §In Russian peasant-tales, Vikhar is the whirlwind, flying as a bird in the gale, and stealing people away. The wind-demon was said to be attended by the souls of unbaptized children, and English peasants say they hear their wails. The Wildhunt receives various names, and is known all over Europe. It is connected with Herodias, being " La Chasse Herode," and " Chasse Maccabei," with the Frei- schiitz, being " Hackelbarend," or "Grand Veneur," and with the Wandering Jew, who is said to have appeared in it in Brittany, and caused tempests, etc., in 1604. || In Swabian folk-lore, the wind-demon is called Neck, and rides a stall- ion from the sea. They are the dogs*"* of Annwyn in Wales, and the Heath-hounds in ff Devonshire. Many other legends exist concerning the Wildhunt, but these need not detain us longer. JJOdin rode his gray steed Sleipnir, the wind, only in bad weather, and on it passed over the ocean. Wodin's * Brewer.— Reader's Hand Book. 41 + Marvels of Creation. $ Wuttke.— Deutsche- Volksaber glauben. § Ralston.— Russian Folk-lore. II Blind.— In Cont. Rev., October, 1882. ** Sikes.— British Goblins and Welsh Folk-lore. •H- Mrs. Bray.— Lej^ends and Traditions of Devonshire. :|4 Thorpe.— Northern Mythology. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 41 day, or Wednesday, was long an unlucky one in the sea- man's calendar. He was also named Nikar, as we shall find. Often appearing as a favorable wind-giver, he was named Oskabyrr^ or wish-wind. *Ogauban, the Norse ^olus, had the winds in a leathern bag. f Odin's third son, Niord, sails the waves and raises sea- storms. He was especially the mariner's god. To him was consecrated the Spongia marina^ or " Neptune's goblets." CEgir (whence our ogre) was another Norse storm-god. I shall speak again of the goddess Helgi, who attacked Eric the pirate in a northerly storm of hail. JKasi was also a Norse wind-god. Norse legends represent the north wind as Hraesvelg, or "Corpse Devourer," in the guise of an eagle, and Scott says Shetlanders thought the north wind came from the movements of its wings, and made offerings to it. § "Where the heavens' remotest bound With darkness is encompassed round, There Hrasvelger sits and wrings ^ The tempest from its eagle wings." This conception of the wind as a bird, or as caused by a bird, will often be met with in these pages. So Aquilo and Aquila, north wind and eagle, have the same derivation in Latin, as Vultur and Vulturnus also. || In the Hindoo Somadeva, Garuda's wings cause a storm. These birds are doubtless of angelic origin, and embody the idea of good spirits in the air in opposition to evil ones. The winds are often personified in Norse folk-tales. Tuulen-ty-bat"^* is a Finnish wind-god, and sends good winds. Uiro-tadi and Ukko, the supreme god, also con- trolled the winds. The Circassian Seoseres was a wind- god as well as a water-god. ff Kamskatdales say Billukai, the supreme god, controls the winds. JIEsthonians called the wind-god Tuule-Ema (wind's mother). They say^ "Wind's mother wails; who knows what mother will wail next?" Poznisky was a Sclavonian wind-deity; Poswijd, Stryba, * Grimm.— Teut. Mythology, p. 690. - + Saemundic Edda, 18. $ Grimm.— Teut. Mythology, 531. §SaBmundr Edda Vafthrudnir mal, 37. II Grimm.— Teut. Mythology, 633. **Castren.— Finnish Mythology, 37-68. ++Steller.— Kamskatka, 266. :|:}:Tylor.— Primitive Culture, 1-268. 42 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS and Vichera, Polish storm-deities, Okka Peernis was a Letton god of wind and sky. *Stribog was an old Russian god of winds. Baba Yaga, a witch, moves in storms. fin Cornish legends, the moaning of the wind is "the calling of the northern deep," and is said to be a certain Tregeagle, who sold himself to the devil, and is condemned to clean out Dosmary Pool. In carrying away sand, he is said to have dropped it and caused a bar in the harbor, and so the winds are called Tregeagle's roar. Penzance boat- men say the devil himself was carrying sand and broke his apron-string, thus causing the bar. I The winds were personified in Indian lore, and names given to represent their character. The great bear-slayer, Mudjeekeewis (west wind), was chief of all. Wabun, the east wind, young and beautiful, and Kabibonnokka, the north wind, fierce and terrible, with Shawondasee, the south wind, fat and lazy, were his children. §Gaoh was Iroquois ''father of the winds." The Utes say the winds are caused by the breathing of monstrous beasts in the south and north. II The Creeks called the Supreme Ruler the "master of breath"; Cherokees, the "eldest of winds." Huchtoli was the Choctaw storm-god. All Indian tribes regarded the winds as in the power of the spirits of the four cardinal points, and many represent them in bird form. Navajos say there are white swans at each point. In the Palenque cross, the wind, as a bird, dominates over the north point. Dacotahs called the west the home of the spirit of the storm-breezes. The owl was the Chip- peway spirit of the north wind, the butterfly, of the south. Algonquins said the thunder-spirit used one of the four winds as a drumstick to cause thunder. Iroquois Indians said the winds were caused by a water-lizard, and by the thunder-bird, Hahnes; and the Northern Piutes, by a water- god shaking his tail. Dr. Brinton tells us that many tribes, from Algonquins to Peruvians, believed storms were caused by the struggles of four giants, who ruled the winds. Many of the legends of their origin and descent are connected with the winds, * Ralston,— Russian Folk-lore. + Hunt.— Romances and Drolls of the North of England. $ Brinton.— Myths of the New World. { Morgan.— Iroquois, 137. Brinton, OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 43 and in many instances their ancestors are identified directly with the winds. In Yucatan myths, four gods, identical with the winds, stood at the corners of the earth, like giant Atlantes. In Mandan legend, the four winds are as many gigantic tortoises; in Quiche, they are four maize-bring- ing animals. Kukalkan was a Maya lord of the four winds. Mixcohuatl was a Mexican storm-god, the tropical whirl- wind, and * Quetzalcoatl also, "Lord of the four winds." Our word hurricane comes from the name of the Quiche god of storms, Hurakan,f and Incas believed the winds abode in a cave, the " House of Subsistence," as did the Iroquois. Caribs say Maboyo, a demon, causes hurricanes, and Saracon is a bird, once a man, who raises storms. The four Peruvian wind-gods were Manco, Cacha, Anca, and Uchao, and they arose from a lake. • Brazilian Tupi Indians said the winds were caused by Tupan, the Thunder-bird. Greenland Esquimaux;]; say storms at sea are caused by a certain giant kayaker, who paddles on the water in his kayak, and raises tempests at will. Sillam§ Innua, owner of winds, Sillagiksartok, weather- spirit, and Sillam Aiparive, lord of winds, were also pos- sessed of power over the elements. Polynesians had various wind-gods to whom fishermen and sailors sacrificed. || Veromatantoru and Tairibu were worshiped in one group, and Ta-whiri-ma-tea in another. Maui, the chief Polynesian deity, was also a wind-god. ** Alo Alo was a Tongan storm deity. Sowaki was a New Zealand god of the elements, and Tokalam has a grove dedi- cated to his service in one of the Fiji islands, he being a great wind-god. Sacrifices were made to these gods, and the Fijians invoked their aid to destroy invading fleets. The Chinese said dragons brought clouds, and tigers winds, and they believed the gusts in a typhoon to be caused by a dragon (Tin-mi-loong), " bob-tail dragon," ff and say it is seen in them. The^ Japanese wind-god was * Bancroft.— Native Races, p. 259, vol. iii. •f Bancroft.— Native Races, p. 475. $ Rink.— Tales and Traditions of the Esquimaux. § Cranz.— Gronland. II Ellis's Polynesian Researches. ** Mariner.— Tonga, II, 15. •H" Grant.— Myteries of all Nations, 56. 44 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Abbuto, who had steel claws and tigerish countenance. The devil of King James's witches had an eagle's beak and steel claws, and cold blasts came from his wings. *Futen, another Japanese storm deity, often figured in engravings and in temple statues, has the face and claws of a cat. Kama-Itachi, a kind of weasel, is represented as the whirlwind. In the whirlwind the influence of the storm deities and demons was particularly recognized. In early German, f it was Zio (god). To-day it is swine-tail (Schweinazahl) a nick-name for the devil, or, as in Saalfield, Saxony and Markland, it is called, with the devil, Stopke. Or it is Herodias whirling through the air, or " wind's bride " (winds- braut), or Freya chased by Odin and his gang. In Russia it is Vikhar, a sort of demon. It is also caused by lesser powers than these. In Russia witches are credited with originating it. Sorcerers also caused them, and in Celtic belief, fairies had a hand in them. In Scotland they were " a furl o' fairies ween." So in Poland it is a dance of evil fairies. By sticking a knife in one you get rich at your soul's expense,! and in Russia, Lyesby, a demon sometimics traveling in the whirlwind, was thus controlled. Pau Puk-Keewis,§ the Algonquin magician, was the crea- tor of the whirlwind. The storm raising demon is particularly apparent in a Cornish legend, related by Bottrell.|| A smuggler captain, unable to enter port, swears and tears his hair out, throw- ing it to the winds, as an offering to his fellow-demons, when the storm ceases. Popular belief on this subject is illus- trated by the saying of ** Burton: *' The air is not so full of flies in summer as it is at all times of fiery devils, that stir up storms, cause tempests, etc." "Aeriall spirits or devils are such as keep quarter for the most part in the aire; (they) cause many tempests, thunder, lightning, tear oakes, etc." We see by these examples of popular belief in wind-gods and storm demons that the sailor originated no new ideas, but adopted common beliefs concerning these wind-causers. His fighting off the water spout with black knives, finds its * Greey.— The Wonderful City of Tokio. •I' Grimm.— Teut. Mythology. $ Ralston.— Songs of the Russian People, p. 3, 83. § Schoolcraft.— Indian Tribes. II Traditions and Fireside Stories of West Cornwall. ** Anatomy of Melancholy. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 45 inalogy in the Russian ideas concerning the whirlwind. Did he sacrifice to his wind-gods, either by offerings or by :eremonies and prayers, what more was he doing than the nountaineer of the Alps or the French peasant, who pra5^s or rain ? In Normandy it was formerly a custom to fire ;ilver bullets at a rain cloud to disperse it, and a Tyrolese nountaineer is recorded as firing his small cannon at the vinds to calm them. Savages go still further, and threaten he wind. * Paraguayan Indians rush against them with ire-brands and clenched fists, Kalmucks fire guns at the itorm demons. Namaguas and Aleuts shoot arrows into he storm cloud, and Zulu rain doctors whistle to the light- ling to leave the skies. Many notions existed concerning the influence of the )lanet5 on the weather. Among them is one, not yet by my means extinct, that the moon controls the weather, says the Padrone in the " Golden Legend," — " For the weather changes with the mooo," md Longfellow has thus preserved one of the most precious reliefs of sailor-lore. Here, again, we are only in the current of popular ideas )n the subject. Doctor Lardner f tells us: " many, it is true, nay discard predictions which affect to define, from day to lay, the state of the weather. There are few, however, who io not look for a change of the weather with a change of he moon. It is a belief nearly universal that the epochs of I new and a full moon are, in the great majority of instances, ittended by a change of weather, and that the quarters, dthough not so certain, are still epochs when a change may )e probably expected. No navigator, from the captain or naster, to the commonest seaman, ever doubts for a single noment the influence of a new and full moon over fair veather and foul." These and similar beliefs existed in antiquity. JVarro, quoted by Pliny, says that a new moon with irect horns on the fourth day presages great storms at sea. ' If a darkness comes over the moon's face, in whatever quarter it breaks, from that quarter wind maybe expected." rhis latter is not far from true. He further says that if the lew moon, on rising, has the upper horn obscured, rainy * Farrar.— Primitive Customs, p. 3. + Cabinet Cyclopaedia. *Nat. History, Bk. II, Ch. 39. 46 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS weather is presaged when the moon wanes; but if it is the lower horn, rain at full moon; if the middle of her crescent, at once will it rain. He also declares that obtuse horns at rising of the new moon presage frightful tempests. If the moon, while winds prevail, does not appear before the fourth day, stormy weather will continue. If it appear bright and flaming on the sixteenth day, violent tempests will result. Virgil thus epitomizes these ancient beliefs, — *"When first the moon appears, if then she shrouds Her silver crescent tipp'd with sable clouds, Conclude she bodes a tempest on the main, And brews for fields impetuous floods of rain; Or if her face wich fiery flushing glow, Expect the rattling winds aloft to blow. But four nights old (for that the surest sign). With sharpened horns, if glorious then she shine, Next day, not only that, but all the moon, Till her revolving race be wholly run. Are void of tempests, both by land and sea, And sailors in the port their promis'd vows shall pay." "And that by certain signs we may presage Of heats and rains, and winds' impetuous rage, The Sovereign of the heavens has set on high The moon, to mark the changes of the sky." The moon in her first or last quarter in the horizon is thought to betoken fair weather. This superstition existed also among the Indians, f Pliny says the fourth or fifth day of the new moon was particularly watched for indications of the weather, both in Rome and in Egypt. If the horns were then obtuse, it was considered a sign of rain; if sharp and erect, of wind from the direction of the highest horn; or high wind at night, if both were equal. This reverence for the moon is without known beginning, extending back into antiquity. Isis, patron of navigation, is the moon also, and the influence of the moon on the tides, half guessed at, led observing men to attribute to it a great power in indicating weather. Aratus asserts that the appearance of the moon affects the weather. Lucullus goes further in his ideas of the in- fluence of the moon, and asserts that oysters and shell-fish become larger during the increase than during the wane of the moon. These ideas are perpetuated in more modern times. *6eorffic T, Dry den's Trans. tLib. II. Bk. 39. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 47 * Bartholomeus says: "The moon is the mother of all lumours, minister and lady of the sea." t Newton calls her " Ladye of Moisture," and JLydgate lings,— •'Of Lucina, the moon, moist and pale, That many showers fro' heaven made availe." Another old English author says: "The moone gathereth ieawe in the aire, for she printeth the vertue of her moyst- ire in the aire, and chaungeth the ayre in a manner that is inseene, and breadeth and gendereth deawe in the utter )arts thereof." § Bede intimates similar beliefs: "If she looks like gold n her last quarter, there will be wind; if on the top of the :rescent black spots appear, it will be a rainy month; if in he middle, her full moon will be serene." Alcuin calls the moon " the prophetess of the weather." Shakspeare records the common beliefs in various places, "n "Hamlet," II she is " The moist star, Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands." n Timon of Athens," — "The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves The moon into salt tears." \.nd again, — **" Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air." In France, the moon on the fourth day indicates the veather for the month, and also in Belgium, while in Ger- nany it is the third, fourth or fifth day. In France, " If he horns of the moon are turned toward the sea, there will be eruptions of the sea during the year." In Belgium, a flame- :olored moon on the sixth day indicates a tempest. Many )eliefs concerning the influence of the moon on plants and mimals exist in most European countries, and need not be ■epeated here. The influence of the moon on the tides, and )ther natural phenomena connected with her appearance, * De Proprietatis Rerura. + Directions for the health of Magistrates and Scholars, 1574, in Douce, 1-187. i Stories of Thebes, in Douce, 1. c. § De Rerum Natura. II Hamlet, Act I, Sc.l. ** Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Sc. 3, See also Winter's Tale, I, 3. 48 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS doubtless gave rise to many of these beliefs. Marryatt says fishermen in England still think that fish spawned at full moon, rot soon after being taken out of the water, and that fish hung up in the moon soon decay. Thomas* tells us that the Indians in New Jersey thought the moon prognosticated the weather. Many other savage tribes have beliefs connected with the moon and the weather. Peruvians and Mexicans had their feast of water- gods at full moon. A circle about the moon has long been thought portent- ous. Wet weather will follow, say the wise, the sooner the smaller the circle. This circle is in Cornwall a "burre," or, "buiger." f Falconer, in the "Shipwreck," says: " The waning moon, behind a wat'ry shroud, Pale glimmer'd o'er the long-protracted cloud; A mighty halo 'round her silver throne, Where parting meteors crossed, portentous shone: This in the troubled sky full oft prevails, — Oft deem'd a signal of tempestuous gales." Varro says if the full moon have such a circle, it foretells wind from the brightest quarter of the circle; if the circle is double, the storm will be the more violent; and if there are three, it will be a terrific gale. In Scotland, this circle is called a "broch," or "brugh." I "About the moon there is a brogh, • The weather will be cold and rough." And an English proverb reads, "The moon with a circle brings water in her beak." §In the dictionary of Dr. Jamieson we find this: "A brugh or hazy circle around the moon is accounted a certain prognostic of rain." II In the Shetland Islands, the lunar halo is called Van- gar-for, interpreted, "rain-go-before." A small bright cir- cle is a "cockseye," and indicates unsettled weather. Milanese and French proverbs assert that such a ring around the moon announces rain; and a Calais saying runs: ** " Circle round the moon, Sailors go aloft full soon." * History of West New Jersey. + Canto I. t Swainson — Weather-lore. § Jamieson.— Etymolog-ical Dictionary of the ScoUish Language.— *' Mone." II Blend.— Contemporary Review, May-September, 1882. ** Swainson —Weather-lore. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 49 But a Breton proverb qualifies its effects: * " Never a circle to the moon Should send your topmasts down, But when it is around the sun, With all the masts it must be done." A Spanish proverb runs thus: "The moon with her circle wrings water in her beak." The same is believed in Pom- ^rania.f Longfellow again interprets the sailor belief in this -espect. :}: " I pray thee put into yonder port. For I fear a hurricane." " Last night, the moon had a golden ring, And to-night, no moon we see.** Lunar rainbows were equally portentous, not without ;ome foundation. Moon-dogs indicate a change of weather n Whitby, England. In the "Ancient Mariner," the moon gives omens unfort- anate when " The rain poured down from one black cloud, The moon was at its edge." Another superstition is embodied in the verse, — " Clomb above the eastern bar, The horned moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip." And also Alan Cunningham, — "There's tempest in yon horned moon." This "star-dogged moon" was long thought to be an ill Dmen, portending storms, and is still so regarded in Lan- cashire and at Torquay, England. In a Scotch ballad, we read, — § "An ominous star sits above the bright moon." And again, in a scene of wreck, — II "And the moon looked out With one large star by her side." * Sebillot Litt. Orale de H. Bretagne. + Tenne-Volksagen aus. Pom. t Golden Legend. § Cunningham.— Folk-lore of Scottish and English Peasants, p. 294. II Cunningham.— Folk-lore of Scottish and English Peasants, p. 273. 4 50 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Irish seamen call this dogging-star " Hurlbassy," and say it portends tempests. "One star ahead of the moon towing her, and one star chasing her, are signs of storm."* In an old ballad, "Sir Patrick Spence" (1281), we read: f " I saw the new moon late yestreen Wi' the auld moon in her arms, And if we gang to sea, maister, I fear we'll come to harm." This appearance of the moon was long thought to por- tend tempests, and is still thought to do so in Scotland. We have elsewhere alluded to the moon in her quarters as a boat and as a sign of dry weather. If it is upset — that is, the horns point downward — it will be rainy. In an old English play, by Dekker,]; we find this: '* My love, do you see this change i' the moon ? Sharpe homes do threaten windy weather." And a Scotch rhyme has it, — § " The horny moon is on her back. Mend your shoon and sort your thack." Dr. Jamieson again says: "It is considered as an almost infallible presage of bad weather, if the moon lies sair on her back, or when her horns are pointed toward the zenith. It is a similar prognostic when the new moon appears with the auld moon in her arms." II English fishermen say you may hang your liat upon it then. In Liverpool, it will rain when the horns are up, as it is a boat full of water. We read in "Adam Bede": "Aye, the moon lies sair on her back there. That's a sure sign of fair weather! " French and Italian proverbs say, "The moon eats the clouds"; and modern seamen firmly believe that the moon, when she rises in a storm, will soon eat up the clouds. Many an old seaman has assured me of this during anxious watches. These beliefs concerning the influence of the moon are still widespread. As Dr. Brinton** says: "As the moon is associated with the dampness and dew of night, an ancient * History of Carrickfergus, 1827. •I" Chambers.— Scottish Ballads. $ Match Me in London, Act I, Sc. 3, 145. § Brand. II Dyer.— English Folk-lore, 3&-40. ** Myths of the New World. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 51 and widespread myth identifies her with the goddess of water. Moreover, in spite of the expostulation of the learned, the common people the world over persist in at- tributing to her a marked influence on the rain.'' Science has nevertheless fully disproved many of these beliefs still current among landsmen as well as seamen. Abbe Marcel, of Geneva, carefully investigated the changes of the moon in relation to the weather. In 742 lunar months, there were 2,630 changes of weather, 93 at new moon, 90 at full moon, 109 the day after full, 107 the day after new moon, so that the proportion of change of weather at new moon was 0.125, at full moon 0.12. Toaldo collated the weather observations made at Padua for forty-five years. He called the changes three days before and after. He found the proportion of change of weather at change of moon, 6.7 at new moon, 5.6 at full, and 2.3 at the quarters. But his interval is too long to be of any value, and his conclusions are rejected by Dr. Lard- ner, who fully investigated the subject, and disproved the supposed influence of the moon. With regard to halos, a paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Meteorology^ by two distinguished English me- teorologists, analyzes extended observations of these, amount- ing to 155 solar and 61 lunar halos, during the six years ending June, 1881. Of the 155 solar observations, rain fell 81 times on the same day, 31 the day after and not at all 26 times. Of the 61 lunar observations, rain fell 34 times on the first day, 6 on the second day, and not at all 8 times. Rain fell within 48 hours, with the wind at south or west, in 80 per cent, of the solar halos, and within 3 days in nearly all of the observations of lunar halos. But this was in England, in a wet climate, where rain was nearly sure to fall within these periods, and near London, where the at- mosphere was damp, and halos more common. With regard to the moon's effect in clearing up the clouds, we must be credulous, notwithstanding the assur- ances of Mr. Park Harrison, who, in 1868, assured the British Association of Sciences, that the moon at full did help to clear up the clouds, the difference of reflected heat between full and new moon being two degrees, sufiicient to clear up the clouds. Many other beliefs with regard to the moon's power over the waters are alluded to in these pages, testifying to the universality of these legends. In astrology she was the 52 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS sign for sailors and nautical folk. She is found hereafter connected with the cat, the dolphin, and with mermaids, and other weather-prophets. These analogies lead, doubt- less, to many of the beliefs concerning the moon. *" To the ancients the moon was not a lifeless ball of stones and clods; it was the horned huntress Artemis, coursing through the upper ether, or bathing herself in the clear lake; or it was Aphrodite, protectress of lovers, born of the sea-foam in the east near Cyprus." The sailor but reflected, and perhaps, as in most of his beliefs, perpetuated, ancient ideas on this subject. Clouds were also closely studied by early navigators; but their indications being more real, we may expect to find fewer traditions and legends connected with them in sailor- lore. The long, striated clouds that appear in fine weather, extending nearly across the sky, are called "Noah's ark," and if they extend from east to west, they portend a dry spell; if from north to south, wet weather. Shooting-stars are thought, in parts of England, to fore- tell tempests. So Virgil, in the " Georgics," — **And oft, before tempestuous winds arise, The seeming stars fall headlong from the skies." Pliny and Aristotle both say comets cause winds and great storms, and a prejudice against these harmless wan- derers yet exists in many quarters. Homer says: "As the red comet, from Saturnius sent, To fright the nations, with a dire portent (A fatal sign to armies in the plain, Or trembling sailors on the wintry main.)" And again, — " The blazing star Threatening the world with famine, plague and wars To sailors storms." Proctor says no comet is here meant, the words bemg mistranslated. It is only, — "A bright star sent by the crafty son of Kronos." Diodorus says of Timoleus' expedition to Sicily, B.C. 344: " The gods announced by a remarkable portent his success *(}uberi}atis.— Zoological My^thology. I OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 53 and future greatness. A blazing star appeared in the heavens at night, and went before the fleet of Timoleus until he arrived in Sicily." Bede says that they portend bad weather, but they have, in modern times, no influence at all over the weather, and their appearance has long ago lost its terrors along with that of the eclipse, long an auspicious omen to landsmen and sailor alike. CHAPTER II. THE DEITIES, SAINTS AND DEMONS OF THE DEEP. Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." Wordsworth. The timber that frames his faithful boat, Was dandled in storms on the mountain peaks, And in storms with a bounding keel will float, And laugh when the sea-fiend shrieks." John Sterling — " The Mariner.^ HE sea, no less than the land or the air, has been peopled with many imaginary beings, some inhabitants simply, others ruling or controlling spirits for good or evil. Not only in antiquity have these beliefs prevailed, but traces still linger in maritime language and tradition, of these wide-spread ideas of :') good and evil spirits, — of thinking and ^ sentient beings, having a home be- neath the wave. In the present chapter appear the Deities and Demons who ruled or con- trolled the waves, and to whom the prayers, fears, and hopes of the mariner have been specially directed. It is not possible to treat fully of the subject in the limits of a single chapter, so little more will be done than to mention these deities and relate their principal attributes. It is among the nations of antiquity, as also among the less cultivated peoples that now inhabit the globe, that we find the greater part of these legends. The first of these beings, is found in the meagre accounts of the nations that first inhabited the plains between the Eu' 54 ■i;;^'^*^;?*^— OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 56 phrates and Tigris rivers. ^Prominent among Babylonian deities was Hea, or Hoa, called " Deity of the Abyss," who had temples in Ur and other maritime cities. He was also lord of arts, and taught them to men. Sennacherib, when about to undertake a maritime expedition down the Tigris, offered to this god a golden boat, a golden fish, and a golden coffer. Akkad inscriptions call him Nickim-nut^ "great inventor," " Lord," "Great Master," etc. He was also ruler of Hades and the lower world. Daokina, his spouse, was goddess of the deep. Lenormant says Hea means fish. Nor is this the only tradition of this semi-divine sea- monster. Assyrian records tell of a similar deity. On, or Cannes, who possessed like attributes. Alexander Polyhistor,f quot- ing from earlier writers, says, " In the first year there made its appearance from a part of the Erythraean Sea an animal endowed with reason, who was called Cannes (according to the account of Apollodorus). The whole body of the animal was like that of a fish, and had under its fish head another head, and also feet below similar to that of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail." Six such monsters are said to have after- ward arisen from the Persian Gulf, and Berosus tells that a semi-demon, Annedotes, very like Cannes, arose from the sea during the historical period. J; "In his time (King Amnemus) a monster named Idotia again issued from the Erythraean Sea, with a form which was a mingling of man and fish." " During his reign (Daronos) there again issued forth from the Erythraean Sea four monsters.'' "And under him (Edoranchos) appeared one more, rising from the Erythraean Sea, and being a mixture of man and fish, whose name was Cdala." Abydenus also tells of them, but calls them by different names. We also hear of them through Pindar, Hyginus and Helladius. Photius Byblius says: "He (Helladius) relates the fable of a man named Ces, who came out of the Erythraean Sea, having the perfect body of a fish, with the head, arms and feet of a man, and who taught astronomy and letters. Some say that he had come out of the primeval ^%%y whence his * Lenormant.— Ancient History of the East. Eng. Trans. + Lenormant.— The Beginnings of History, 1883. $ Berosus, in Lenormant.— The Beginnings of History. 56 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS name, and that he was altogether a man, but resembled a fish, having dressed himself in the skin of a whale." * Berosus again says, "This being (Cannes), in the day- time, used to converse with men, but took no food at that season, and he gave them an insight into letters and sciences and every kind of art. He taught them to con- struct houses, etc. In short, he instructed them in every- thing which could tend to soften manners and humanize mankind. When the sun set, it was the custom of this be- ing to plunge again into the sea, and abide all night in the deep, for he was amphibious. ' The account of Helladius probably hints at a solution of the whole mystery, which is important, as here is doubtless the birth of the whole generation of mermen and tritons. f Gesenius thinks the story typifies the arrival of a more cultured race through the Red Sea; Neibuhr, that the de- scription is bf a man clothed in a fish-skin. In a succeeding chapter,}; we shall find an analogous case, where the arrival of a conquering race is concealed under a tradition of sea-men or sea-monsters. Here, doubtless, the same thing is meant. These traditions preserve the memory of invasions of superior races, probably coming through the Persian Gulf. Portions of their dress might consist of the skin of the shark or other fish. § Layard and Botta found, among the remains of Nine- veh and Babylon, huge statues of divinities very like these just described. They represented a man with a fish-skin covering his back, the head forming a kind of mitre above his head, and the tail protruding below. Nin, the chief Nineven deity, was a sort of Hercules, Saturn and Neptune. II A hymn also exists to Kho-tiim-ku-ku^ daughter of the Ocean. **Another marine deity of the Babylonians was Derceto, or Atergatis. The moon was her emblem, and she plunged into the sea to escape the god of evil. Semiramis was tra- ditionally her daughter. Derceto became a Syrian deity, and Damascus and Hie- ropolis were chief seats of her worship. * Blind .—Scottish, Shetland and other Water-gods. Cont. Rev., Sept., 1881. •f Cary.— Ancient Fragments. t See Chiip. iii. § See Layard's Nineveh. If Records of the Past. **Cox.-Aryan Mythology, Bk. II., Ch. %. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 57 * Berosus tells us that a goddess, Homoroka, reigned over the fish in the sea, and she was called in Chaldaic Thalath, or in Greek Thallassa (the sea). The Assyrian fish-god became the Phoenician and Syrian Dagon, which Milton thus characterizes, — " Dagon his name; sea monster, upward man, And downward fish." Dagon, philologists tells us, is from a word meaning fish {Dag). The ancient Egyptians were not sea-faring, so we find few water deities among them. Isis, the Egyptian Moon-goddess, spouse of the Sun, closely resembled Derceto. Although not strictly a sea- goddess — for the ancient Egyptians feared and detested that element — she was patroness of navigation; her cult was borrowed by the Romans, and her feast, on the 5 th of March, was made the chief festival of navigators. Num was the Egyptian lord of the water, god of the Nile, their ocean, and to him were dedicated the sacred barks, and festivals were held in his honor by the boatmen of the Nile.f It was believed that he appeared in the river as late as the sixth century. The Phoenicians, the chief mariners of early antiquity, had numerous gods of the sea. Derceto has been spoken of, and also Dagon, whose worship among the Philistines is often alluded to in Holy Writ. Astarte was the chief Sido- nian goddess. She was the Venus of Semitic lands, also called Ishtar, or Ashtaroth, and was venerated by mariners. The Cabiri, famous gods of learning and arts, were, in Syrian legend, inventors of navigation. Some writers affirmed them direct descendants of Noah, hence naturally protectors of navigators. There were several of them, and figure-heads, called pataikoi, were placed on the prows of Phoenician vessels to represent them. Many of the attri- butes of the Cabiri were transferred to the Dioscuri, or twin sons of Leda. On the coins of Ascalon, Derceto was figured with the moon above her head, and at her feet a woman with fish-tail. Diodorus says, "The goddess, which by the Syrians is called Dercetus, has the face of a man, but the rest of the image is the figure of a fish." Lucian says, " The upper * Cory.— Ancient Fragments. + Simocatta, VI, 16, in Maury.—" Magie." 58 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS half was the perfect figure of a man; the lower part, from the thighs downward, terminated in the tail of a fish." The Greeks were, of all antiquity, chiefest nation at sea, so we may readily expect to find among their pantheon of gods, a great number of deities of the watery element. * Coming, then, to the better Greek sea-gods, we have Poseidon first of all, god of the sea and master of the watery element. He was fabled son of time, (Kronos), and flood (Rhea). Herodotus says he came from Libya, but some philologists say his name is connected with Si-don (Ship of On); others with potamos (river). He was god of the sea (Mediterranean) and ruler of the water, whether of cloud or of earth streams. He gathered clouds, raised and calmed the waves, sent storms, but granted safe voyages, and all other divinities of the sea were subject to him. He was inventor of the ship, and, curiously enough, created the horse and bull— carriers on land. Arion, Scyphios, Pegasus and the golden-fleeced ram of Phryxus were his offspring. He dwelt with the other gods on Olympus, but had a pal- ace at ^gea under the waves. Numerous temples were dedicated to him, but chief among them were those on the capes of Sunium, Tsenaria and at Corinth. He was repre- sented as a severe old man, bearing in his hand a long tri- dent, and riding in his car, drawn by horses or dolphins, and attended by Tritons, Nereids, and other marine mon- sters. Black and white bulls were favorite sacrifices to him, as says Virgil, — "There hecatombs of bulls — to Neptune slain,_ High flaming, please the monarch of the main,' for to Neptune, the Latin god of the sea, were transferred in later times most of the attributes of Poseidon. Virgil gives us this picture of the marine monarch, — f " Where'er he glides His finny coursers, and in triumph rides, The waves unruffle, and the sea subsides. His finny team Saturnian Neptune join'd. Then adds the foamy bridle to their jaws, And to the loosen'd rein permits the laws. High on the waves his azure car he guides; Its axles thunder and the sea subsides, And the smooth ocean rolls her silent tides; The tempests fly before their father's face, Trains of inferior gods his triumphs grace, And monster whales before their master play, And choirs of Tritons crowd the wat'ry way." ♦ Cox— Aryan Mythology, II., 262. Dryden.-^neid, Bk. V OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 59 Prayers and sacrifices were made by Greek, Roman and Phoenician mariners to him, not only before setting out on a voyage, but also in case of calms, and after safely return- ing from a voyage. Menelaus, in " Iphigenia in Tauris," says: " O Neptune, Who in the ocean dwell'st, and ye, chaste daughter Of Nereus, to the Nauplian coast convey Me and my consort, from this hostile land!" He is represented as occasionally warring with deities of the shore, thus typifying the changes wrought by the waves of the sea; and from his realm come those marine monsters, the Bellerophon, the Andromeda monster, and others, cer- tainly representing the incursions of breakers and waves. Amphitrite is his consort, and Triton, one of his sons, always attended upon him. Many legends were, in course of time, gathered together concerning him by the later poets and mythographers. When iEolus wrecked the Trojan fleet, Neptune thus rebuked him: *" Hence to your lord my royal mandate bear, The realms of ocean and the fields of air Are mine, not his. By fatal lot to me Tlie liquid empire fell, and trident of the sea." f Amphitrite, Poseidon's fair consort, was also powerful at sea. She was figured as a beautiful woman, with a net on her hair, and crabs' claws on her forehead. She gener- ally appeared in Neptune's car, but sometimes rode a ma- rine animal. Her statue was in Corinth. JOceanus resided in the ocean-stream that was fabled everywhere to encompass the known world, and his palace was far to the westward, toward the setting sun. From him proceeded all the watery element — rivers, lakes and seas. He was the ocean personified. He was rather a powerful monarch than a god, but to him mariners sacri- ficed with great care on going on long voyages. He is represented as an old man, seated on the sea, and dwelt in its depths. ' ' Where aged Ocean holds his watery reign. ** * Dryden.— ^neid. i Cox.— Aryan Mythology, II, 6. :!: Iliad, XIV, 346; XXI, 195. 60 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS * Tethys was his consort, and the Oceanids, three thou- sand ocean nymphs, his daughters. Libations and sacrifices were made to them. fOceanus is the personification of the sea itself, first imagined to surround the earth Hke a river, never ending. I Proteus und Nereus were two divinities residing in the deep sea, only inferior to Neptune. Both were gifted with wisdom, but Proteus could change his shape at will. (Apollodorus asserts this of Nereus, also.) "Proteus, a name tremendous o'er the main, The delegate of Neptune's watery reign " says Homer; and Virgil further tells us: §" In the Carpathian bottom makes abode The shepherd of the sea, a prophet and a god; High o'er the main in watery pomp he rides, His azure car and finny coursers guides, Proteus his name." He traditionally kept the seals belonging to his father (Neptune's) herds. To him Telemachus resorted for ad- vice. Camoens speaks of II " The consecrated waters of the deep Where Proteus' cattle all their gambols keep." Proteus possessed this power of changing his shape at will (a characteristic of all the water- people) to the greatest extent; hence our word J>roUan. ** Nereus, son of Pontus, was a prophetic sea-god, and father of the Nereids, the nymphs of the wave, fifty in number. Amphitrite and Thetis, both ocean queens, were among the number. Nereus is represented as an old man, with long flowing hair, and he dwelt in the ^Egean Sea, in a beautiful palace. ff The Nereids were ocean-naiads. The names are from the same root, and are connected with naval, nix, Niobe, and other maritime words. The Nereids represent the qualities and properties of the sea, and are represented as half woman, half fish. They are, therefore, the ancestors of * Cox.— Aryan Mythology, II, 6. tKeary.- Outlines of Primitive Belief. * Cox.— Aryan Mythology, II, 256. SGeorgics IV.— Dryden's Translation. IILusiad, I, li). ** Cox.— Aryan Mythology, Bk. II, p. 256. tl Cox.— Aryan Mythology, Bk. II, Ch. 6. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 61 a tribe of mermaids, such as we shall meet farther on. They attended the superior gods, and had altars on the sea- shore, where sacrifices were made to them. They came out of their dwellings when the waves arose. Anciently they were represented as very beautiful. Polybius first gave them the fish-tail. They assisted the Argonauts, when sent by Juno. * " Here o'er the sailing pine the nymphs preside, While Thetis' forceful hands the rudder guide, As oft in shoals the sportive dolphins throng, Circling the vessel as she sails along." Panope and Thetis were especially invoked by sailors. f Aphrodite possessed limited powers over the waves. Her name is derived from Aphros, foam, and, like Derceto and Atergatis, she sprang from the sea. Hesiod says:| " Her gods and men Name Aphrodite, goddess of the foam, Since in the sea-foam nourish'd." " Thy imperial sway extends O'er the wide seas." §She represents the dawn, and, in her car, is attended by the Hours and Graces. She first landed at Cythera, and Cyprus was the chief seat of her worship. She became the goddess of love, and, as Venus in Rome, lost many of her maritime attributes. Temples were numerous to her, espe- cially at Athens, Sparta, and among the islands of the Gre- cian Archipelago. A rude stone first represented her, but later artists carved those beautiful representations, a few of which still exist. She had various surnames as goddess of the sea, all connected with it, as Pontia, Epipontia, Eualia, Marina, Pelagia, Thalassia, and Pontogenia. Living sacri- fices were seldom offered to her. Phorcus was another sea-divinity. He represents the whitening sea-foam. He was keeper of marine monsters, and his consort was Keto (whale). Zeus, or Jupiter, as great god of the heavens and air, was powerful above all other gods on land or at sea. Storms were sent by him, and mariners sacrificed to him. At the Bosphorus was an altar to Zeus Quirnos, sender of favor- able winds. * Appolonius Rhodius.— Arffonautics. Fawkes' Trans. + Cox.— Mythology Aryan Nations, Bk. II, Ch. 2. * Hesiod.— Theog-ony. § Cox.— Aryan Mythology, Bk. II. 62 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS * Sophocles says: " Jove desires a favoring breeze." Juno, nurtured by Oceanus, was also a favorite of mari- ners. Homer says: f " By Juno's guardian aid, the watery vast Secure of storms, your royal brother passed." She is said to have driven Hercules out of his course by raising a storm. To the Argonauts: :}:" Juno, propitious to her favorite crew, Inspir'd the breezes that serenely blew." Alcyone, when her husband was in danger, prays to her for aid: §"A11 pow'rs implored, but far above the rest, To Juno she her pious vows address'd. Her much-lov'd lord from perils to protect, And safe o'er seas his voyage to direct." II Minerva, or Athene, reputed author of navigation, and builder of the ship "Argo,'^ was especially reverenced by Attic mariners. As a warlike goddess, she was especial patroness of military seamen. When incensed against the Greeks, — ***' Hence on the guilty race her vengeance hurl'd, With storms pursued them through the liquid world." And she assures Telemachus, — ff'My power shall guard thee, and my hand convey; The winged vessel studious I prepare, Through seas and realms, companion of thy care." She was reputed daughter of Jupiter, and was also called Pallas. Hence when Ulysses is beset by storms, we read, — II" Jove's daughter, Pallas, watched the favoring hour; Back to their caves she bade the winds to fly. And hushed the blustering brethren of the sky." *Iphigenia in Tauris. i- Odyssey, Bk. IV. Pope's Trans. * Appolonius Rhodius.— Argonautica. § Ovid.— Metamorphoses. II Cox.— Aryan Mythology, Bk. II, Ch. 2. ** Pope's Odyssey, Bk. V. •H Pope's Odyssey, Bk. IV. fl: Pope's Odyssey, Bk. V. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 63 In the later Greek period, her worship increased, and she finally usurped the place of Poseidon, as chief Mariner's deity. ^olus, as lord of the winds, had power over the deep, and *"His word alone the listening storms obey To smooth the deep, or swell the foamy sea," although he was subject to Jupiter, and responsible to Nep- tune and other superior deities. Greek mariners also venerated the other winds, and sac- rificed to them, to Boreas especially, as we saw in the last chapter. f Artemis, or Diana, possessed limited power at sea, and, as goddess of the chase, was especially adored by fishermen. Says Virgil, — "As Helenus enjoin'd, we next adore Diana's name, protectress of the shore." She was a moon-goddess, supposed to be the same as Isis, whom we have seen as an especial patron of navigation. The Tauri, in the Crimean peninsula, worshiped a goddess corresponding to her, and sacrificed shipwrecked strangers to her. The Greek fleet, sailing for Troy, were wind-bound, and were commanded by a soothsayer to sacrifice Iphigenia to Diana, but a goat was eventually substituted. Fish were sacred to Diana. Apollo, the great god of the Delphic temple, was espe- cially venerated by mariners, and had numerous seaside temples. Upon Mount Actium stood his statue, visible far at sea, at once a guide and a safeguard to mariners. Augus- tus SHcrificed to it before the great battle fought there. A celebrated temple to him stood on Mount Leucas, alike also visible far at sea. As Apollo Delphinius, in the guise of a dolphin, he conducted a ship-load of sailors to his sanctuary, where they became his priests. | Priapus, god of fertility, was also venerated by fisher- men. Glaucus was also a fisherman's deity, and was a son of Poseidon. Camoens tells us he was "The god who once the human form did know, And by the power of poisonous herb was made To take the shape of fish." * Pope's Odyssey, Bk. V. + Cox.— Aryan Mytholog-y, Bk. II, Ch. 6. :|: Cox,— Aryan Mythology, Vol, II, p. 25, 64 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS * He was fabled a fisherman, and observing that half-dead fish bit the grass and were revived, he attempted it and be- came a fish. It was a belief in Greece that once a year he visited all the coasts and islands, prophesying. He is repre- sented as an old man, dripping with water from his hair and beard, his breast covered with sea-weed, and the lower part of his body fish-shaped. He represented the play of fantas- tic waves. He had a hand in building the mystic ship "Argo." f Ino, or Leucothea, and her son Melicertes, or Palaemon, were also deities of the sea, being made such by Poseidon. Ino threw herself into the sea with her son, to escape one of the Furies. As Leucothea she appeared to Odysseus when wrecked, and saved him. She was invoked to save from wreck, and so was Palaemon, who is figured riding on a dol- phin. Ino was granddaughter to Poseidon. Portumnus was the Roman god of harbors, and a grand temple was raised to him at Ostia, and a festival annually held there on the yth of August. The Dioscuri, or twin sons of Leda, and brothers of Helen, were universally revered by mariners. We shall' see them appearing to the Argonauts as stars, and another legend says they took part in the expedition. They were able to avert shipwreck and to save wrecked people. The legends concerning their agency in the St. Elmo light will be related. In Sophocles' " Electra," Castor says, — "But we with speed to the Sicihan deep, To guard the adventurous barks of those who stem The ocean, must repair." And Horace: :}: " Thus the twin stars indulgent save - The shatter'd vessel from the wave." Likewise, from Appolonius Rhodius: § " Ye guardian twins, who aid our great designs. By humble prayer the heavenly powers incline, To steer me safe to each Ausonian bay." "Safeguards of sailors, who the twins implore When on the deep the thundering tempests roar." * Cox.— Aryan Mythology, Vol. IT, 357.- •t Cox.— Aryan Mythology, Vol. II, 365. * Carminajlik. IV, ode 8. § Appolonius Rhodius.— Argonautics. Fawkes' Trans, OF THE SEA AKD OF SAILORS. 65 *And Theocritus: "Still you the wreck can save, the storm dispel, And snatch the sailors from the jaws of hell, The winds disperse, the roaring waves subside, And smooth to stillness, sleeps the lunar tide." Hyginus says Neptune conferred upon them the power of aiding mariners, and Pausanius calls them Anactes (chiefs). They were made constellations, as Gemini. Triton was also an inferior sea-deity. He was a son of Poseidon, and dwelt in the sea. Was powerful at sea, and could calm the waves. He is generally shown blowing a shell, and is figured man above, and fish below, the waist. He often attends upon Poseidon's car. There were in later times a crowd of Tritons, half man and half fish, and the name was afterwards used to indicate the merman. Triton says to the Argonauts: f " Hear, from my sire, the monarch of the main; I boast my science; o'er these scenes I reign." Triton is thus described by Appolonius. \ " His every limb, down to his swelling loin, Proclaim'd his likeness to the powers divine; Below his loins, his tapering tail extends, Arched like a whale's, on either side it bends." Pliny represented him with a single tail, like a dolphin, with hands like shells, and head covered with them, and with green eyes. Pausanius says: " I have seen another Tri- ton among the curiosities of the Romans, but it is not so large as this of the Tanagrians. The form of the Triton is this: the hair of the head resembles the parsley that grows in marshes; the rest of their body is rough with small scales; they have fish-gills under their ears; their nostrils are those of a man, but their teeth are broader and like those of a wild beast; their eyes seem to me azure, and their hands, fingers and nails are of the form of the shells of shell-fish; they have, instead of feet, fins under their breast and belly, like those of the porpoise." Sometimes they are figured with the forefeet of a horse. Cybele was also a maritime deity. Mopsus says: *Idyllics.— Fawkes' Trans. + Appolonius Rhodius.— Arg-onautics. Fawkes' Trans. ^Appotonius Rhodms.— Ar^onautics. Fawkes' Trans. 66 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS * " Haste, to the fane of Dyndimus repair, There Cybele with sacrifices implore, So will the winds tempestuous cease to roar." Doris, wife of Nereus, and mother of the Nereids, was a divinity of note among mariners, who also venerated the gods of their particular district. Rivers were deified, and many had priests dedicated to their service. Among the ancestors of the Greeks, we also find mari- time deities; not, however, so abundant, nor so universally worshiped. The early Aryans were acquainted with the Caspian Sea, but most of their maritime deities are gods of the atmospheric sea. In fact, we find that they, like their descendants, confounded the aerial and the aqueous seas. As Kelly says, f " The origin of most water-gods and nymphs of the European Aryans may be traced back to the storm and rain deities of the parent stock, and the greater part of the myths relating to the sea are to be understood as pri- marily applying, not to the earthly, but the cloud-sea, for no other great collection of waters was known to the first Aryans in their inland home." I So we find Indra, god of the firmament, and chief deity of the atmosphere, governing the weather and dispens- ing thunder, lightning and rain. He was the ruler of the storm. Rudra, " howler," or " terrible," was, however, directly god of storms, the father of the Maruts, and sender of numerous ills. He controlled the winds, his children. But Varuna, " coverer," was god of the seas and rivers, the Indian Neptune. §A fish was his sign, the wind his breath. He was rather god of the heavenly sea, but soon became lord of all waters. Like Neptune, he provided a home for man. He has other names, meaning lord of the waters (Kesa), watery hair (Vari-lowa), and king of aquatic animals (Yadah-pati). His wife Varuni sprang from the ocean, and is also goddess of wine. Varuna is represented as an old man, with a club and a noose. ||Vayu is the Hindoo Zephyr. His name means wind. He is closely associated with Indra, and often rides in his chariot. He is also called Marut. * Appolonius Rhodius.— Argonaut.ics. Fawkes' Trans. + Curiosities of Indo-European Traditions. i Cox.— Aryan Mythoiot?y, Vol. f , p. a%. § Cox.— Aryan Mythology, Vol. I p. 3:50. II Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief, 143, OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 67 * The Maruts are sons of Rudra, or of Indra, and are storm-gods, variously stated as from twenty-seven to one hundred and eighty in number. They are armed with thunderbolts, and are feared as storm-bringers. fThe Apsaras are nymphs of the heavenly sea. Their name signifies "moving in the waters." Originally personi- fications of the vapors and cloud-mists, they became the houris of the Hindoo heaven. They are also called Navyah, or celestial navigators. The Ramayana says (Wilson), — "Then from the agitated deep upsprung The legion of Apsarases, so named That to the watery element they owed Their being." I Lakshmi, like Aphrodite, sprang from the sea-foam and floated ashore on the lotus at creation. She was the fisherman's goddess, and had four arms. The Scandinavian gods of the sea may next claim our attention. So maritime a people could not but have many deities of the watery element. § Odin, the all-father, and most powerful god, sent storms and controlled the waves. As such. a powerful god, storm and rain bringer, he became Hnickar, and we shall find him again when we consider the demons of the sea. Odin visited Sigurd's ship in this guise, boarding it from an island at sea, and the storm ceased on his landing. He is the Psychopomp, or Soul-carrier, of Norse Mythol- ogy, and, granting safe voyages to the soul, naturally became a maritime god. II Thor, Odin's son, ruled the tempest and clouds, sent thunder, and dashed the waves against the coast. He raised a storm and sank the great sea-serpent Jormungandr to the bottom of the ocean. But Niord (the Nereus of the North) was chief god of the ocean. He was also called Vanagir and Mordur. He dwelt in Noatun, "place of ships," ruled the ocean and wind, had fishing and maritime pursuits under his care, was invoked by sailors and fishermen, and sacrifices were made to him by sea-coast people. He represents the mild sea of the coast. His wives were Nerthus and Skadi (hurtful), and ,*Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief, 149. + Kelly.— Curiosities of Indo-European Traditions, 31. * Cox.— Aryan Mythology, Bk. II, Ch. 8. § Thorpe.— Northern Mythology, Vol. I, p. 96. II Thorpe.— Northern Mythology, Vol. I, pp. 24 and 195 ; Saemundr Edda, 30. 68 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS the latter came from Thrymheim, home of the winds. Their children, Freyr and Freya, were powerful at sea, and were worshiped by sailors. * Freya was in Shetland Vana-dis^ or water-goddess, and her day, Friday, has been sacred to sailors for centuries, and hence an unlucky one for voyages. f The representative of Oceanus, the dweller in the deep sea, was Oigir {ogre^ terrible), or Hler, the god of the raging sea, whose waves boil with his kettle. His wife was Ran (plunder, robbery), and his nine daughters, the waves. Ran is the northern Amphitrite. She takes in her net all persons drowned at sea, and even lurks beneath the ice for them. " Fara til Rana " (go to Ran) meant to drown. Thus we find, in Tegner's " Frithjof's Saga," — I "Let none go empty-handed Down to azure Ran. Icy are her kisses, Fickle her embraces. But we'll charm the sea-bride With our ruddy gold." " For us, in bed of ocean Azure pillows Ran prepares." § ' ' May Rana keep Them in the deep, As is her wont." CEgir's name is from the same root as that from which Ocean is derived, and the ogre of the nursery becomes the orca or sea-monster of the middle ages, and possibly the roc^ that bird of terror to middle-age travelers. || Other European peoples have had their divinities of the sea. Holda, an old German goddess, could ride on sea and waves, and was feared by sailors.** Fasolt is invoked as god of storms in an old formula, his brother Ecke ruled over waves and floods, and Merment was also a storm-deity. Ecke, says Grimm, ff was the same as Qigir. So Niord became Nerthus, the Germanic Neptune. Neptune was worshiped in Roman Gaul, and a large mosaic picture of him was found at Pau, and has, as one of his symbols, the cross. *IJlind.— Contemporary Review, J^ug., 1880. •f Thori)e.— Northern Mythology, Vol. I, pp. 27, 196, 200. t Taylor's Trans. §Simrock.— Deutsche Mythologle, Vol. I, p. .W. II Simrock.— Deutsche Mythologie, 507. *♦ Thorpe.— Northern Mythology, Vol. I, p. 234. ++ Teutonic Mythology. Eng. Trans., Vol. I, p. 298. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 69 Nav was an old British god of the waters,* Neith a Celtic water-goddess, Man-a-nan an Irish sea-deity, and Avaron, Welsh lord of the deep. f Hu Gadarn, the Welsh Noah, became the Celtic Nep- tune, and Nev was also a water deity. Albion, patronymic deity of Britain, and son of Neptune, was reputed a sea-deity, and introduced ship-building into Great Britain. I Geofon was, says Grimm, an old Anglo-Saxon sea-god. Shony was a water-divinity to whom Shetland fisher- men poured out a libation, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter. §Lir was a Celtic Neptune. Ostyak sailors venerated spirits in the river Obi. JVum\\ is a Samoyed water-god. Storjunkove is a Lapp deity, appearing to fishermen and bringing them luck.** Seose- res was a Circassian wind and water god. In the Finnish Kalevala, Ahto is the lord of the waves ;ff Tuoletan chief deity of the sea; Ween Kummingas, king of the sea, and Weenemiiuta, queen of the sea, while Akka, queen of straits and passes, is often seen on the rocks combing her long hair.JI Poznisky was a Slavonian water-god, causing storms and tempests. In Eastern story, Alrinach is a divinity powerful at sea, appearing in the guise and dress of woman. In Mohamme- dan legend, JEger is a sort of god of the sea. Muthiam, king of evil spirits, is feared and reverenced by East Indian sailors. §§ Kidir or Chidder was Arab god of voyages and brother of Elias, who ruled the wind. II II In Whydah, Africa, Hu is sea-god, and the king an- nually sends a young man as a sacrifice, to be thrown into the sea. In Dahomey^ it is Abue. Du Chaillu says a 'spirit, Mbuiri, is supposed to exist in a stream at Ngounyai Falls. Wanika and Akra tribes have water-deities, and Kaffirs sacrifice oxen or millet to river-gods. Dale says some tribes gave a fetich to the waves for * G. Massey.— Book of the Beginnings. •t Da vies.— British Mythology. $Teut. Mythology, 1, '629. § Gen'l Vallery. II Conway.— Demonology, 1, 213. ** Thorpe.— Northern Mythology, Vol. II, from Castren, Finn Mythology. + + Eraser's -Mag. Vol. V, p. 320, from Castren. $ t Kalevala.— Le Due's Translation to French. §§ D. Ohsson.— Hist. Ottoman Empire, 1821. Brewer, R.H.B. Oil Burton.— Dahomey, Vol. II, p. 165. 'j'O LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Numba, ocean spirit. In Loango the king is a god, Santo, and has power over the winds and waves. A Basuto god, dwelling on the bottom of the sea, is Ramochasoa.* Crossing the Atlantic, we find an almost universal belief in water-gods among tribes near large bodies of water. Greenland Esquimaux, believed in a huge god, the giant Kayaker; Kamtchatkans think storms are raised by Mitgh,f a spirit of the water, with fish-like extremities. Tongarsuk is also a storm deity in Greenland, as well as a goddess, his mother, Arnar Kuasak, who lives in a palace beneath the waves guarded by seals, and from it sends forth the animals of the sea. Storms are also raised by Kayarissat {Basking- Jisher). \ Pampagussit was a sea-god of New England Indians. § Dacotah Indians believed in Unktahee, first god of the water, and the Ojibway water-god was a toad. Long- fellow says, — II " Broke the treacherous ice beneath him, Dragged him downward to the bottom, Buried in the sand his body. Unktahee, the god of water, He the god of the Dacotahs, Drowned him in the deep abysses Of the lake of Gitchec Gumee." ** J. A. Jones gives a tradition of the Indian tribes of an ancestral fish-god who conducted them from Asia to America. The Kaibalit tribe of Arizona Indians believed in a watter-goddess, Tilcompa Masoits (grandmother goddess of the sea), who brought mankind and speech out of the sea. \\ Mexican tribes regarded Coxcox or Cipactli as lord of the waters, and itJTIaloc also as water-god. Opochtli was their god of fishing and fishermen. Nets were consecrated to him. Chalcihuitlicue §§ was goddess of the water in Tlascalla, and could raise storms and sink canoes. Ill A Mexican proverb says: " We are all of us children of Ckal,'' water-goddess. * African Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. I. + Steller — Kamtchatka. * Maine Historical Coll., Vol. II, p. 110. § Eastman.— Dakota, p. 118, 125. II Hiawatha, Ch. 16. ** B. Gould, Myths of Middle Ages, 502. ++ Clavigero-Mejico, Vol. VI, p. 1-4. tt Raneroft.— Native Races, Vol. VII, p. 336. SS Bancroft.— Vol. II, p. 'mi. IIIITylor.— Primitive Culture, Vol I, p. 258. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 71 * The Chiachas, a Peruvian tribe, regarded Marua-cocha as the water-god. They scooped up a handful of water at each river, drank it, and begged the deity to allow them to cross. Manco Capac and Mama Oello, who arose from lake Titicaca, were Quichua gods, and mythical ancestors of their royal line.f I But "Viracocha" (white seafoam-god) was chief Pe- ruvian deity of the sea. He also arose from Lake Titicaca, bringing the arts and sciences with him. A temple long existed near Callao, dedicated to him. Peruvians had also a sea-god with a lobster's head and claws, and a man's body. The Muyscas said Chia, the moon, was goddess of the water. In the ancient Zac empire, a goddess was thought to live at the bottom of Lake Guatavita. Wicha- ana was Zapatecan god of fish. The Botocudos of Venezuela believed in a water-god — Taru. § Polynesian sea-gods were numerous. Tawhiri-ma- tea and Taaruatai were the Neptunes of one tribe in the Society Islands, and Ruhahatu of another. Another deity is Akaenga, the master of the lower waters, who catches souls in a net, and washes them about in it. II A Maori sea-god is Tangaroa. Fish and reptiles are his children. **Ika-tere, his son, was also "father of fish." tt In Australian myths, Nguk Wonga is the spirit of the waters- |J;In the Hervey Group, Vatea is lord of the ocean, and became a whirlpool. He is figured one side man, the other shark, having one human eye, hand, foot, and ear, and the other organs those of a shark. He was great lord of the ocean, and father of gods and men. He invented nets and fishing. In a prayer of great antiquity, — §§ " Vatea is the guardian of the ocean, By him is it ruffled, By him it is calmed." *Gr. de la Vega.— Commentaries Reales, Vol. VI, p. 17, in Tylor (5). + Herrera.— Los Indios, 4-285. % Prescott.— Peru, I, p. 7. § Grey.— Polynesian Mythology, p. 3. II Gill.— Myths and Songs of the South Pacific (12). ** Tylor .—Primitive Culture, Vol. I, p. 259. ft Eyre.— Australia. $$ Gill.— Myths and Songs of the South Pacific (3). §8 Gill.— Myths and Songs of the South Pacific (3). Tt LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS In a song, — "Oh! let the storm be restrained, Vatea, god of winds." He lived in a mysterious land. His brother, Tirniran, is lord of fish,* and half sprat. He lives in the sacred isle. Tikokura is the storm-wave. His home is in the ocean. Raka (trouble), the god of winds, lives there also. The winds and storms are his children, each one blowing through a hole in the horizon, and he controls them. f The Fijian fishermen's god is Roko Vona; another is Vosavakandua, and they have many minor gods, called Luve-ni-mai (children of the water). Little flags are set up when they are about to land, to prevent them from taking to the woods. The fisherman's god in Ranatonga is a cocoanut-leaf, bound up with sennit, called Iku-ko-kua. At Mangaia, it was the frond of a cocoanut, bound with sennit. This is supposed to be powerful in allaying storms, and is called a Mokoiro, and is affixed -to the prows of the boats. A cer- tain priestly family perform this ceremony, and no one thinks of going to sea without these attachments. In Ranai, one of the Sandwich Islands, two large stone im- ages, seen by Ellis, represented Raeapua and Kaneapua, sea-deities worshiped by fishermen. Another sea-god was Mooarii, a shark. On each point of land, temples were erected to him, and the first fish of the catch were given to him. They had other sea and weather-gods, and during a storm at sea they offered up a.J>u/e hirana, a kind of prayer. A shell-fish called C/va was also a Fijian deity. A Hawaiian god was Kunra, and Hina, a goddess, who were supposed to drive the annual shoals of fish to the island, and hence were adored by fishermen. J;Hiro was a Tahitian sea-god. While asleep in the ocean, the wind-god raised a storm, but he was aroused, and lulled the waves to rest. Kahai Khani is a Tartar "Prince of the Sea." Maui- Megala is a Pegu divinity, daughter of the lord of the sea. Burmese sailors and fishermen dedicate fruits, rice, etc., to Nat, or the spirit of the waters, who would otherwise destroy the fish. Riu-to is Japanese god of the bottom of the sea, and is * Gill.— Myths and Songs of the South Pacific (5). + Gill.— My ths and Songs of the South Pacific, t Grey.— Polynesian Mytho'ogy. SANDWICH ISLANDERS EQUIPPED FOR HEAVY WEATHER. 73 74 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS shown as a dwarfish figure, bearing a lantern on his head. He, as well as Midsumo-Kami,* a water-god, and Jebisu, a sea-god, is adored by fishermen. Tusannoo-no-Mikato, brother of the sun-god, is also god of the sea. In Japanese legendary history, the gods of the sea and air assembled to assist a great queen against Corea. Kai- Ku-O, dragon-king of the sea, sent his messenger Isora, with jewels that controlled the tides. f The Chinese god of the sea, Tsuikvan, was one of the three spirits attendant on Fo or Cang-Y, god of the lower heaven. Navigators sacrificed to him. Kemung is a god of storms in China. Ma Chua is a great sailor-goddess. She is figured as a grotesque idol, and has numerous temples. One at Ningpo is very large. Her image is also kept in exchanges. She was the daughter of a seafaring man. She dreamed she saw her father in a storm and in danger, and exerted herself to save him. She is called queen of heaven, holy mother, and other titles. Sailors take ashes from incense- lamps in front of her shrines, and carry them in a red bag, or hang them about the junk. J When storms occur, they kneel at the bow (the sacred part of their junks), and burn incense before her image, imploring her to save them. They make offerings to her on arriving safely from sea. Among her attributes are Favorable-mind ear, and Thou- sand-mile eye, seeing and hearing danger afar off. § Tien -how is another tutelary goddess of sailors. In every large junk her shrine is placed, having her image in a glass case, and inscriptions to her. Homage was paid her, and especial honors in sailing and landing. Staunton says, " Foong-ah-Vanny is a sailor's god." Sailors in Canton junks worship a goddess with the formid- able name of Chao-Chao-Laong-Koo^ who saved many junks from wreck. A recent writer says: || " Kwun-ing (Kemung? or Marehu ?) is their chief divinity, seemingly amalgamated with the 'queen of heaven,' and as a goddess her peculiar delight is to save those that are in danger by sea. She can assume thirty-two different shapes, and proceed to different parts of the world on her missions of mercy. In Buddhism, she holds the highest place as a savior of mankind." ♦Siebold.— Nippon, Part V., p. 9. + Grant.— Mysteries of All Nations, p. 54. * Doolittle.— Manner and Custom of the Chinese, 1-263. § Jones.— Credulities, p. 44. II Gibbons.— Boxing the Compass. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 75 * River sailors are devotees of Loong Moo, the dragon- mother. Shrines are placed along the banks, and cere- monies and sacrifices of fowls made in the boats before sailing. The origin and development of these ideas with regard to the gods of the watery element are plainly apparent. The primitive mind deals not in abstract ideas of a deity, but requires some typical representative constantly before it. Thus nature worship was prevalent among our ancest- ors, as it still is among savages and half-civilized people. So the sky, the air, the earth and the sea are at first them- selves deities, and the names of many primitive gods dis- cover their identity with the objects they represent: Dyaus (the sky), Varuna (the coverer), Thor (the thunderer), are examples of this.f At first the gods of the elements are the gods of the watery sea. So among the early Aryans, Varuna is lord of atmospheric and ocean seas. But as the Greeks especially became acquainted more and more with the sea in all its aspects, these gods were multiplied, and a chief god of the sea was created or borrowed from some other maritime nation. Every characteristic of the ocean depths was reproduced in some god, and so the Greek Pan- theon abounded in maritime deities. In the Norse the- ogony, parallels to these are found. The chief difference is one of climate. There in the North, the terrible sea had a greater impression on the mariner than the mild, sunny wave of the south, and thus the gods are more fierce and terrible, and CEgir and Ran had perhaps more worshipers than Niord and Frey. The first effects of Christianity upon these heathen ideas were two-fold. For, while the vows and oblations paid to Neptune, CEgir, or some inferior deity were by the teach- ings of the church transferred to the virgins and saints, not immediately was the memory of these heathen gods lost. So, not being able to suppress them, the church set to work to degrade them. We consequently find many of the gods are become demonized, and Odin, the beneficent wind- giver, is Nick, the demon of the sea, and the Devil himself, who is in fact a degraded god (the Indian Deva) has his representative in the ocean depths, under the name of Davy Jones. * Jones.— Credulities, p. 47. + See Max MUUer.— Essay on mythology in " Chips from a German Work- shop." 76 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS To the many gods of antiquity, then, succeeded the one god of Mohammedan and Christian religions. But the con- servative mariner still retained memories of the once pow- erful gods of the sea. Not only did the Catholic mariner believe that Christ stilled the waves, and still possesses power to save from peril, but he also attributed to the Virgin and saints unusual powers over the winds and Avaves. To this day he trusts in their aid in time of peril and to them he makes his vows, and dedicates his memorial tablets or votive offerings. The Virgin is patroness of innumer- able sea-side temples and chapels, and " Our Lady of the Waves," and of Blachernes, are only ready examples of a class. *As early as 200 A.D., we find her aid efficacious. The Varangians, under Askold and Dir, attacked Constantinople about that time, with a Russian fleet, and the good Bishop Photius was able to raise a storm and destroy this fleet with the mantle of Our Lady of Blachernes, by spreading it on the waves. • f A legend of Boulogne, in 663, relates that while the in- habitants were at prayers, a ship without guide or pilot came sailing in with the Virgin on board, and she indicated to the people a site for her chapel. J; The Virgin, as related in the account of spectral lights and apparitions, saved from shipwreck ^thelsiga (in the i ith century), the Earl of Salisbury (1220), Edward III., and Edward IV. of England. The former monarch, overtaken in the English channel by a storm, exclaimed, " Oh! blessed Mary, holy Lady! why is it, and what does it portend, that in going to France I enjoyed a favorable wind, a calm sea, and all things prospered v/ith me; but on returning to Eng- land, all kinds of misfortunes befall me?" The storm, the account says, immediately subsided. The latter sovereign *' prayed to God, our Lady, and Saint George, and amonges other saynts he specially prayed Seint Anne to help him." §Joinville says a sailor who fell overboard during the voyage of St. Louis to France, was asked why he did not swim. He replied that it was only necessary to exclaim, " Our Lady of Valbert! ", and that she supported him by the shoulders until he was picked up. *.Tones — Rroad, IJroad Ocean, p. 233. •f Collin dc Plancy.— Legendcs Pleuses du Moyen Age, *Jones.--Credulities, p. 34. Mones.— Credulities, p. 35. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 77 There was a statue at Venice, according to Fynes Mory- son, that performed great miracles. A merchant vowed perpetual gifts of wax candles, in gratitude for being saved by the light of a candle on a dark night. This statue and that of St. Mark were saluted by ships. Erasmus says of the people in the shipwreck, " The mariners they were singing their Salva Regina, imploring the Virgin Mother, calling her the Star of the Sea, the Queen of Heaven," etc. " In ancient times Venus took care of mariners, because she was supposed to be born of the sea, and because she left off taking care of them, the Virgin Mother was put in her place." He says one sailor tried to float ashore on a rotten and worm-eaten image of the Vir- gin- The Virgin sent a wind to aid the wind-bound fleet of Orendel in the Kleber Meer, according to Middle-age legend. * De Plancy says a tradition at Havswyck, in Holland, is that a boat laden with fragments of a church, in 1188, was mysteriously stopped at a certain spot, and could not be forced farther on until a chapel to the Virgin was com- menced on the spot. A tradition existed in Belgium that an image of the Vir- gin was found on the beach by sailors, and became at Lom- buzyde an especial mariner's shrine. Benecke says a statue of the Virgin was of old placed in a niche in Hamburg wall, near a certain landing. Sailors and fishermen particularly addressed their vows to her, and made offerings in return for successful ventures. In 1470, a chapel was built there, and the statue transferred to it. f The shrine of Notre Dame de la Garde, at Marseilles, whose apparition to boatmen in peril is related in another chapter, is the object of great veneration to the Provengal sailor. The image of the Virgin was formerly ablaze with diamonds, and a silver statue now adorns the altar. I Norman sailors, in 1700, particularly believed in the saving power of Notre Dame de Deliverance, whose chapel stood between Caen and Bayeux. A legend is told of a ship coming into the port of Havre, in 1700, whose crew, in great peril, vowed their penances to her, but these were of no avail, until they were joined by those of the Protestant captain and his heretical crew. * Collin de Plancy.— Legendes Pieuses du Moyen Age + Collin de Plancy. — Legendes Pieuses du Moyen Age. ;): Collin de Plancy.— Legendes Pieuses du Moyen Age, 78 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS^ Another Norman legend relates that Notre Dame des Neiges. in Havre, obligingly sent a concealing snow storm to prevent blockaded ships from falling into the enemy's hands. * Kingston says: "lam assured that formerly, before the days of insurance offices and political economy, mer- chants frequently insured their ships at the highly esteemed shrine of Matozimbo, by presenting a sum equal to the pay of captain or mate, and that, too, without stipulating for any equivalent should the vessel be wrecked." Nor were the saints accounted far inferior to the Virgin in their wonder-working powers at sea. Of these saints, St. Anthony was accounted one of the most powerful. He was a priest of Padua, and is said to have preached a sermon to the fishes, hence is especially a fisherman's saint. Accordingly, we find the padrone, in Longfellow's " Golden Legend,'' appealing to him, — "Now all is ready, high and low, Blow, blow, good Saint Antonio." And "With the breeze behind us, on we go, Not too much, good Saint Antonio! " f Pietro delle Valle, a sixteenth-century traveler in the East Indies, tells us that the Portuguese kept an image of Saint Anthony in their ships and made it responsible for the winds. They prayed to it, then, if this were not effect- ual, resorted to lashing the image to the mast, as detailed in another chapter. St. Nicholas was, however, pre-eminently the sailor's guardian. He was a saint of Myra, in Italy, and is said to have restored a sailor to life, and to have allayed a storm while on his way to the Holy Land.]; § A company of pilgrims was sailing along on its way to Jerusalem, in 900. one of whom had engaged to carry to the sacred spot a cruse of oil, given him by an old woman just before leaving port. A great storm arose, and St. Nicholas appeared, saying: " Fear not, but throw the cruse of oil which you carry with you into the sea, for the * woman' who gave it to you was the devil." They did as * Lusitanian Sketches. + .Tal. Gloss. Nautique. — " St. Antoine."" t liappcloo and Gras.— Vita Sanctorum. Q. by Brand, I, 418 8 Jjiber Dictus Paradisus. — Malaphrastes. — Brewer in Notes and Queries, August, 1881, OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 79 commanded, and the oil swelled and blazed like sulphur, while the storm ceased. * In the Norman French life of this saint, sailors in a storm cry out, "Help, O Lord Saint Nicholas, if thou beest such as men say ! " and he appeared and saved them. The same life also records these lines: " Hear you who go by sea Of this Baron we speak, Who is in all so kindly And at sea so mighty." Peter of Langtoft calls him, "The Bishop of St. Nicholas, whos help is ey redie, To shipmen, in alle seas, whan thei on him crie." Mariners in the ^Egean are also said to have called on him when in danger of wreck, and he aided them to port. The St. Elmo fire was called by Italians, Fires of St. Nicholas. Bishop Hall says a Grecian sailor prayed to St. Nicholas not to press too hard with his wrings on the sails. Greek sailors in the seventeenth century took to sea thirty loaves of bread, consecrated and named St. Nicholas' loaves. In case of a storm, they were thrown into the sea, one by one, until they were efficacious in calming the waves. There were some three hundred and seventy chapels in England alone to this saint. His church at Liverpool was the most celebrated, and was consecrated in 1361. A local author says, fin the vicinity there formerly stood a statue of St. Nicholas, and when the faith in the intercession of saints was more operative than at present, the mariners were wont to present a peace-offering for a prosperous voyage on their going out to sea, and a wave- offering on their return; but the saint, having lost his votaries, has long since disappeared." I A mariner in the "Absurda" of Erasmus says he is going to dedicate a piece of sail-cloth to St. Nicholas, in gratitude at having escaped shipwreck. §St. Nicholas' Chapel, near Hythe, England, is thus alluded to by an old Kentish author; "This is one of the places ' Where such as had escapt the sea Were wont to leave their guifts.' *In Hampton.- Medii ^vi Kalendarium. + Lambarde.— Perambulations of Kent, in Jones' Broad, Broad Ocean, p. 235. * Jones.— Credulities, p. 40. § Lambarde.— Perambulations of Kent. 80 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Inasmuch as if any of the fishermen on this coast had hardly escaped the storme, then should Sainct Nicholas not have only the thanks of that deliverance, but also one or more of the best fishes for an offering." * There is a legend of a certain altar-screen in the church at Arboja, in Sweden, that testifies the great power of St. Nicholas. It had been sunk during a siege by the people of a foreign town to escape capture. The Swedes found it, however, but found it too heavy to raise. Some one suggested to name over all the saints, but all failed to assist until St. Nicholas was invoked, when the screen came up. It was sent to Arboja, and St. Nicholas became the patron of that church. f Armstrong in 1756, writes: "Near the entrance to the harbor (of Ciudadella) stands a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, to which the sailors report that had suffered ship- wreck, to return thanks for their preservation, and to hang up votive pictures representing the dangers they had escaped, in gratitude to the Saint for the protection he vouchsafed them." JKanaris, the Greek hero of the fire-ships in Chios harbor in 1828, went immediately to St. Nicholas' Church, after the success of his undertaking, and presented two wax tapers to his shrine. St. Nicholas is shown in paintings as patron of sailors, with an anchor by his side, and a fleet in the background. In other representations, he is seen on board a sinking ship in a storm at sea, and sometimes has a light on his head. Hospinian (153 1) says the invocation of St. Nicholas by mariners took place from the accounts of Vincentius and Mantuanus (B. xii. ch. i). "• Cum turbine nautae Deprensi Cilices clamore vocavant Nicolai, viventes opera, desccndere quidam, Coeli tuum visus sancti sub imagine patris:— Qui freta depulso fecit placidissimus vento." §In the Salisbury Missal (1540) he is shown resuscitating two children who had been cut to pieces and put into a tub. Hampton thinks this tub was taken for a boat, and the chil- dren for sailors, and in this way, he became a maritime saint. But we do not need to go so far for the origin of * Jones.— Bi'oad, Broad Ocean, p. 235. + Armstrong.— History of Minorca. $ Jones.— Credulities, p. 42. f Hampton.-Medii iEvi Kalendariura. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 81 his power. The legend doubtless owed its origin to the degradation of semi-deities alluded to above, by the church. As Farrar* says: "The Scandinavian water-spirit Niken, inhabitant of lakes and rivers, and raiser of storms, whose favor could only be won by sacrifices, became in the middle ages St. Nicholas, the patron of sailors and sole refuge in danger." St. Peter, as the fisher-apostle, became a maritime saint, and was often invoked in storms. The St. Elmo light was called St. Peter's fire, as we shall see. f Cortez chose him as patron saint; "and beying at sea, Cortez willed all his navie to have St. Peter for their patron." St. Peter is said to have entered a fisherman's boat on the Thames, which at once carried him without oars or sail, to the spot which he chose as a site for Westminster Abbey. I The patron saint of gunners was Santa Barbara, who once saved a dwelling from lightning, and the gun room in Mediterranean ships as well as the powder-room is still called " La Sainte Barbe." St. Anne was also powerful to aid in great danger. Ed- ward IV. called on her for aid, and we shall see the St. Elmo light called St. Anne. Some of her miraculous deeds were performed on this side of the Atlantic.§ There are in the church of Beaupre, in Canada, votive pictures showing ships in distress, with this saint hovering over them, to rescue them. She was the especial patron saint of Canadian mariners. St. Bartholomew is invoked by boatmen on the turbulent little Koenig sea in Bavaria, and they cry before embarking: " Holy Bartholomew! shall I return? Say yes." The echo responds affirmatively in fine weather, but if it is thick and misty, no echo is heard. II Brand says St. Hermes was of old a mariner's saint in England. He, as well as St. Erasmus, and St. Gonzales de Tuy, was connected with the legends concerning the St. Elmo light. **Fournier says: "It is a custom to invoke St. Telme, and to recite an orison. This saint was, during his life, greatly devoted to instructing sea-faring men of things per- taining to their safety, and likewise in assisting them in ♦Primitive Customs. + Jones.— Credulities, p. 109. t Brewer.— Readers' Hand Book. § Harper's Magazine, 1881. llPopular Antiquities. ♦* Hydrographie, 1643. 83 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS their necessities, and since he died at Tuy, a city of Gallicia, and showed himself so favorable and benign to those who have invoked him, sailors have taken him as their protector." * Victor Hugo says sailors in Guernsey formerly believed that St. Maclou lived in a square rock called Ortach, near Les Casquets, and they were accustomed to kneel there in passing. f St Ronald was a favorite maritime saint in the North. Scott says sailors paid their vows to him, to St. Ninian and to St. Ringar. St. Gyric was invoked by Welsh mariners. JSouthey says: " The weary mariners Called on St. Cyric's aid," §*Lambarde writes: "For within memory there were standing in Winchelsea, three parish churches, St. Leonard, St. Giles and St. Thomas, and in that of St. Leonard there was erected the picture of St. Leonard, the patron of the place, holding a fane (or Mollis sceptre) in his hand, which was movable at the pleasure of any that would turne it to such pointe of the compass as best fitted the return of the husband or other friend, whom they expected." II St. James the Greater came to Spain from Palestine in a mysterious marble bark without sail or helm. He was a patron saint of Spanish sailors. St. Genevieve is said to have destroyed a tree in a Span- ish harbor that, with two attendant demons, wrecked many ships. She was tutelary saint of the harbor. ** St. Mark calmed the sea when his own dead body was conveyed from Egypt, says Leo Antonio More, in the "Description of Africa" (1600). He is patron of Venetian fishermen. tt St. George was appealed to by Sardinian fishermen to drive away enemies of the tunny, as being general dragon-slayer. They also appeal to St. Michael, who was with Peter fishing. St. Michael, as god of the wind, has been alluded to in another chapter. JJA Slavonic legend relates that this * Les Travailleurs de la Mer. + Scott.— Notes to Pirate. *" Madoc." § Perambulations of Kent, in Jones' Credulities, p. 30. II Baring Gould.— Legends of the Saints. > **. Tones.— Credulities, p. 36. •H.Fones.— Credulities, p. 70. U Conway.— Dcraoiiology and Devil-lore. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 83 saint had a contest with the devil as to which could dive the deepest in the sea. When it came Satan's turn to dive, the saint caused the sea to freeze over him by making the sign of the cross. Many saints have had power over the sea, or have caused miracles at sea, who were not regarded as maritime saints. *St. Clement was reverenced by some mariners. The anchor is his emblem. He suffered martyrdom, and was cast into the sea with an anchor about his neck. The waters were driven back, and a chapel appeared over the spot. fSt. Vincent was also cast into the sea with a millstone about his neck, but returned his own body to the shore. While on the way to Spain, the body sunk near the cape named after him, in the wreck of the ship. In 1147, Alonzo I. returned it, and a crow is said to have perched on the prow, and one on the stern of the ship, and guided it safely into port. Hence the crow is figured as his em- blem. St. Benedict made iron float, embarked on a mat, and saved drowning men. He was invoked in shipwrecks. St. Christina floated with a millstone about her neck. This is shown in a picture at Venice. So St. Kea,! surprised at rising tide while at his prayers, sailed to shore on the rock on which he was kneeling. St. Marculf, in France, in 1558, is said to have destroyed a pirate fleet, raising a storm by prayer, and St. Hilarion, attacked by pirates at sea, stopped their ship while in full headway, so was invoked against pirates in the Mediterra- nean. St. Leonore is said to have saved a sinking ship by wav- ing a bishop's letter at it. At Etretat, in Normandy, is a chapel to St. Sauveur, the Holy Savior, who is the fisherman's patron there, as well as in many other places. § St. Helena, who allayed a storm by throwing a piece of the holy cross overboard; St. Asclas, who stopped a boat in the Nile by his prayers; St. Loman, who sailed on the Boyne against wind and tide,|| St. Germanus, who is said, in 429, to have allayed a storm at sea by pouring a few drops of oil on it, and St. Rosalia, who was a Sicilian saint, were vener- * Jones.— Credulities, p. 56. i Mrs. Clement.— Legends of the Madonna and Saints. :): Dunn.— Legends of Saxon Saints. § Jones.— Credulities, p. 73. II Grant.— Mysteries of all Nations, p. 175, 84 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS ated by mariners, and some of them had numerous chapels dedicated to them. * St. Columba was a favorite marine saint with North- ern nations. His image, stolen in 1355, caused a storm, and it was in his chapel in the Hebrides that a moist stone was kept, to raise a gale. St. Cesarea was exposed to drown in a cave on the Italian coast. Mariners still say a light is seen there at times, sup- posed to be her luminous body. f St. Patrick is said to have had great power over the sea. He cast a stone altar, consecrated by the pope, into the sea, seated thereon a leper who had been refused passage in a ship, and made the chair sail in company with the ship. He also caused a ship carrying his nephew, St. Lumanus, to sail against the wind. Legends of Sainte Adresse, in Normandy, relate that sailors in danger, after an invocation of the Virgin had failed, succeeded when they invoked the saint's aid. St. Thomas of Canterbury, St. Edmund, and St. Nich- olas were united in saving one of the fleet of Richard, in 1 190. Sailors generally, in the Mediterranean, venerate the saints of their own town or district, and pay their vows at their shrine. "l Cetti says Itr.lian fishermen chose by lot a saint for each day. and fish were dedicated to him, — an impartial method, to say the least. § Klemm says Neapolitan fishermen, if their saints did not respond to their appeals, threw their images over- board. A giant statue of St. Christopher stood on a promontory in Granada, so that sailors, seeing it from afar, would make their vows to it. He was a ferryman who rowed Christ across a river. So there stood a colossal statue of this saint at Monte Pellegrino, in Sicily. St. Francis Xavier was long esteemed a powerful mari- time saint, and St. Phocas was a patron of Greek sailors, St. EHas of Slavonic mariners. II Flemish fishermen caught a whale that was too large for the small bay into which they towed it. They finally * Jones.— Credulities, p. 37. + Jones.— Credulities, p. 42. t Jones.— Credulities, p. 36. § Kulturgeschichte. II Translations and Miracles of St. Vaast. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 85 appealed to St. Arnould for help, and, by his assistance, landed the monster. * Quallee Walee Sahib, a great Mahometan saint, was in- voked by a captain to stop a leak in his ship. The saint was under the barber's hands, but sent the mirror which he was holding. It flew to the ship, and stopped the leak by stick- ing to the ship's side. When the captain came to thank the saint, he bade him bring the glass, and showed the aston- ished man where it had adhered to the ship's side. f A favorite maritime saint in Japan is Jakushi Niurai, whose emblem was the cuttlefish, often seen cut on his stat- ues in seaside temples. In a great storm at sea, a huge fish attacked a junk, and mast and rudder were broken. A priest on board prayed to the saint, who appeared and bade him throw overboard his image, which the priest possessed. He did so, and the storm ceased. The image was afterwards restored to the priest by a cuttlefish. Saints not only sailed the seas in curious crafts, but many walked on its surface. So St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Hya- cinth, St. Marinus, St. Columba, St. Blaise, St. Peter Telme and St. Francis de Paul are asserted to have quietly walked the waters. As St. Scothinus I walked on the Irish sea he met St. Barras, his brother, sailing in a boat. To an inquiry of the latter, he answered that he walked in a beautiful meadow, and to prove it, stooped, and gathered a handful of flowers. Not to be outdone, the other saint immediately scooped up a handful of fish, to prove that they traversed the sea. The captain of a Venetian ship said to Loyola: "Why do you sail with me? A saint has no need of such vulgar means. He walks the waters and imitates Christ." The good offices of the Virgin and saints were necessary to overcome the evil machinations of the devil and his subject demons, who were thought to dwell in ocean, lake, sea, and river. " Spirits, that have over water gouvernement, Are to mankind malevolent; They trouble seas, floods, brooks, and wels, Meres, lakes, and love to inhabit wat'ry cells; Hence noisome and pestiferous vapours raise. Besides they men encounter divers ways. At wrecke's some present are; another sort Ready to cramp their joints that swim for sport." * Jones.— Credulitiep, p. 42. + Mitford.— Tales of Old Japan. t Jones.— Credulities, p. 56. 86 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Among the sun-worshiping nations of antiquity, it was thought that his splendor was obscured at night by the machinations of evil demons, who opposed his passage in the waters of the lower world. This demon in Egyptian representations* is Typhon, or Apophis, the "lord of the deep," etc. Thence grew up a host of legends concerning a demon who had his abode in the sea, unclean to these people, and Typhonic influence was thought to cause the storms and tempests of the deep. Typhoeus in Greek legends was a dragon-monster, who warred against Jupiter, and was imprisoned under Mount ^tna. The name indi- cated the whirlwind in Greece and Rome. "Ty-foon" in China still designates the revolving sea-storm; "to-fan" the hurricane in Hindoostan, and "tuphon " the whirlwind in Arabia. "Typhoeus was father of the winds that bring ruin and havoc," says Hesiod; and he was also parent of the Hydra, Cerberus, Nemaean Lion, and other monsters fabled to have come out of the deep. Captain St. John says the Chinese consider Tyfoon "the mother of winds." The name is perpetuated in the appellation for a circular storm, current in nautical language. Satan, in early ages, figured as Leviathan, and in an old gem is so shown, with the church, in the guise of the ship of St. Peter, triumphant over it. fin Hindoo legend, Panchayana is a demon living in the sea in the shape of a conch-shell, and the Maruts were verit- able storm-fiends. Argunas saved his brother from a marine demon. J; In an old Persian manuscript, the devil appears in the guise of a fish, and an old middle-age Inferno picture figures him as a cat — the malevolent animal at sea. Bad was a Persian demon of winds and storms. In Arabian belief, %Jin7is or giants caused disaster at sea. In one story in the Arabian Nights, a Jinnee wrecks ships. II Bechard, according to the " Clavicle of Solomon," was a storm-demon. In an old Jewish legend, the devil is angered because God gave man dominion over the things of the sea, deem- ing that his region; but he was allowed to possess a certain * Wilkinson.— Ancient Egypt. •I" Mahabrarata. * Collin de Plancy.— Diet. Infernale. § Lane.— Arabian Nights. II Collin de Plancy.— Diet. Inf. OP THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 8? power over the winds and waves. This is much like Phito in the "Iliad," when Neptune was made lord of the seas, — *" Pluto, the infernal, heard alarmed, And, springing from his throne, cried out in fear, Lest Neptune, breaking through the solid earth, To mortals and immortals should lay bare His dark and drear abode of gods abhorred." When the devils were cast out and entered the swine, they entered the sea; Micah says, "Thou wilt cast all their sins into the sea." f Marcus, the Eremite,' in recounting the six classes of demons, says the fourth class is the water-demons, drown- ing men, raising storms, etc. Alvinach was a middle-age demon of the western sea, causing shipwreck and disaster, and appearing in female guise. I Wierus says a demon, Forneius^ in the shape of a marine monster, existed in the middle ages, and another, Ganygya, sought the souls of drowned persons. Luther thought the devil raised storms, and said he laid some twenty caused by him. St. Thomas Aquinas says the same. St. Nicholas saw him at sea, sword in hand. He figures as storm-raiser in numerous other saintly legends, and Dante and Tasso testify to his power. § Du Cange says the devil is called Hydros in a Latin manuscript, and that Neptunus, under the name of Aquati- quur, became a personification of the devil. Remegius and St. Augustine say the devil was evolved from water. II Duchesne says: "In the year 1148, a frightful whirl- wind arose, overthrowing houses and rooting up trees, when it was asserted that fiends were seen fighting, in the shape of wild animals." William of Malmesbury says of fiends: "Sometimes they seize the sailor." Various legendary demons are encountered in northern lore. Grendel's** mother was an aquatic demon; and Beo- wulf slew another one. The wives of the northern Nep- tunes, Ran and Skade, were, as we saw in the last chapter, regarded as evil deities of the sea. * Pope.— Iliad. + Jones.— Credulities, p. 72. JDe Praestigils Demonium. § IHctionary. II Norman Chronicles. ** Ludlow.— Popular Epics of the Middle Ages, Vol. I. 88 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS In the story of Frithjof, Helgi, the northern Pluto, sends the storm-spirits, the witches Heyd and Ham, against the hero's ship. So Tegner, — * " Now two storm-fiends came Against Ellide's side; One was ice-cold Ham, One was snowy Heyd." " Loose they set the tempests' pinions, Down-diving in ocean deep; Billows from unseen dominions To the gods' abode they sweep." And these demons are thus more minutely described, — "A whale before Ellide gliding Like a loose island seeth he, And two base ocean-demons riding Upon his back, the stormy sea. Heyd, in snow-garb, shining brightly In semblance of an icy bear. Ham, his loud wings flapping widely, Like a storm-bird, high in air." f Certain demons called Landvaettir were believed, in Denmark, to threaten ships from the shore, and a law of Ulfliote, in the thirteenth century, required that the figure- heads then carried at the prow must be taken off on approaching shore, so as not to frighten these malevolent spirits. In the Issefiord (a part of Cattegat Strait) a sea- demon formerly dwelt, who stopped each ship and de- manded a man from it. But it was found, by consulting the priests, that he could be exorcised, and this was done by procuring the head of Pope Lucius (beheaded at Rome) and showing it to the demon. Three winged fiends attacked the crew of one of Gorm's| ships, in his voyage to the Isle of the West, and were only appeased by the sacrifice of three men. §In the romantic legends of William of Orange, Des- rame's head is thrown into the sea, and demons so haunt the spot that sailors dare not approach it.|| There is an old legend that Satan got into the ark, and tried to sink it by cutting a hole. * B. Taylor.— Tegner 's Frithjof Saga. fFormanna Saga, 105; Thorpe.— Northern Myth., II, 117; Grimm.— Teut. Myth., 817. t Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief, 444. § Cox and Jones.— Romances of the Middle Ages, II Conway.— Demonology and Devil-lore, 1, 122. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 89 *It was asserted that a demon of the flood was wont to be seen, on the breaking up of the Rhone glaciers, sword in hand, riding on the swollen stream. Sometimes, in female shape, he came to make the river overflow the land. Du Cange says a demon lived in the Rhone, called Dr-acus. f Anton says a sailor on board the French brig Due de Grammont, at Zante, while blaspheming and calling on the devil, was borne off by Satan in the shape of a horrible monster. To these accounts of maritime demons in the middle ages, we may add a story of a more tangible shape, believed to be demoniacal in character. The Abbe de Choisy tells the tale: J; "Great noise among the sailors; some one suddenly cried, 'There is the devil! we must have him! ' Soon all is in motion; everyone took arms; naught is seen but pikes, harpoons, and muskets. I ran myself to see the devil, and I saw a large fish, which resembled a ray, except it had two horns, as a bull. It made several bounds, always accom- panied by a white fish, which from time to time came to attack it, and then went under it. Between its two horns it carried a little gray fish, which one calls the pilot of the devil, because it conducts it, and it sticks it when it sees fish, and then the devil goes like an arrow." We may find legends of maritime demons among modern sailors. § In Icelandic belief, if an oarsman leaves a little of the handle of the oar uncovered, the devil will use it. The devil, according to a story from Schleswig-Holstein,|| still ferries people across Cuxhaven bay. He does this to liberate himself from the consequences of a certain compact. He had procured a ship for a certain captain, the latter to yield himself up with the ship, which was to be kept busy so long as there was a cargo. This Satan tried to find, so as to keep the vessel cruising until the compact expired, but he was outwitted at the end of the first cruise by the captain's son, who crowded sail on and let the anchor go. The fiend tried to hold the anchor, but went overboard with it. A Dutch captain, proverbially lucky, was thought to have sold himself to the devil, who one day appeared, in a coach-and-four, and carried away his victim. * Conway.— Demonology and Devil-lore, 1-117. + Life of Louis XIII. % Relation of an Embassy to India.— Collin de Plancy. § Folk-lore Record, 1879. II Schmidt.— Seeman's Sagen. 90 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS *In a German story, a demon pilot boards a doomed ship, whose crew have given themselves up to a desperate carouse. He conducts them through a cleft in the rocks into the mouth of hell, himself escaping in a phantom boat. Demons haunt many lakes in Bohemia, Austria, Hun- gary, and the Tyrol. f One, in the guise of a frog, decoyed a maiden to his palace below the water, where she found jars filled with the souls of drowned persons. She w^as able to liberate them. Water-demons are, in Bohemia, believed to float on the waves in the shape of a red flower. They walk on earth nine times a year, clad in a green coat, and claim a victim each time. Balarnu J is a Wallachian water-demon, living in marshes and water-falls. The devil, in a folk-tale, changes himself into a fish, to pursue a young man. In a Russian tale, the devil's imp drags down men boat- ing,§ and in Lake Kerikoff is fabled to live a demon, who upsets boats and seizes victims. A sort of marine demon appears in several || Breton tales, related by old sailors. In one he is distrusted and set ashore from his ship, returns in a pirate, and captures his late captain. In another, as a common sailor, he performs prodigies of valor, and enriches his captain. In another, the devil enlists as a common sailor, is dis- covered and tormented by the crew, and finally disappears. Red Beard is a demon who stirs up storms at St. Pol de Leon. **Jochinus, a dwarf goblin, is seen by Guernsey mariners on Ortach Rock, and such a vision portends drowning. He is a sea-green monster, with finny feet and claws for hands. He knows the names of the drowned, and the spots where they lie. Kiihleborn is a demon of the waves, in Fouque's Undine. In an old woodcut in Lacroix,ff the devil with horns and hoofs holds the stern of a merchant ship that is just start- ing from the shore. Satan is said to have raised a storm at Bongay in Eng-- land, in 1597, coming out of the waves in the shape of a dog. ♦Schmidt.— Seeman '8 Sagen und Schifler Miihrchen. ^^ Gubernatis.— Zool. Mythology. * Schott.— WalUichische Miirchen. § Collin de Plancy.— Diet. Infernale. II Sebillot.— Contes dos Marins. ** Victor Hiig'O.— Trav. de la Mer. •H" Military and Religious Life in Middle Ages. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 91 English children in Lancashire* were formerly told that if they went near the water, Jenny Greenteeth would get them. The water demon is also "Greenteeth" in Bohemia. Satan at sea is encountered in many early ballads. In one, "The ship roll'd in the heavy deep, The wind no longer blew, And over them, greedy to sink them all The fierce wild raven flew." For satan had assumed this garb. f In Scotch legend, the devil and his demons infest deep pools and streams, and it is dangerous to bathe there. A diver going down to get some plate, water-demons told him to go up and not come back. He went down a second time, and never re-appeared. The witches alleged that they were aided by the devil, as recorded in another chapter. In an old Scotch legend, the devil appears in seaman's dress. Norwegian sailors still fear an evil spirit, Draug, and say his spittle is the froth of the sea. J Davis tells a sailor legend of a Captain Folgerus, a daring seaman, whose luck was proverbial. In a gale off Cape Horn, he bargains with the devil to assist him. Satan holds on to his masts until a clear spot is seen in the sky, when he begs the captain to release him from his bargain. This being done, he lets go, and the masts are lost. "The De'ill himself can't hold to a bargain if he has a Cape Horn gale against him." A story is told by Thatcher,§ originally from German sources. In this, a certain sailor binds himself to serve Satan after fifty years, on condition of certain services. When his Satanic Majesty comes to claim his own, the shrewd mariner gets rid of him by engaging him to pump the sea dry, and by so placing the pump that the water all ran back. Sailors in the sixteenth century || firmly believed in the appearance of Satan at sea, in the Western part of the Atlantic. Denis says a demon was fabled to rise from the waters in the neighborhood of St. Brandan's Isle. Sailors testify their regard for Satan's power by the frequency * Henderson.— Folk-lore of the North Counties. + Gregor.— Folk-lore of Scotland. % The American Nimrod. § Superstitions (1831). 1 Goodrich .—Man Upon the Sea. See Frontispiece. 92 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS with which his name is used in naming geographical locali- ties, as well as familiar objects on shipboard. Hell Gate on our own coast, and the Devil's Current in the Bosphorus, are examples of the first kind. "Busy as the Devil in a gale of wind" is a well-known adage. The devil-fish is the Lophis, or fishing-frog, as also the Rana^ or cuttle. "Devil's smiles" are the deceptive gleams of fair weather, or the scowl on an angry captain's face. The "Devil's table-cloth," reminiscence of the Cape- spectre, is still seen spread in threatening weather. Devil- bolt, Devil's-claw, and other names are met with, and the difficult seam at the margin of the deck is a deVil, giving rise to the adage, " The Devil's to pay and no pitch hot," among calkers. The Devil as a water-fiend is also encountered among uncivilized people. Rock demons appear in numerous legends of the African tribes, as well as in the beliefs of the Indians of our Northern lakes and rivers. In ^Australia, demons are said to haunt 'pools, and afflict bathers at times. They particularly desire females. The native doctors are believed to control them. Nguk-wonga is a demon who causes erysipelas in the limbs of boy-bathers, and a stone amulet is carried, to counteract his evil influence. \ In Van Diemen's Land, Burryup is a water-demon that is said to carry away native women to his palace. Nauganauga| is a Fijian water-demon, who dashes into pieces celibates who try to steal around the rocks at low tide. Another marine-demon, Adrum-bu-Sambo, steals fish from nets. In Polynesian belief, a still-born child, when thrown into the sea, becomes an evil spirit. Phillippine Islanders believe in a water-demon, Nonos, who raises storms and wrecks boats. A vampire water- demon is encountered in Malacca. Muibura has a dog's head and alligator's body. A Japanese water-demon is § Kappa, who swallows boys who go down to swim without leave. Chinese believe in the devil's influence in causing storms. A sudden squall is called by Chinese sailors Tin-Foo-Foong, Devil's head-wind. ♦Eyre.— Australia, Vol. VI, p. 342. + Taylor.— New Zealand, p. 48. % Tylor.— Primitive Culture. § Conway.— Demonology and Devil-lore, 1, 11^, OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 93 Numerous water-devils are found in Ceylon. Cinghalese "Devil-plays," constantly allude to them. "Oh thou black devil, thou livest constantly in streams and drains. Come, thou black devil, out of the lake." Offerings are also made to a black female devil, said to linger among the rocks at the bottom of the sea. *Pniik is a Siamese water-demon. Nyang is a Madagascar demon, who is prayed to keep the sea from upsetting the boats. Abue is a Dahomey " King of the Sea." Dacotah Indians thought demons lurked beneath the waters. f We find these lines in "Hiawatha," — " Give our bodies to be eaten By the wicked Nee-ban-aw-baigs, By the spirits of the water." And when the Indian hero sailed across the lake, — X " But beneath, the evil spirits Lay in ambush, waiting for him." Algonquins and Winnebagoes believed in the existence of water-demons in lakes and rivers, § Greenlanders think water-demons exist, and say the oldest man must drink first so as to avoid them. Gigantic demons, in the shape of gulls, seals, bears, etc., are found among their beliefs. ||The Atalit are certain evil spirits, that have their homes beneath the waves, and drag people down. The Tornit are certain other demons, seen at sea in bad weather, gliding over the surface of the water, without a boat. ** Carib legends say souls of the wicked go to the sea shore and capsize boats. Curumon is a Carib water-demon. tfShoshones believe in water-demons (pahonahs). Brazilian Indians believe a water-fiend catches children who are sent to draw water. ll Ovalle says there are bad angels who infest the seas and wreck boats. Mosquito §§Indians said Wihwin a demon in the shape of a horse, came out of the sea to devour men. *Bastian.— CEstlich Asien, p. 24. + Longfellow.— Hiawatha. :}: Longfellow.— Hiawatha. §Tylor.— Primitive Culture, I, 216. II Rink.— Tales and Traditions of the Esquimaux **De la Borde.— Caribs, 532. •H- Bancroft.— Native Races, Vol. Ill, p. 157, P;^ History of Peru. §§ Bancroft.— Native Races, p. 497. 94 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS The name Devil suffered some strange transformations in the seaman's mouth. It was an adaptation from Div, Divus, Jove, Deva, etc. The God of antiquity, became in the course of time deva, a Satan, and afterward Devil, the Satan. It finally became, in sailor phrase, Davy. *Dy ved is a fabulous Welshman of Taffy, the thief of evil spirit, and Duffy is a West India spirit. So " Davy Jones' locker " is became the ocean, the deep, the sea-bottom, the place to which the body was committed, and to which the souls of the wicked fled. Jones is for Jonah, whose locker was the whale's belly, and who, in view of his sacrifice to the storm-fiend, is the embodiment of malevolence at sea. "He is a Jonah," marks the un- lucky wight for figurative sacrifice, and "gone to Davy Jones's locker," is synonymous with lost at sea. Smollett says in his day Davy Jones was " the fiend who presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is seen in various shapes, warning the devoted wretches of death and woe." f Collin de Plancy says he sometimes appeared, a giant breathing flames from his wide nostrils, and having big eyes and three rows of teeth. Another name for the maritime devil, perhaps more widely known than the last, was that of Nick, or Old Nick. The name, in the north of England, is used to denote Satan, especially among seafaring people. He is so named in a Devonshire proverb of a remote date. We may| safely trace the name for this evil spirit of the waters through the Anglo- Saxon Nicor, Danish Nokke, Old Norwegian Nikr, Swedish Neck, Icelandic Nyck, German Necker, Nocca, Belgo-Gallic Neccer, Old Norse Nikar, Old High (jerman Nickus, to the Norse Hnickar, the seizer, the robber, one of the twelve names given to Odin, Norse god of all, who was the Jupiter Pluvius, or rain-god, of the North, and whose offspring are the Nixies, Northern naiads of the deep sea. Various other etymologies of the name occur, but need not detain us. Various origins of the name are also pro- posed. Lenormant suggests, with great reason, that Nix and Nick are from the same root as Naiad, Nymph, Neptune, etc., the Greek word Naein, to flow, being the primitive origin of them all, Hampton § would trace the words farther back to the Aiiak or Aiiactes, or Castor and Pollux, whom we * Gerald Massey.— Book of the Beginnings. + Dictionnaire Infernale. t Grimm.— Teut. Myth. Vol. II, p. 488. J Medii ^vi Kalcncjarium, OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 95 have encountered as maritime deities. But this is a doubtful conjecture. * Morley says Odin under the name of Nikarr, gets his title from a word signifying violence, as it appears in the Greek Nike\ victory, and in the Latin 7iecare, to kill. So " Nuecen, to kill, English, knock, having been cut up to Nicken, has become the Old Nick of more recent times." f A recent writer carries the name Nickar back to the Egyptian Nika, or Naker, — a name of the Apophis serpent of the lower world, the Typhonic enemy of the sun in his night journey. In Goa, Africa, Neck is a devil. J Grimm says the Life of St. Matthew, written in German in the thirteenth century, translates Necken — Neptune. Lenormant's derivation of the word is perhaps the nearest to the truth. But as to Odin's connection with the name. " He only appears as Nikar once," says Grimm, in the Snorra or Younger Edda, 3. He there visits Sigurd's ship at sea as Hnickar. § Norse legends say he often appears in this guise, in the shape of a sea-monster (Ger- man Nikhus is crocodile), presaging shipwreck and drown- ing to seamen. Scott, in "Demonology," says, ^'Nixas, or Nicksa, a river or ocean-god, worshiped on the shores of the Baltic, seems to have taken uncontested possession of the attributes of Neptune. The Nixa of the Germans is one of those facinating and lovely fays whom the ancients termed Naiads. The Old Nick known in England is an equally known descendant of the Northern sea-god, and possessed a large portion of his powers and terrors. British sailors fear him, and believe him the author of various calamities of their precarious life." Odin was called as Fisherman's deity Hvael, or whale, and as the whale and walrus were caught with great danger, so Odin, as maritime spirit, became diabolic. II The Danish Nokke is seen and heard often on the coasts. He is represented as an old monster, or as a young or old man. A knife is carried, or a nail, in a boat when going to sea, as he fears steel. In the song, " The Power of the Harp," — " The foul, ugly Nick sat and laughed on the wave." * English Writers. + Massey.— Book of the Beginnings. *Teut. Myth., II, 497. § Thorpe.— Northern Mythology, II, 20. II Thorpe.— Northern Mythology, Vol. II. 96 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS ^ Olaus Wormsius says he was said often to appear to ■ sailors on the deep sea, presaging immediate storms and . disaster. Me says the redness of drowned people is owing ; to this demon's having sucked their blood through the \ nostrils. i *In Norway the Nokke are said to abound in rivers, ! firths and lakes, and require an annual human sacrifice, i One was commonly reported to rise in a certain river when : any one was drowned, and cry "Saet over!" (cross over!) J They are said to be able to transform themselves into ] various shapes, sometimes appearing with half the body i like that of a fish, or of a horse, or a boat. If any one \ touches them he is in the Evil One's power. Particularly * were they greedy after children, catching them and drag- \ ging them beneath the water, but they were only dangerous \ after sunset, f On appearing, it was deemed best to say, ; '' Nyck! Nyck! needle in water! The Virgin Mary cast ; steel into the water! Thou sink! I float!" for the appear- j ance of steel in the water was thought to control them. ! They also were called Soetrold (sea-trolls). When they ■ appear at sea they are considered very powerful, and if one I in danger of shipwreck would promise a son or daughter, \ he would escape the calamity. Frequently the Nok i changed his form or abode. \ X He may be bridled when he comes as a horse, and he \ is known by his hoofs being turned backward. ! At one place in Norway he is fabled to appear as the ■ water-horse when stormy or threatening weather is impend- | ing. At another place he is called the Vigtrold (harbor- I troll), who shouts to warn mariners when danger is near. : A Nok in Svend waterfall is fabled to have caused the ! death of many persons. A priest tried twice to cross the i river, but only succeeded the third time, by catching the spirit, in the shape of a dog, and drowning it. § In Swedish, Neckan is the musical sprite of the water. Rudbechius says Neckar assumed various shapes and gov- erned the sea. In Sweden, when you bathe, you should carry a piece of steel or iron into the water, for they say that sometimes Nick appears as a young man on the sur- face of the sea, and he is said to be especially severe on young maidens who have not treated their lovers well, *Faye.— Norsk Sag-en, p. 57. + Thorpe.— Northern Mythology, II, 30. t Grimm.— Teut. Myth. § Thorpe.— Northern Mythology, II, 39. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 97 In all these countries he is thought to be very anxious about his soul. So his children, when told "You have no soul, and will never be saved," ran shrieking into the sea. * German legends of Nick and the nixies are abundant. In old works, Necca, Necco, Nickar, or Neckar, is governor of the sea, assuming the name and form of some animal, or of a man in a boat. Nixen, or Nickers, are water-fairies of the sea, streams and lakes. Males are called Nix, females Nixie. Some say their ears are slit, others say they have fish-like backs. Some are represented clothed, others cov- ered with moss and sea-weed. Nickelman or Hackelman, sits on the water with a long hook, to drag children down below. He often appears in the evening calling for help, and dragging down the person who comes to assist him. Stories of Nick are told, with variations, of nearly every lake, river and stream in Germany, Austria and Bohemia. Nick ap- pears as a serpent, in a story from the Black Forest, drag- ging a maiden down with him below the water. f A water-fiend in Bode required an animal sacrifice, so a black hen was thrown in as a substitute for a mortal. When the water is disturbed, Nick frequently clasps his hands and laughs, for some will drown. The metal nickel is said to have been named after Old Nick, who stole silver and sub- stituted the baser metal. Neckar, or Nick, kills the maidens who disobey his orders, or who marry mortals. So with Undine, after her return to the Rhine depths, and a similar story is told by Grimm. Another Rhine story is told of a Nick carrying off a woman who was washing linen on the bank. He always devoured his children. The services of midwives were said to be frequently required in the Rhine depths.]; The messenger of Nix is Nixcobb, who communi- cates with mortals. He is a short, deformed dwarf, covered with shells, sea-weed and moss. In a German story, " Nix of the Mill-Pond," a man is carried away by the Nix. An old witch bids his wife comb her hair by the pond. Her husband's head appeared. The next day she played a flute when half his body arose from the water. The third day she turned a golden spinning-wheel, when he reappeared and emerged from the lake. This tale is believed by Cox to symbolize the sun breaking up the winter-sleep of nature. ♦Wnttke.— Deutsche Aberglauhen. + Wolf .—Deutsche Mahrchen und Sagen. * Legends of the Rhine. 7 98 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Stones thrown in the Nick-haunted lakes raise a storm. At Blankenburg, a ship ran ashore, and the crew could not get her afloat, until a Nix came and assisted, with a long hook. In Hesse, children are told to keep away from the water, or " Nocken will get you." * A nick is said to have carried a fisherman's boat from a lake on Riigen to the top of a tall tree. Another was said to have been seen near Marburg, in 1615, and they were frequently seen, according to old chronicles, in the Elbe near Magdeburg, where they were fabled to have prevented the construction of an acqueduct. At Leipsig, they were fabled to require a victim each year, and were thought especially to desire children. An old legend of 1664, told by Pratorius, says a maiden served a Nix for three years. Sailors and fishermen at Neumark say that the Nix requires a sacrifice every three years. One in the Rhine requires a midwife's services, and repays her with a lot of ashes, which turn to gold. f In Austria, Donaufiirst asks all who came to the river what they wish most, and then ducks them in the river, where is all, and everything. The rivers, springs, and lakes in Belgium and Holland are haunted by the Necken. Near Ghent, it is said that he has been seen on the banks of the Scheldt. In Brabant, it is thought that he cries like a child to attract people, and that he sucks the breath and blood of drowning persons. A story is told of nixies dancing on the strand, and a young man got possession of the glove of one of them, and she plunged into the water, but it was soon stained red, for Nick had slain her for conversing with a mortal. I The " Water-king of Wangerong " came to Dort to claim a bride. Not being able to get her, he buried in sand a part of the coast. In the Faroe Islands, Nikar drags people down occasion- ally. Scotch seamen formerly believed in " Nigg of the Sea." Storms gathered while he slept. The Celtic water-god Neithe is conjectured a Nick. Nyck, in Iceland, is a water-kelpie who carries off a maiden who foolishly mounts on his back, * Kuhn and Schwartz.— Deutsche Sagen. + Simrock —Deutsche Mythologie, p. 150. t Schmidt.— Seaman's Sagen und Schitter Mfthrchen. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 99 * Nock is said by some to have fish extremities. The nixies, his children and subjects, are sometimes naked, hung about with shells and sea-weed, and when clothed, betray their presence by dripping garments. They love to dance in the moonlight, and, like mermaids, foretell the future, and are possessed of protean wisdom. The Anglo-Saxon knew him. f Turner says: " Neccus, a malign deity, who frequented the waters, was feared in the North. If any perished in whirlpools, or by cramp, or by bad swimming, he was thought to be seized by Neccus. Steel was supposed to expel him, and therefore all who bathed threw some little pieces of steel in the water for that purpose." Beowulf says the Nicor were supernatual elves in lakes, rivers and seas, ever ready to injure, and able to raise storms. He says they were fiendish and savage enemies of the sailor. " Brother Fabian's Manuscript," quoted by Hardwick,| says, — " Where by the marishes bloometh the bittern, Neckar the soulless one sits with his ghittern, Sits inconsolable, friendless and foeless, Waiting his destiny, — Neckar the soulless." And so in Matthew Arnold's poem, — "In summer on the headlands, The Baltic sea along, Sits Neckar, with his harp of gold, And sings his plaintive song." Thus we have seen the devil borrowed by the sailor from his terrestrial abode, and made to do duty in ocean depths. During the middle ages, a belief in Satan's power was uni- versal, and this was fostered by the priests; he, sometimes, as in the case of Nick, being a degraded heathen god. "Amphibia," says a German writer, " appear as bad and demonical animals," and thus the water-king is malevolent. But Satan, as prince of the air and sea, had, in popular lore, a bad character. The mediaeval conception of the maritime devil, transmitted to more modern times, is thus aptly summed up by Fiske: "Like those other wind-gods, the psycopomp Hermes, and the wild huntsman, Odin, he is prince of the powers of the air. . . . Finally he takes a * Thorpe.— N. Mythology, Bk. Ill, p. 87. + Anglo-Saxon History. % Lancashire Traditions. 100 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS hint from Poseidon, and from the Seven Maidens, and ap- pears as a water-nymph or nixy, and as the Davy (Deva) whose * locker' is situated at the bottom of the sea." There he now remains, no longer terrifying the practical modern mariner. CHAPTER III. THE STORM-RAISERS. " I think I'd like to be a witch, I'd churn the sea, I'd tether the winds, As suited my fancy best. I'd wreck great ships, if they crossed my path. With all the souls on board." Old Cornish Song. "Oh! sing and wake the dawning! Oh! whistle for the wind! The night is long, the current strong, Thy boat it lags behind!" '^ Kingsley — A Myth. ^cr//?^. HE Deities, Demons and Saints were not the only powers capa- ble of controlling the elements. Although they were believed to exercise chief dominion over winds and storms, it was also believed that many human agents possessed the power of controlling winds and waves, generally through an invocation or conjuration of these superior spirits. This belief in the storm-raising power of certain persons existed early in the hist ^ praying to Apollo, he appeared among the clouds and lit up the way with an arrow from his bow. To Telemachus, wandering in distress, appears, as Homer says, Eidothea, — * Jones.— Broad, Broad Ocean, p, 236. 382 LEGENDS OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 283 * *' When lo! a bright cerulean form appears, The fair Eidothea, to dispel my fears; Proteus her sire divine." And so to Ulysses, when shipwrecked, Leucothea came, bringing a life-saving veil, that enabled him to reach the shore, — f "Swift as a sea-mew springing from the flood, All radiant on the raft, the goddess stood." Menelaus, in Euripides' "Orestes," is made to say, — "for from the waves The sailors' prophet, Glaucus, who unfolds," etc. And Apollonius, in the "Argonauts," says he was the comforting apparition seen by sailors in distress. In the "iEneid,"Somnus appears in the guise of Phor- das, and gains possession of the helm, by casting Palinurus overboard. Apparitions of the Virgin and saints on shipboard are recorded in numerous Middle Age legends. Jin the eleventh century, an angel appeared to ^thelsige in a storm, and enjoined him to keep the Feast of the Concep- tion. On his promising to do so, the storm ceased. A crusading fleet set sail from Dartmouth, in 1190, to carry the troops of Richard I. from Marseilles to the Holy Land. One of them had a visit from St. Thomas of Canter- bury, St. Edmund, and St. Nicholas, during a storm. A twelfth century legend of Marseilles § chronicles the appearance of Notre Dame de la Garde upon the summit of a rock in the harbor, to aid a fisherman whose boat was in peril, and the same luminous apparition is said to have been seen by others. At one time, she saved a storm-beaten ship, by taking the helm in her own hands. II In 1226, the Virgin is said to have appeared to Lord Salisbury at sea, in a storm, shielding a light. On his vow- ing a taper to her shrine, the gale abated. Saint Cuthbert appeared to the crew who were carrying his body away. ** " And also the same shippe that they were in, by the grete storme and strong raging of the sea, as is aforesaid, was turned on one syde, and the booke of the * Pope.— Homer's Odyssey, Bk. IV. + Pope,— Odessy, Bk. V. $ Jones.— Credulities of All Ages. Ch. 1. § Collin de Plancy.— Legendes Pieuses du Moyen Age. II Jones. -Credulities. Ch. 1. ** Chronicles of the Monastery of Durham. 284 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Holie Evangeliste fell out of the shyppe into the bottom of the sea. The which booke, being all adorned with guild and presious stones of the outsyde, and they being all troubled with great sorrow for the losse of the said booke, one Hunredin, being admonished and commanded by the vision of Sancte Cuthbert to seeke the booke that was lost in the sea, iij (3) miles and more from the land, and as they were so admonishede, they found the booke much more beautiful than before." We have already related the legend concerning the ap- pearance of Jakushai Niurai, a Japanese saint, to a devoted priest on board a storm-beaten junk, and further instances of apparitions of saints are given in the chapter devoted to them. * Archbishop Bruno, of Wurtzburg, saw a spectral visi- tant, while at sea with Henry III., which announced itself as his evil genius, and he died shortly afterward. f The crew of a French crigantine at Zante, averred they saw the figure of a horned and monstrous seaman plunge into the water with one of the crew, who had defied the Virgin by playing dice. In Norse legend, Thor appeared to King Olaf Tryggvason in the guise of a red-bearded man, boarded his ship, laughed and joked with the crew, and finally jumped over- board. We find among early navigators, an almost universal be- lief in a spectre at the Cape of Good Hope. The spectre appears thus in the immortal song of the Lusian bard, — X " Robust and vigorous in the air appear'd, Enormous and of stature very tall, The visage grim, and with squalid beard, The eyes were hollow, and the gestures all Threatening and bad, the color pale and sear'd." He threatens ships with destruction. "The next proud fleet that think my drear domain With daring hand t'invade, and hoist the streaming vane, That gallant navy, by my whirlwinds toss'd, And varying seas, shall perish on my coast." Thus this cape, the place of the punishment of the spectre captain, is also that of Adamastor, the cape spectre, * Grant.— Mysteries of all Nations. 293. i- Pee Chap. II. t Camoens.— Lusiad. Canto V. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 285 and to this day, the mariner, beating about its windy head- lands, sees, spread over its flat tops, the " Devil's Table- cloth," cloudy premonitor of coming tempest and possible wreck. Around it and the opposite cape have for ye^rs clustered the legends of sailors, and many still refer to wonderful experiences in "coming round the capes." There were other spectres that terrified the mariner. *Scot says: "Innumerable are the reports of accidents unto such as frequent the seas, as fishermen and sailors, who discourse of noises, flashes, shadows, echoes, and other things, nightly seen or heard upon the waters." Ghosts are encountered at sea. fWe read in an old work: "I look upon sailors to care as little of what becomes of themselves as any people under the sun; yet no people are so much terrified at the thought of an appa- rition. Their sea-songs are full of them; they firmly believe in their existence, and honest Jack Tar shall be more frightened at the glimmering of the moon upon the tackling of a ship, than he would be if a Frenchman were to place a blunderbuss at his head." The same work tells us a tale of a ship's crew that had not only seen, but sinelled a ghost. A few judicious lashes dispelled the belief, but the smell proceeded from a dead rat, found in the place indicated as a haunt of the ghost. J;An anecdote is related, in Moore's life of Byron, of a Captain Kidd. He told Byron that the ghost of his brother (then in India) visited him at sea, and lay down in his bunk, leaving the blankets damp with sea-water. He afterward found that his brother was drowned at that exact hour and night. §We find a nautical ghost as early as the time of Columbus: "The prince would have gone there in person, if it had not been that one of the crew of the galley of the marquis had said, more than a month before, that there appeared to him three times, in a nocturnal vision, a woman dressed in white, who said to him that he should say to the prince that he should take good care of his life, that he should not place his person in danger by sea, above all on St. Michael's day; or, otherwise that he should receive some harm." * Scot.— Diet, of Witchcraft, 1665, in Jones' Credulities, 7. •fNew Catalogue of Vulgar Errors (1761), in Jones' Credulities, 86. t Jones.— Credulities, 87. §Memoires de Guillaume de Villeneuve (1495). 286 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS * Cotton Mather tells us of a spectre that visited a colonial ship, carrying off, in a ghostly canoe, seven of the crew at a time. He also says: '' Many persons, who have died at sea, have been seen, within a day of their death, by friends at home." Mary Howitt relates a story of a remarkable vision, as seen by Captain Rogers, R. N., who, in 1664, was in com- mand of the "Society," bound from England to Virginia. He was heading in for the capes, and was, as he reckoned, after heaving the lead, three hundred miles from them. A vision appeared to him in the night, telling him to turn out and look about. He did so, found all alert, and retired again. The vision appeared again, and told him to heave the lead. He arose, caused the lead to be cast, and found but seve7i fathoms. Greatly frightened, he tacked ship, and the daylight showed him to be under the capes, instead of two hundred miles at sea. In Sandys' Ovid (1632), a story is told of an old Bristol quartermaster, who saw the spectres of four Bristol witches playing dice in the cock-pit of his ship, at Gibraltar. They, perceiving him, disappeared, leaving him lame, and the ship was said to have been mysteriously stopped at sea by their power. fSir Walter Scott has a story of the captain of an English ship, who was assured by his crew of the nightly visit of the ghost of a murdered sailor. The crew refused to sail, but a close watch resulted in catching a somnam- bulist. Scott relates another incident of a captain who killed a man in a fit of anger, and, on his threatening to haunt him, cooked his body in the slave kettle. The crew believed that the murdered man took his trick at the wheel and on the yards. The captain, troubled by his conscience and the man's ghost, finally jumped overboard, when, as he sank, he threw up his arms, and exclaimed, "Bill is with me now J Scott also tells us of a Mrs. Leakey, who was said to have appeared after her death, standing on deck near the mast of her son's ship, raising storms by her incantations, and eventually wrecking the ship. Glover, in a poem, "Admiral Hosier's Ghost," embodies an old belief concerning the wonderful appearance of the *Magnalia Christi Ameiicana. + Scott.— Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 19. :}:NotcstoRokeby, 16. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 287 brave old admiral and all his fleet, after the taking of Porto Bello, in 1740. He had been refused permission to assault the place, and, when his successor took it, — "A sad troop of ghosts appeared, All in dreamy hammocks shrouded." Many West India Keys were formerly supposed to be the haunts of ghosts of murdered men, and Coffin Key was especially feared by sailors after sunset. Sir Walter Scott says the Buccanneers sometimes killed a Spaniard or a slave, and buried him with their spirits, believing that his ghost would haunt the spot, and keep away treasure hunters. *" Trust not, would his experience say, Captain or comrade with your prey, But seek some charnel, when at full, The moon gilds skeleton and skull, There dig, and tomb your precious heap, And bid the dead your treasure keep. * * * * j^jU some slave Or prisoner on the treasure grave, And bid his discontented ghost. Stalk nightly on his lonely post." Caves in the shores of the Caspian were haunted by ap- paritions, in the belief of mariners of fifty years ago, and Moore says, — f "And such the strange, mysterious din, At times throughout those caverns roll'd, And such the fearful wonders told, Of restless sprites imprison'd there That bold were Moslem who would dare, i At twilight hour, to steer his skiff. Beneath the Gheber's lonely cliff." J An old traveler tells us: " There is in this neighborhood an extraordinary hill, the Kobe Guebr, or the Guebre's mountain. It is superstitiously held to be the residence of deaves, or spirits, and many marvelous stories are recounted of the injury and witchcraft suffered by those who essayed in former days to ascend or explore it." §In Brand's "Antiquities" there is a ludicrous tale of a sea-ghost. The ship's cook, a lame man, died while at sea, and was thrown overboard. Some days afterward his ghost * Rokeby, II, p. 18. See also Canto II, v. 13 and Note 19. + Lalla Rookh. * Potting-er.- " Beluchistan." § Vol. Ill, p. 85. 288 LEGENDS ANi) SUJPERSTITIONS. was seen, walking on the water, ahead of the ship. On coming up with it, it proved to be part of a ship's mast, with the top attached, that simulated the lame man's walk by bobbing up and down on the waves. This nautical ghost is often a malevolent spirit, as in Shelley's " Revolt of Islam," — " The captain stood Aloof, and whispering to the pilot, said, 'Alas! alas! I fear we are pursued By wicked ghosts. A phantom of the dead, The night before we sail'd, came to my bed In dreams like that.'" * Marryat relates a sailor story of a murdered man's ghost appearing every night, and calling all hands to witness a piratical scene of murder, formerly committed on board the ship in which he appeared. f There is an account of the appearance, to an officer of a man-of-war, of his sister's ghost. He became unaccountably insensible, when the spectre touched him with her cold hand. She died the same hour, and on the next cruise he said he saw her again, this time disappearing over the ship's side during a storm. He lost his life shortly after, in the same manner. ^A similar tale is told of a brother's ghost visiting an officer, at the hour of his death. § Symondson tells of the visit of the ghost of a former captain of the ship, at one time, to certain members of the crew, to prescribe a change of course, at another in wet and calm weather, quietly seated in his usual place on the poop- deck. II Cheever says: "The sailor is a profound believer in ghosts. One of these nocturnal visitants was supposed to visit our ship. It was with the utmost difficulty that the crew could be made to turn in at night. You might have seen the most athletic, stout-hearted sailor on board, when called to take his night-watch aloft, glancing at the yards and tackling of the ship for the phantom. It was a long time, in the opinion of the crew, before the phantom left the ship." Cheever tells of another ghost, returning to warn the * Pacha of Many Tales, + Blackwood's Magazine, 1860. * Grant,— Mysteries of all Nations, 694. § " Two Yeai-s Abaft the Mast." II "Sea and Sailor." ^^Biifeii*!. BUCCANEERS OF THE SPANISH MAIN. 290 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS men to repent of their sins, and the captain to desist from severe punishments. * The crew of the ship Pontiac, not many years since, averred that they saw the ghost of a man that had been stabbed by a Greek. On one man's laughing at the notion, he was mysteriously stabbed. The men thereupon deserted the ship, on arriving in port, but the Greek was afterward convicted of both murders. f Melville tells us of a man who was accidentally burned in his bunk, after having died there. The berth was sealed up, but the superstitious crew would not remain in the fore- castle at night, nor sing nor joke while there. An account of a haunted ship is given in the Nautical Magazine.! On the last voyage of the Lord Clive, a num- ber of Lascars had mutinied, and were summarily hanged at the yard arm. Her story became known, and it was diffi- cult to get a crew. Shortly after she sailed, during a night watch, the mate insisted that he heard groans in an empty cabin, and rushed terrified on deck. The crew afterward left the cuddy, likewise reporting a ghost, that of a Malay. Various accidents occurred, and the spectre was often seen in the rigging. Finally, the master Sc.w the ghost on the yard arm, laid in wait for it, and captured a Lascar, who was playing these ghostly tricks, in revenge for the punish- ment of his comrades. The spectre of a lady, drowned on the coast, is believed by fishermen to appear on the beach at Lyme, England. §A similar spectre is said to haunt the beach at St. Ives, Cornwall, during storms. It is called "the Lady and the Lantern." She and her child had been saved from wreck, but the child was swept away and drowned, and she is supposed to be hunting for its body. She is dressed in silks, and coins are always found where she has been seen. II Popular tradition asserts that the ghost of a young man lost at sea appeared to his mother in Cornwall, and that of an officer of the navy appeared to his wife. At Morra, in Cornwall, the Lady Sybilla sits on the rocks, looking seaward for wrecks. The apparition of a smug- gling crew, dripping wet, was also seen, portending the wreck that followed. A pilot at St. Ives received a ghostly * Grant.— Mysteries, 584-5. •!■ White Jacket. *187l. SBottrell.— Traditions and Fireside Stories of Cornwall. 11 Hunt.— Romances and Drolls of the West of England. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 291 warning, in the vision of a man, his mouth filled with seaweed, and his shoes with sand. *In a Cornish legend, the spectre of a privateer captain goes off in a thunder-cloud in a mysterious ship. In the same story, the ghost of a shipwrecked sailor appears. In another tale a similar spectre appears, and carries off his waiting bride. The ghosts of shipwrecked mariners are seen, and their cries heard, from the waves, in a certain bay, on the Cornish coast. Scotch fishermen and sailors have many stories of these ghosts. The ghost of a murdered lady appears to her lover at sea, in a tale by Gregor,f coming in the shape of a bright light, assuming the human form as it draws nearer. She finally calls him, and he springs into her arms, and disap- pears, in a flash of fire. In another legend, an officer sees, in a vision, two boatmen bringing in the body of a third. Soon afterward, this actually occurred, the boat; in which they were having been capsized. The spectre of a woman, who died on the scaffold, is said to have appeared to her sailor lover, who had promised to be faithful to her, living or dead. It came in a gale, accompanied by a storm-cloud, accompanied by a gigantic figure. The vessel was mean- while sorely stormbeaten, but was delivered, when these apparitions obtained possession of the sailor. On Solway Firth, the ghost of a murdered lady appears in a blaze of fire. On a small island, near Windemere, Scotland, called Ledge's Holm, there is a quarry called "The Crier of Claife." An old legend says a ferryman was hailed on a dark night from the island, and went over. He came back, after a long absence, having seen some horrible sights, which he ever after refused to relate, and soon after he became a monk. Afterward the same cry was heard, and the monk went over, and succeeded in laying the ghost in the quarry, where it still is. There are many stories of Irish banshees, some of which are aquatic ghosts. The Banshee of O'Carrol appears on Lough Dearg, gliding over the surface. J; In various Danish legends, the ghost of a Strand Varsler, or coast-guard, appears, walking his beat as when alive. It was formerly considered dangerous to pass along * " The White Witch. "-Bottrell. + Folk-lore of Scotland. $Thorpe.-N. Mythology, II, 166, 292 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS unconsecrated beaches, believed to be haunted by the spec- tres of unburied corpses of drowned people, also called btrand-Varsler. Stories are told of encounters with them by a peasant, near Sambek, and by a woman, near Niverod flm THE SAILOR LAD's GHOST. *A mediaeval East Prussian story is told of Father Anselm, a Lusenberg monk, who, obtaining strand rights on the coast, forbade the gathering of amber without the payment of a heavy tax. It had always been free, but a decree was obtained that any one caught secretly gathering it, should be hanged to the nearest tree. In popular * Bechstein.— Deutsches Mgrchenbuch. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 293 legend, his spirit cannot rest in its grave, but is often seen, wandering on the beach, and crying, "Oh, my God! free amber! " *In North German folk-lore, "Gongers" are ghosts of persons drowned at sea, who visit remote kindred, and announce their own death, always appearing at evening twilight, in the clothes in which they were drowned, and again in the night, leaving a track of water on the floor, and wet covers on the bed. In Schleswig, it is said they do not enter the house, but linger about to announce their sad errand, and always tell it to a relative in the third degree. A young lad was forced to go to sea with his father against his will. He said to his mother, before he went, "As you sit on the shore by the lake, think of me." His ghost appeared to her there soon afterward. f An island, Hornum, near Silt, is traditionally peopled by the apparitions of murdered men, robbers, murderers, and ship wrecked sailors. Jin Schmidt's stories, the ghost of a wronged maiden ap- pears in a ship at sea, on board of which the crew are per- ishing with thirst. It comes in a cloud, traversing the vessel from boom to mizzen, when it finally overwhelms ship and crew. § In one of Arnanson^s tales, ghosts of dead men appear, to aid in moving a boat, in which is traveling a former bene- factor of these spirits. There are many such ghosts found in the legends of our own land. The West Indian superstitions have been re- counted. II On the New England coast, they were also found, and Whittier says the Old Triton, — " Had heard the ghost on Haley's Isle complain, Speak him off-shore, and beg a passage back to Spain." ** These ghosts are those of the crew of the Spanish ship Sagunto, lost here early in the last century, sixteen of whose graves are still to be seen there. A more celebrated ghost is that of the " Shrieking * Thorpe.— N. Mythology, Til, p. 10. +See also H. C. Andersen, Fairy Tales, " Anne Lisbeth." $ Schmidt.— Seeman's Sagen und Schiflfer Marchen. § Icelandic Legends. II Garrison of Cape Ann. ** Drake.— Legends and Folk-lore of New England. 294 LEGENDS OF THE SEA. Woman," long thought to haunt the shores of Oakum Bay, near Marblehead. This was a Spanish woman, murdered here by pirates in the seventeenth century. Whittier thus sings of her, — *" 'Tis said that often when the moon Is struggling with the gloomy even, And over moon and star is drawn The curtain of a clouded heaven, * Strange sounds swell up the narrow glen, As if that robber crew was there, The hellish laugh, the shouts of men — And woman's dying prayer." f Drake says this spectre is still believed to haunt the spot, by many intelligent people, and a learned jurist stated that he had often seen it. I Roads says there are stories told in Marblehead of the appearance on the water of loved ones, who had died at home. § Lights are often seen coming and going near old wrecks on Sable Island, and, with the leaping flames, ghosts of wicked people appear. One is especially renowned, that of the " Lady of Copeland," wrecked and murdered by pirates, from the Amelie transport. She has one finger missing on her hand. II A Block Island tradition declares that the ghosts of certain refugees, drowned in the surf during the revolution, are often seen, these " harbor boys " struggling to reach the shore, and sometimes making their cries heard. . ** Among Maine fishermen, there are legends of spectres. "There was particularly the story of the Hascall. She broke loose from her moorings during a gale on George's banks, and ran into and sank the Andrew Johnson and all on board. For years afterward, the spectres of the drowned men were reported to come on board the Hascall at mid- night, and go through the dumb show of fishing over the side, so that no one in Gloucester could be got to sail her, and she would not have brought six pence m the market." ff There is a legend of a ghost of a former wreck, pirate, * Legends of New Eng'land. + Drake.— Legends of New England, p. 213. $ History of Marblehead. 8 Secrets of Sable Island. Harper's Magazine. II Livermore.— History of Block Island. ** Fish and Men in the Maine Islands. W. H. Bishop, Harper's Magazine, September, 1880. ++ Drake.— Legends of New England. THE SHRIEKING WOMAN OF MARBLEHEAD. 395 296 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS etc., at Ipswich. When storms come, the howling of the wind is Harry Main. The legend is embodied in a verse by A. Morgan: " He blasphemed God, so they put him down, With his iron shovel, at Ipswich Bar, They chained him there for a thousand years, As the sea rolls up, to shovel it back. So when the sea cries, the good wives say, • Harry Main growls at his work to-day ? ' " He is occasionally seen, hard at work on the bar. * Fishermen on the Isles of Shoals, said that ghosts guarded treasures buried by Kidd on Appledore Island, and their luminous forms were often seen. On another island, the ghost of the mistress of one of the freebooters faithfully guards the treasure. In Dana's Buccaneer, a spectral horse appears on the water, and the pirate is forced to mount him, see the spectre ship burn, and finally to ride him away. f Rockwell says there was a superstition among sailors in our navy, in 1842, that when a man had been hanged at the yard arm, a voice would be heard that night, returning the hail, from each yard-arm, one being the ghost of the person hanged. A certain island on the Japanese coast is traditionally haunted by the ghosts of Japanese slain in a naval battle. JGriffis says, *' Even to-day the Chosen peasant fancies he sees the ghostly armies baling out the sea with bottomless dippers, condemned thus to cleanse the ocean of the slain of centuries ago." Mariners feared to anchor near, and thought the phosphorescent sea the forerunner of these ghosts. § An old Chinese legend reports that the ghost of the captain of a man-of-war junk, who had been murdered, re- appeared, and directed how the ship was to be steered to avoid a nest of pirates. The ghost of a Canton man-of-war repeatedly visited his ship, promenading the deck, and drilling his men. We should not wonder at the belief in ghosts and spectres at sea, when we hear of the belief formerly existing, that when ghosts were laid, they were banished to the Red Sea. In one of Addison's plays, we read, "There must be a power of spirits in that sea." When such exiled ghosts did reap- * Drake.— Leg'ends of New England, p. 346. + Sketches of Foreign 'I'ravel. * The Mikado's Kingdom. § Dennys.— Folk-lore of China. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 297 pear, they were thought more audacious, appearing by day instead of by night. But these are not all the spectral shapes that come to the, credulous mariner. As the mysterious abodes of the spirits of the deep and of the air, he had a ready fear of the shapes of mist, cloud, and fog. The Fata Morgana of Messina Straits is little less than the "Bahrel Sheitan " [DeviVs Sea), the deceptive and often disastrous mirage of the Arabian desert. So the Argonauts were encompassed by fog when re- lieved by Apollo. The spectre ship is often attended by a fog, cloudy spectres hovered about many a headland, many unusual occurrences, as narrated in these pages, are attended by a fog or mist, and are often easily accounted for by the unusual resonance given to sounds in fogs, and to the strange feelings often experienced when locked in from the outside world by a fog-bank. The Chinese call the mirage the " Sea Market," and evi- dently regard it as more substantial than fog, for we hear of visits to palaces in the sea-mist. * Japanese legend asserts that the mirage is the breath of a clam, which lies in the bottom of the sea. The mirage is called Shin-Kii'o, — " The vision of the palace of the god of the bottom of the sea." f A mist over the river Cymal, in Wales, is traditionally the spirit of a traitress, who perished in the lake near by. She had conspired with pirates to rob her lord of his do- main, and was defeated by an enchanter. In Icelandic belief, the fog is a king's daughter be- witched. A certain lake in Sweden is said, when the sun is warm, to send up a mist like a human form. It is called spectre- water (Spokvatten). The occasional reflections of mountains, cities, or ships in mirage or fog-bank, the land-look of such banks them- selves, coupled with the superstition of the mediaeval mar- iner, doubtless gave rize to the many stories of mysterious lands at various places and times, and these were aided by the belief in the existence of an earthly heaven or hell, gen- erally reached by crossing the water. The names yet existing in sailor-tongue of such mysteri- ous places as Cape Fly-away, No-man's land, Lubber land, * Greey.— The Wonderful City of Tokio. + Sykes.— British Goblins and Welsh Folk-lore. LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Dutchman's land, and Butter-land (German Smorland), are but faint reminiscences of many tales of wonderful lands in unexplored seas. These fables are as old as Homer's time. For ^olus, dispenser of the winds, lives in a floating isle. Delos, the sacred island, traditionally floated in the ^gean, and was anchored by Poseidon. (Merry suggests that ^Eolia, like the Symplegades, was a floating iceberg of the glacial period.) * Ovid tells us of a maiden, Penmele, who was turned into an island bearing that name, by Neptune, and there were similar Grecian traditions concerning other islands. Navigators in early times thus brought home tales of many fanciful lands, and especially chose islands as the seat of many of these stories, the influence of which extended to the times of Columbus. These tales were assisted in their growth by the fanciful descriptions of authors of the middle ages, and of the re- vival of letters. Scarcely one of them undertook to describe a sea-voyage, without creating numerous wonderful islands. These islands are encountered in the Arabian Nights. On that seen by Sindbad, where King Mihrage lived, sounds of revelry were heard at night. fSo El Kazwini reports that sailors say sounds of drum and tambourine were often heard from Bartail, a certain East Indian island, and say El Dezjal, the Antichrist, lives there. Hole, in his com- ments, thinks these sounds made by waves in hollow rocks. He also says the island on which lived the old man of the sea, who so greviously oppressed Sindbad, was full of such beings, having no bones in their legs, and always ready to jump on the shoulders of an approaching mariner, and drag him down. The Island of Apes is also described by El Kazwini, and both he and El Wardee tell of another island, where there were cannibal men with dog's heads. King Bedr, when wrecked, finds an enchanted city. Lob, on an island. I Moses sent Al Sameri, the maker of the golden calf, to an island in the Red sea, and there his descendants reign, plague-stricken. If a ship comes to the island, they run to the beach, and cry, " Touch me not." ♦ Metamorphoses. + Marvels of Creation. $ Weil.— Leg'ends of the Koran, i OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 399 Ariosto places the gardens of Armida in a wonderful ^ island in the Atlantic, and Fata Alcina carries Astolfo to another enchanted island. "^Angelina was exposed to be devoured by the Ore, on another island, to the west of Ire- land, where that monster had already destroyed the inhab- itants, descendants of Proteus. No extended allusion to the various imaginary islands of Swift and Rabelais are necessary. fThe fleet of the bottle visit in turn Nowhere island. Triangle island, Lip- service island, Desolation island. Monks' island. Sly land, Favorable Wind island, and others, and cross a frozen sea, where the noise of a conflict that had occurred twelve months previous was just beginning to be heard. In the "Speculum Regale," we are told of an island that sometimes approached the Danish coast, on which grew herbs that could cure all ills. But no more than one person could land on it at a time, when it would disappear for seven years, and, on bringing back its burden, it sank, and another island arose in its place, similar to it. Giraldus tells us of an island that appeared and then vanished, but finally became fix,ed, on some one landing on it. JA French author, Pichot, says there were legends among northern sailors of floating islands, covered with grass, trees, etc., which sank in the sea at intervals. They regard them as the abode of malicious spirits, who cause them to rise and float about, so as to embarrass navigators. This statement is confirmed by Torfoeus, Gummers' Ore, just in sight of Stockholm, was one of these islands, and it is figured in the charts of Baroeus, a geographer. Baron Grippenheim relates that he long sought it in vain, but finally saw it by chance, as he raised his head when fishing, it appearing as three points of land. The fishermen in- formed him what it was, and said that its appearance prog- nosticated storms and plenty of fish, and added that it was but a reef, inhabited by sea-trolls, or, perhaps, shapes as- sumed by the trolls. A floating island appears on Lake Derwentwater, in England. § " Some call it the devil's barge, and assert that it only appears in years of calamity; from this premise deducing the fact that England is about to be visited by the cholera. This prophecy is strengthened by the fact * Hoole.— Ariosto. XI— 240. + "Pantag:ruel.'" $Landrin.— Les Monstres Marins, 30. 8 London World, January. 1885. 300 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS ^ that it appeared in the last great cholera year. It matters not that it has also appeared since. Others — among them the oldest inhabitants — state that it presages three months' continual frost." * Marco Polo tells us of islands inhabited by men alone, and of others inhabited by women alone. Colonel Yule says many ancient traditions of such islands were told. Mendoza heard of such in Japan, where there is still a legendary woman's island; and Columbus heard the same legend, of Martinique. f Near Formosa lies Mauriga Sima, said, in Japanese lore, to have been sunk for the crimes of its inhabitants, and yet peopled by their souls. Kaempfer says the vessels and urns which the fishermen have brought from it are sold at an enormous price in China and Japan. J; So Moore sings: "And urns of porcelain from that isle, Sunk underneath the Indian flood, Whence, oft the lucky diver brings Vases to grace the halls of kings." The Chinese have similar traditions of islands, near Formosa, called San-Chen-San (Isles of the Genii). §An expedition is said to have sailed to them, in 219 B. C, but was mysteriously driven back by adverse winds, on sighting them. Cocaigne, or Cookery island, was the subject of many legends and ballads. It is a gourmand's paradise, where abound stores of wine, game, and fish. II " Far in sea, by West Spain, Is a land yhote Cockayne." One authority calls it Lubber-land. Schmidt, in his sailor legends, tells of a wonderful island, inhabited by fairies. The Galapagos islands were formerly said to be en- chanted, probably, as Melville suggests, because of the currents and eddies found near there. An old ballad " The Enchanted Isle," reads thus: * Yules' Marco Polo, Vol. II. + Kaempfer.— Japan. $Lalla Eookh. §Conway.— Demonolog-y and Devil-lore, 1, 166. II Ellis.— Early English Poetry. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 301 ** From that dale forth, the isle has beene By wandering sailors never seene; Some say, 'tis buryed deepe Beneath the sea, which breakes and roares Above its savage rocky shores, Nor e'er is known to sleepe." Strange tales were long told of the Bermudas. '*As Dekker says: " Bermudas, called the Hand of Divels, by reason of the quantity of swine heard from thence to the sea." We also read in the ** Crudities" (1611). "Of the Bermudas, the example such, Where not a ship until this time darst touch, Kept, as suppos'd by hel's infernal dogs; Our fleet found there most honest courteous hogs." f An account of these islands by Jourdan, in 1 610, tells us: " For the Islands of the Bermudas, otherwise called the Isle of Divels, every man knoweth that hath heard or read of them, were never inhabited by any Christians, but were esteemed and reputed a most prodigious and inchanted place, afford- ing nothing but gusts, storms and foul weather; which made every mariner and navigator to avoid them as Scylla and Charybdis, or as they would shun the devil himself." The Colony of Virginia supplemented this account thus: " These islands of the Bermudas have ever been accounted an in- chanted place, and a desert inhabitation for devils; but all the fairies of the rock were but flocks of birds, and all the devils that haunted the woods were but herds of swine." In the addition to Stowes' Annuals, by Howes, we further read: "Sir George Somers espied land, which they judged it should be the dreadful coast of the Bermudas, which island men of all nations said and supposed to be enchanted and inhabited with wittches and devils, which grew by reason of accustomed monstrous thunder-storms and tempests near to these islands." Marryat says there was a sailor tradition that the crust of these islands was so thin, that there was constant danger of breaking through. J "Who did not think till within these foure years, but that these islands had been rather a habitation for Divells, than fit for man to dwell in." estrange Horse-Race (1600). + A Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the " Isle of Divels," $ A Plain Description of the Bermudas (1613'. 302 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS *"And whereas it is reported that this land of the Ber mudas, with the islands about, are inchanted, and kept with evil and wiched spirits — it is a most idle and false report." f Josselyn says: ^^June, the first day in the afternoon, very thick foggie weather, we sailed by an inchanted island, saw a great deal of filth and rubbish floating by the ship." None of the tales told of ghostly shapes or shadowy lands in the ocean world have found so many credulous believers as those of the ghostly lights, that burn about the tops of the ship's spars in the heavy atmosphere preceding a storm, or in the agitated air near its close. Under various names, and connected with numerous legends, this appear- ance has been the joy or terror of mariners for centuries. It bears the same relation to the Will-o'-the-Wisp on shore that the Phantom-Ship bears to the Wandering Jew. J Horace says of them: — •' Soon as their happy stars appear, Hush'd is the storm, the waves subside, The clouds disperse, the skies are clear. And without a murmur, sleeps th' obedient tide." Its earliest appearance is in the first celebrated voyage of the Argonauts. Here, during a storm, it appeared, in an- swer to the prayers of Orpheus, about the heads of Castor and Pollux, as a reassuring sign. Later, its appearance became common. §Xenophanes says they are small clouds, burning by their peculiar motion. Metrodorus thinks that they are luminous emanations from the eyes of spirits. Plu- tarch, quoting these, also thinks them spirits. II Pliny says, "I have seen, during the night-watches of the soldiers, a luminous appearance, like a star, attached to the javelins on the ramparts. They also settle on the yard- arms and other parts of ships while sailing, producing a kind of vocal sound, like that of birds flitting about. When they occur singly, they are mischievous, so as even to sink the vessel, and if they strike on the lower part of the hull, setting them on fire. When there are two of them, they are considered auspicious, and are thought to predict a prosper- ous voyage, and it is said they drive away the dreadful and terrific meteor named Helena. On this account their efficacy *News from the Bermudas (1617). + Voyage to New England (1865). $Carmina, 1-12-25. §Plutarch Morals. Goodwin, Chapter xviii. 11 Natural History, Lib. TI, Chapter xxxvii. A OF TH£ SEA AND OF SAIt.ORS. 303 is ascribed to Castor and Pollux, and they are invoked as gods." Euripides speaks of the appearance of these lights, in "Helena," and Ovid also alludes to them. * Maximus, of Tyre, says, *' I have seen on a ship, the Dioscuri, brilliant stars who reconduct into the right path the ship driven by tempests." Euripides and the Scholiast on Statins bear testimony similar to that given by Pliny. Lucian tells of a ship warned off a shoal by one of the twins. Hesychius and many of the poets speak of their appearance to mariners. Porphyrion, in a note to Horace, says, " It is on the contrary asserted now among sailors, that the stars of Castor and Pollux are generally a menace to the ship." f Solin alludes to a vile incantation against the light, not of a nature to be here described, and it is further confirmed by a passage in [[Pliny, indicating a method for avoiding all atmospheric dangers. §Castor and Pollux were reputed sons of Zeus, or, some say, of Tyndareus, by Leda, and assisted in the Argonautic voyage. ||At their death they were made stars in the con- stellation Gemini, and are invoked by mariners, as in Hon, Od. Ill, Bk. I. " Sic Fratres Helenae, lucida sidera!" For Castor and Pollux were brothers of Helen, whose dire influence in the Greek fortunes gave her name to the single unpropitious flame. ** Dr. Anthon thinks the origin of these names is realistic. Leda means darkness^ Tyndareus, light-giving. So their off- spring are Helene, or Selene, the 7noon (always evil in its influence), or brightness, Castor, the adorner, and Pollux (PoUeuces) lightful. Thus they are appropriate names, whether for these lights at sea, or for the stars that guide the mariner. As the Cabiri, or Dioscuri, the twins became early maritime deities. Another authority thinks Helena is elene, light, or elenas, shipwreck. In the middlfe ages, mariners especially noted this appa- rition with superstitious joys or fears. tfEl Masudi tells us: "Those who are to be saved fre- * " Melusine," Aiagust 5, 1884. + Polyhistor, Ch. i; p. 17 and 18— Mommsens Ed. % Hist. Nat. XXVIII, 23, q. by H. Gaidoz, Melusine, September 1, 1884. § Smith.— classical Dictionary. II Diodorus Siculus. ** Classical Dictionary. ft Golden Meadows, 954 A. D., Chapter xvl. 304 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS quently observe something like a luminous bird at the top of the mast. This appearance on the top of the mast is of such brightness that the eye cannot behold it, nor can they make out what it is. The moment it appears, the sea becomes quiet, the gale lulls, and the waves subside. Then the brightness vanishes, and no one can perceive how it comes, or how it disappears. It is the sign of safety, and the assurance that they have escaped." *When the Earl of Salisbury, in 1226, was visited by the Virgin, as alluded to above, the light appeared, guarded by her, at the summit of the mast, at the moment of greatest danger. Gregorius (1352) records the appearance of these lights, and the usual prognostications from them. f M. Jal gives the following quotation from an old work: |"A vow being made, in invoking Holy Pope Urban, sud- denly appeared to them the light of Saint FJemi; and, seeing this sign, they were .exceedingly content." M. Jal also gives an extract from a Spanish MS. in the Paris Naval library, called, "Relacion del Viajem del Flote." "The next day we had a great tempest, and some sailors assured us that they saw Santo Telmo in the tops with a light." § The same phenomena are recorded by a later writer, who calls the vision St. Helm. Italian mariners of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries regarded the light as a luminous emanation from the body of Christ. II In the account of the second voyage of Columbus, we find this passage: "On Saturday, at night, the body of St. Elmo was seen, with seven lighted candles in the round top, and there followed mighty rain and frightful thunder. I mean the lights were seen which the seamen affirm to be the body of St. Elmo, and they sang litanies and prayers to him, looking upon it as most certain that in these storms, when he appears, there can be no danger. Whatever this is, I leave to others, for, if we may believe Pliny, when such lights appeared in those times to Roman sailors in a storm, they said they were Castor and Pollux." * Jones.— Credulities, p. 64. tGlosealre Nautiquc, Art. St. Elmo. * History of the Miracles of Urban V. (1362-70). 8 Voyage du Seigneur du Caumont (1418). II Historia del Almirante. OF THE SEA AND OP SAILORS. 305 *Ariosto says, — " When sudden breaking on their raptur'd sight Appear'd the splendor of St. Elmo's light, Low settling on the prow, with ray serene It shone, for masts and sails no more were seen; The crew, elated, saw the dancing gleam, Each on his knees ador'd the fav'ring beam. And begg'd, with trembling voice and watery eyes, A truce from threatening waves and raging skies; The storm (till then relentless) ceased to roar." f Erasmus says: "A certain ball of fire began to stand by the mast, which is the worst sign in the world to sailors, if it be single, but a very good one, if it be double. The ancients believed it to be Castor and Pollux. By and by the fiery ball glides down the ropes, and it rolls over and over, close to the pilot. It stopped a little there, then rolled itself all around the sides of the ship, afterward slipping through the hatches, it vanished away." J We have alluded above to the appearance of Ariel, in "The Tempest," on board the king's ship. He comes as the dread spectre light. He says, — " I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak. Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement; sometimes I'd divide And burn in many places: on the topmast, The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, Then meet, and join," etc, "Not a soul But felt a fever of the mad, and played Some trick of desperation. All, but mariners, "^ Plunged in the foaming brine, and quit the veGsel, Then all afire with me." § Douce says Shakspeare probably consulted Stephen Batman's "Golden Books of the Leaden Goddes," where it is thus written, — "Castor and Pollux were figured like two lamps, or cresset lights, one on the toppe of a maste, the other on the stemme or foreshippe," and he further says that if the light ascends from the prow, it is a good sign; if it descends from the masthead, a bad one. * Orlando Furiosi (1516), Hoole's Trans. ■!•" Colloquy of the Shipwreck" (1532). $ Act I, scene 3. § Illustrations of Shg,kspeare (1839), p. 3. 20 306 LEGENDS ANt) SUPERSTITIONS * Psellus names the first class of demons, fiery devils. They displayed their power, he says, in blazing stars, in fire-drakes, in mock-suns and moons, and in the Corpo Santo. In Pigafetta's history of the voyage of Magellan, we find this account: "In stormy weather we frequently saw what is called the Corpo Santo, or St. Elme " (another account has it St. An- selmo). "On one very dark night it appeared to us like a brilliant flambeau, on the summit of the mainmast, and thus remained for a space of two hours, which was a matter of great consolation to us during the tempest. At the instant of its disappearing, it diffused such a resplendent blaze of light as almost blinded us, but the wind ceased immediately." In another place he says, " In this place we endured a great storm, and thought we should have been lost, but the three holy bodies, that is to say, St. Anselmo, St. Ursula, and St. Clare appeared to us, and immediately the storm ceased." A foot-note in Pinkerton's " Voyages " says the English sailors call the light Davy Jones, but he does not state his authority, nor does f Goodrich, who calls it the same. \ Camoens, in the " Lusiad," records the appearance of the light. It is in 1572, and Da Gama speaks, — " That living fire, by seamen held divine, Of Heaven's own care in storms the holy sign, Which midst the horrors of the tempest plays, And on the blast's dark wings would gayly blaze; These eyes distinct have seen that living fire Glide through the storm, and 'round my sails aspire." § Linschoten also tells us, " The same night we saw upon the main yard, and in many other places, a certain sign, which the Portuguese call Corpo Santo, or the holy body of the brother Peter Gonsalves, but the Spanish call it Sa?i Elmo, and the Greeks (as ancient writers rehearse, and Ovid among the rest), Helle and Phryxus. Whensoever that signe showeth you the mast, or main yard, or in any other place, it is commonly thought that it is a sign of better weather. When they first perceive it, the Master or Chief Boatswain whistleth, and commandeth every man to salute it with ' Salve Corpo Santo,' and a 7mseracordia, with * Collin de Plancy.— Dlctionnaire Infernale. •I- Man Upon the Sea. *Mickle's Translation, Rk. V, ver. 159. §Relationof a voyage from Goa to Enkhuizen (1588). . : Magellan's ship and the st. elmo lights. 307 308 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS a very great cry and exclamation. This constellation||as astronomers do write, is engendered of great moisture.wd vapors, and showeth like a candle that burneth dimly a|id skippeth from one place to another, never lying still. We saw five of them together, all like the light of a candle, which made me wonder, and I should hardly have believed it, but that I saw it, and looked very earnestly at it. . .i . These five lights the Portuguese call ' Coroa de Nostra S^n- hora,' that is, ' our lady's crown,' and have great hope there- in when they see it." | Sir Humphrey Gilbert tells us, "We had also upon qur main-yard an apparition of a little fier by night, which sea- men call Castor and Pollux." % In Lord Bacon's "Apothegms," Gonsalvo says to Diego de Mendoza, "It is Saint Errnyn, who never appears t^t affer a storm." ' J * Hakluyt in his Vo)'ages (1598) saw the light. He saf^s, " I do remember that in the great and boisterous stormjof this foul weather, in the night there came upon the toj^e of our maine-yard and maine-mast a certaine little ligfit, much like unto the light of a little candle, which the Span- iards call the Suerpo Santo. This light continued aboqrd our ship about three hours, flying from maste to maste, a|id from top to top; and sometimes it would be in two or thi places at once." f An old writer says, — '*As when a wave-bruised bark, long tost by the winds in a tempes ^ Strains on a forraine coast, in danger still to be swallow'd, | •'"After a world of feares, with.a winter of horrible objects, .f The shipman's solace, fair Leda's twinnes, at an instant, , " ; Signes of a calm are seen, and seen, are shrilly saluted." .'1 jDe Loier also says, "They. shall see the fires which say- lors call St. Hermes, fly uppon tlieir shippe, and alight upipn the toppe of maste." 1 In that diverting work,~ Burton'^ "Anatomy of Melan- choly (1624), we read, "Fiery spirits and devils are seen, as commonly noted, by blazing stars, fire-drakes, or ig}ies-fattd, which lead men often in flumen aut prcEcipitu; likewise .tfcuey counterfeit sun and moon, stars oftentimes, and sit on shi|)'s masls.' In navigiorum su7nnntantibiis z^/i-^//^/^^/-,! and 'are called * Vol. Ill, p. 450. •I- Greene in Conceit (1598). % Treatise of Spectres (1605). % " They are seen at the top of ships." OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 309 Dioscuri, as Eusebius informs us, in which they never ap- pear, saith Cardan, but they signify some mis:chief, or ill to come unto men, though some will have them to portend good, and victory to that side they come towards in sea- fights. St. Elme's fire they commonly call them, and they do'likewise appear after a sea-storm. "^ Rad:zovillius, the Polonian duke, calls this apparition Santo Germani Sidus (Holy (Terman Staf), and ^aith, moreover, that he" saw the same often in a: storm as he in his sailing, 15^2, caihe from Alexander to Rhodes.- Our stories are full of such appari- tions in all times'" In a letter from a priest iji Peru to his superior, written in 1639,1 we find a curious account of this light." I trans- late, '* But we passed thronghvit (the storm) happily, since at its beginning, which was about 11 or 12 P.M., the San- telmo (sic) appeared to us at the main-topmast head, in the shape of three distinct lights, mild and beneficent to the sight, the form in which the Saint appears on like occasions to afflicted mariners. We all bade it thrice good speed, none in the ship omitting it, and then we knew that it understood our actions, and were not left in ignorance of the protection and special assistance that it afforded us, as it gave.usan indication of this, the Saint passing from the main-topmast head to the fore-topmast head, and in the same form, and then we again bade it good speed three times, and the Saint, as if to show us that it afforded us a like protection and assurance, appeared the third time at the mizzen-topmast head, and there shone in the threefold form of three burning lights, which made a marked impres- sion on all, and all at once wished good speed three times again, and saw it no more, but gave ourselves the greatest assurance and confidence in making a good voyage." I Bartolomeo Crescentio records the light, and says it was called Saint Tel me, or Saint Helm, because of its reflec- tion in the helmets, or /^.f/wj-, of- the soldiers. ;, Fournier, in his " Hydrographie " (1643), relates many curious stories of the light. He says it w^as named after a saint, familiarly known as Saint Telme, but who was San Pedro Gonzales de Tuy,. in Gallicia, who had been a mari- ner, then was canonized, and became a patron saint of sail- ors. § Gallician sailors called the light San Pedro Gonzales. * Herosolymita Perigrinatio (1601), p. 230. •I" Duro.— Disquisitiones Nauticas (1876). $Nautica Mediterrannea (1607). § Acta Sanctorum, April 11, and June 1. 310 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Varenius, a Dutch writer, in 1650, says of these lights, " They usually wander with an uncertain motion from place to place, sometimes appearing to cleave close to the sails and masts; but they frequently leap up and down with in- termission, affording an obscure flame like that of a candle burning faintly. They are produced by some sulphurous and bituminous matter, which, being beat down by the mo- tion of the air, above, and gathering together is kindled by the agitation of the air, as butter is gathered together by the agitation of the cream; and from this appearance we infer that storms come from sulphurous spirits that rarefy the air and fuel into motion." *A work written in 1652 calls it "St. Ermyn, that never appears but after a storm." Hazlitt, quoting an unpublished manuscript of the seven- teenth century, says it was called Castor and Pollux, and Fermie's fire. fDampier encountered them: "After four o'clock, the thunder and the rain abated, and then we saw a Corpus Sant at our main-topmast head, on the very top of the truck of the spindle. This sight rejoiced our men exceedingly, for the height of the storm is commonly over when the Corpus Sant is seen aloft, but when they are seen lying on the deck, it is generally accounted a bad sign." "A Corpus Sant is a certain small glittering light; when it appears as this did, on the very top of a mainmast or at a yard-arm, it is like a star, but when it appears on the deck, it resembles a great glow-worm. The Spaniards have another name for it, and I have been told that when they see them, they pres- ently go to prayers, and bless themselves for the happy light. I have heard some ignorant seamen discoursing how they have seen them creep, or as they say, travel about in the scuppers, telling many dismal stories that hap'ned at such times, but I never did see one stir out of the place where it first was fix'd, except upon Deck, where every sea washeth it about. Neither did I ever see any but we had rain as well as wind, and therefore I believe it to be some jelly." JJosselyn records these meteors: "About eight of the clock at night, a flame settled upon the main mast; it was about the bigness of a great candle, and is called by seamen * Herbert's Remains.— Brand, III, p. 408. + Voyages (1637). $ Voyages. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 311 St. Elmo's fire; it comes before a storm, and is commonly thought to be a spirit; if two appear, they prognosticate safety." Heyrick, in "The Submarine Voyage" (1691), says, — " For lo! a sudden storm did rend the air, The sullen heavens curling from its brow, Did dire presaging omens show. Ill-boding Helena alone was there." In another place, Heyrick calls it Corposant, and so we find it named in John Goad's " Memorandum " (1690), and in Fryer's " Travels," of about the same period. * Fryer says, "In a storm of rain and hail, with a high and bleak wind, appeared the sailors' deities. Castor and Pollux, or the same it may be, gave light to those fables, they boding fair weather to seamen, though never seen but in storms, look- ing like a candle in a dark lantern, of which there were divers here and there, above the sails and shrouds, being the ignis fatui oi the watery elements; by the Portuguese chris- tened Querpos Santos, the bodies of saints, which by them are esteemed ominous." Coad tells us: "God was pleased to give us a sign of the storm approaching, by a corposant on the top of the main mast." f The writer of "Forbin's Memoirs" also relates that some thirty were seen in the Mediterranean. The French mariners thought that so long as they remained aloft, they were beneficent spirits, but if they descended, a gale would appear, and the wind would blow in proportion to their descent. The St. Elmo appeared in answer to the prayers of some sailors in 1700, who called on Notre Dame de Deliverance, whose shrine is near Caen. A belief existed in the Isle of Man, about the same period, that lights over water presaged drowning, and rested over drowned bodies also. Similar beliefs are recorded of the river Dee, according to Aubrey. Dr. Caldecott says that when a Christian is drowned in that river, lights hover over the water to point out the loca- tion of the body, and hence it is called the Holy Dee. A curious account of the meteor is contained in a work * Jones.— Credulities, p. 76. + Jones.— Credulities, p. 76. 312 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS quoted by Brand.* It calls them " fiery impressions that appear usually at sea, called by mariners Castor and Pollux; when thin, clammy vapors, arising from the salt water and ugly slime, hover over the sea, they, by the motions in the- winds and hot blasts, are often fired; these impressions will oftentimes cleave to the masts and ropes of ships, by reason of their clamminess and glutinous substance, and the mar- iner by experience find that when but one flame appears, it is the forerunner of a storm, but when two are: seen near together, they betoken faire weather and good lucke in a voyage. The natural cause why these may foretell fair or foul weather is, that one flame alone may forewairn a tem- pest, forasmuch as the matter, being joyn'd and not dis- solv'd, so it is like that the matter of the tempest, which never wasteth, as wind and clouds, is still together, and not dissipate, so it is likely a storm is engendering; but two flames appearing together deriote that the exhalation is divided, which is very thick, and so the thick matter of the tempest is dissolv'd or scattered abroad,, by the same cause, but the flame is divided, therefore no violent storm can ensue, but rather a calm is promised." Gotgrave, in his dictionary, defines Feu d' Helene, Feu ql' Hermes, St. Helen or St. Hermes' fire as a meteor that often appdars at sea. ; = " Furole, a little blaze of fire appearing by night on thte tops'of soldier's lances, or at sea on the sayle-yards, where it whistles and leapes in a moment from one place to another. Some mariners call it St. Hermes' fire, if it come double, 'tis held as a signe of goode lucke, if single, other- wise. If five of them are seen together, they are called by the Portuguese Cora de Nostra Senhora, and are looked upon as a sure sign that the storm is almost over." Aubin, in his Dictionary (1702), says: "The sailors draw presages from its appearance; for, if this light apj3ear on the mast, yard, or rigging, they conclude that, the air being agitated by no wind which can dissipate these lights, there would ensue a profound calm; but, if the fires fly about, it is, according to them, a sign of bad weather." He calls them Feu St. Elme, Vree Vuuren (free fires), or Castor en Pollux. f Becchi, writing of naval affairs in 1705, calls the lights * Vol. Ill, p. 401.— Wonderful History of all the Storms, Hurricanes, Earth- quakes, etc. (1700). t De re Navali. UF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 313 St. Elmo, and thinks they may be caused by phosphorescent marine insects scooped up into the air. He says: "Wishing to invoke this light, and not know- ing any name for it, they called it saint." He also says: "The Gallicians call this same light San Pietro Gonzales de Tui (Tui is a city of Gallicia, near Baiona), who was at first a sailor, and then, dying as a monk, so they called him a saint." A writer in the "British Apollo" (1710), says: "When this- light appears, it is a sign that the tempest is accom- panied by a sulphurous spirit, rarefying and moving the clouds." Thos. Chalky, in a journal of a voyage from Barbadoes to Philadelphia, says: "In this storm, December, 1731, we saw divers lights, which the sailors call corpusants. One of them was exceeding bright, about half an hour, on our main-topmast- head, plain to the view of all the ship's com- pany, divers of whom said they never saw the like, and I think I never heard of or saw the like before." - *Dr. Shaw tells us: "In the like disposition of the weather (thick and hazy), I have observed those luminous bodies, which at sea skim about the masts and yards of ships, and are called corpusance by the mariners — a cor- ruption of Cuerpo Santo, as this meteor is called by the Spaniards." A work, "A W^onderful Test of all Stones" (1760), has it: " They are seen rising in thin vapors from the .surface of the waters, and then changing to the vessel's spars. One pre- sages a storm, and two, fair weather." The author gives a whimsical explanation of their origin. In a work, "Hostes Furioso," written about the same tirne, these lights are alluded to, and Ariosto's lines, above- quoted, are repeated. , Falconer, in the "Shipwreck" (1760), thus sings, — " High on the mast, with pale and lurid rays, Amid the gloom, portentous meteors blaze." fAn Italian brochure, published about 1768, gives an account of them, and relates the usual omens as to their number. Nineteenth century science has not thoroughly dispelled the mariner's belief in the supernatural character of these * Travels in the Levant (1738). i-Brand, III, 398. 314 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS weird lights. For, as is said in Scott's "Rokeby," numer- ous stories are still "Told of Eric's cap and St. Elmo's light." * German sailors say it is the spirit of a defunct comrade. When it mounts up, it is a good omen, and the contrary is shown by its descent. It is fatal to any one, when it shines on his head. f In a modern French romance, the lights called by a sailor St. Elme, plays at the yard-arms, and, it is declared, would accompany the mariner to the yards, and aid him in his labors. It was said to be the soul of a shipwrecked sailor, which comes to warn of thunder-strokes and light- ning. It was a profanation to touch it, but it disappeared when the sign of the cross was made. J Other sailors say it is a soul in purgatory. If the lights are double, it is a good sign, and they are called St. Elme and St. Nicholas. If they are single, it is a bad sign. A third light is called St. Anne. §In Brittany, it is called the wandering candle (goula- ouewn red), and is a menace. It is sometimes a lost soul, for whom prayers are asked. Others say it is an evil spirit. "St. Elmo's fire upon the deep, Death calls loudly there.'' II It is called Telonta, in modern Greece — a word meaning, primarily, a demon taxgatherer, from an old Christian superstition that demons hindered souls, in their heaven- ward journey, to gather toll. Hence, this light is a bad omen. It breaks masts, destroys ships and crew; and, hence, prayer and incense are used against it. Incantations from the Clavicle of Solomon are said, a loud noise is made, and guns fired. If a pig is on board, its tail is pulled, as its diabolical cries will expel the demon. ** " The Telonia is a species of electricity, appearing dur- ing storms at the mastheads which the Greek sailors per- sonify as birds of evil omen, which settle on the masts with a view to destroy the ship and sailors." * Werner.— Erinnerung und Bilder, in Melusine, February, 1885. + E. Corbi^re.— Le Negrier. % Do la Landelle. — Dernier Quarts do Nvijt. §L. P. Sauve, in Melusine, September, 884. II N. G. Politis, in Melusine. August, 1884. ♦* J. T. Bent.— McMillan's Magazine, March, 1885. OF THE SEA AND OP SAILORS. 315 *A traveler in a Spanish ship, in 1808, says: "When retiring to rest, a sudden cry of 'St. Elmo,' and 'St. Anne,' was heard from those aloft, and fore and aft the deck. I found the topsail yards deserted, the sails loose, and beating in the inconstant wind; the awe-struck mariners, bare- headed, on their knees, with hands uplifted, in voice and attitude of prayer to St. Elmo and St. Anne." f Cheever says: "A corpusant is a mass of phosphorescent jelly, that clings to the rigging and mounts the mast." I Dana tells us: "Upon the maintop-gallant mast was a ball of light, which the sailors name a corpusant (Corpus sancti). They were all watching it, for sailors have a notion that if the corpusant rises in the rigging, it is a sign of fair weather, but if it come lower down, there will surely be a storm. It is held a fatal sign to have the pale light thrown in one's face. It passed to the foretop-gallant, and then to the flying jib-boom end." § Douce says these lights lead men to suicide. He says they were called Saint Helen, Saint Elm, St. Herme, St. Clare, St. Peter, and St. Nicholas. II Melville says these lights were called corpusants. The mate feared them, and the men all avoided oaths while they were burning. ** Macaulay's lines embody ancient beliefs: " Safe comes the ship to haven Through billows and through gales, If once the great twin brethren Sit shining on the sails." ff We are told by Thoms: " That the ignis fatuus is the spirit of some woman, who is destined to run enfurolle, to expiate her intrigues with a minister of the church, and it is designated from that circumstance, La Fourlore, or La FouroUe." Davis, in the " American Nimrod," says that the whalers call the light Ampizant, and have a tradition that it is the spirit of some sailor that has died on board. So the Will- o'-the-Wisp is said to be the spirit of evil-doers, of unbap- tized children, etc. * Jones.— Credulities, p. 76. + Sea and Shore (1837). $Two Years Before the Mast, Ch. 39. § Illustrations of Shakspeare, p. 3. y Moby Dick. ** Battle of Lake Regillus. •tt Three Notelets to Shakspeare. 316 Legends ane> superstitions * Longfellow's lines, quoted here, are repeated in Swain-, son's " Weather-Lore, "as a weather prophecy: " Last night I saw St, Elmo's stars, With thieir glimmering lanterns all at play, On the top of the masts, and the tips of the spars, And I knew we should have foul weather to-day." f An old channel fisherman said to Buckland, " It never does any body any harm, and it always comes when squally weather is about." In the account given of the destruction of the Gloucester, in early colonial times, a corposant is related to have ap- peared, standing over the house of each widowed wife. In the "Salem Spectre-Ship," too, — " The night grew thick, but a phantom light, Around her path was shed." Connected in legend with these spectral lights, we also find other luminous appearances. All apparitions at sea, material or ethereal, are usually represented as being at- tended by lights, even if fog or cloud is at the same time seen. Some of these have been alluded to. |Gregor tells a tale of a sailor, who murdered his lady-love. One stormy night, a bright light was seen, which finally took the human shape, and bore oft the murderer. A light hovers about a stone on the coast of Cornwall, called Madge Figg's Chair. § It was said to be the ghost of a wrecked lady whom Madge stripped of her jewels. A light is said also to appear in Sennen Cove, which is thought to be an ill-omened apparition, the Hooper (from the whooping sound emitted). A fisherman once passed in his boat, when it had sounded, but never got back again. Flames are reported as issuing from the Eider river, and from several lakes, in Germany^ generally portending drowning. Lights were seen in a spectral ship that appeared off a port in Cornwall. They were called Jack Harry's lights, from a pilot who discovered them. || Hunt tells the tale, in this pilot's words: " Some five years ago, on a Sunday night, the wind being strong, our crew heard of a large * Golden Legend. + Curiosities of Natural History. $ Folk-lore of Scotland. § Bottrell.— Traditions and Fireside Stories of W. CornwaU. 11 Romances and Drolls of the West of England. Of the sea and of sailors. 317 vessel in the offing, after we came out of chapel. We manned our little boat, the Ark^ and away we went, under olose-reefed foresails and little mizzen, the sea going over us at a sweet rate. We had gone off four or five miles, and we thought we were up alongside, when lo! she slipped to windward a league." She slipped away again, the delusive light appearing further out each time. * The spectre of a lady hunting for her child on the beach at Cornwall, referred to above, is accompanied with lights. The appearance of these lights over water portends drowning, in the west of England. " Corpse candles " are said to have rested near the graves of a drowned boat's crew at Penrose, such as Moore de- scribes. f " Where lights, like charnel meteors, burned the distant wave, Bluely as o'er some seaman's grave, And fiery darts, at intervals, Flew up, all sparkling, from the main." Drake says (1817) that the superstitions with regard to those corpse-lights were belived in France, Italy, Germany and England, in his time. J Captain Leather, Chief Magistrate of Belfast, being wrecked in 1790, on the Isle of man, was told that thirteen of his crew were lost, as thirteen corpse candles were seen moving towards the churchyard. Thirteen men had been drowned. § Sikes, in his recent work, "British Goblins," relates a tale of passengers in a coach, seeing lights over a ford, and, a few days after, just as many men were drowned there, confirming the current belief that these "corpse-candles" portend drowning. There is a Welsh tale of a spectre, the Cyhyreath^ that ap- pears on the beach, in a light, with groanings and cries, and always foretelling wreck. Corpses always come ashore after it is heard, in Glamorganshire. An Irish story of an enchanted lake records the appear- ance of these lights over drowned bodies. Many of the tales of spectre ships, given in another chap- ter, also include the appearance of these lights, especially *Bottreli— Traditions and Fireside Stories of W. Cornwall. + LallaRookh. % Sacheverell.— Isle of Man. § P. 229. 31^ LEGENDS ANl) SUPERStIf IONS in those of Solway Firth, and in other Scottish tales, as well as of those on our own coast. * French sailors have a curious legend to account for the phosphorescence of the sea. Satan, they say, constructed a three-masted ship, out of wood cut in his domain. This ship smelled of sulphur, and sowed a pest for a hundred leagues around. Satan assembled therein many souls of those who died in a sinful state, which gave him great joy, for when a fresh lot fell into his coppers, he laughed extrav- agantly. This laugh irritated St. Elmo, who, finally en- raged by these things, and by the piracies of the vessel's master, pierced the hull by a sudden stroke. The devil, buzily engaged in counting a fresh accession to his spoils, was barely able to save himself by swimming. The saint made a toothpick of the mast, and a handkerchief of the main-sail. So when the night is dark and the air warm, the ship burns again, the smell of sulphur is noticed, and the flames mount to the sky. Pomeranian sailors say it is the devil voyaging in a burn- ing cask of tar, and presages great disasters. In Scotch waters, it is also a bad omen, when appearing at night, and is called "sea-fire," "water-fire," "water-burn," etc. In Scotland, the apparition of a spectral " lady of the golden casket," was attended by a phantom light. Mariners said that St. Ninian's Kirk, standing in a deso- late bay, was occasionally filled with lights, and they feared to enter there, as they portended wreck and disaster. The Palatine light on Block Island, on our own coast, connected by Whittier with the legend of the spectre ship Palatine, is declared by Livermore f to have no connection with it, but is asserted by many to have been seen, a lumin- ous emanation from the surface of the water. A letter written by a resident, in 1811, describes it as now small, now high and extended like a ship, pyramidal, or in three streamers like a ship, flickering and reappearing, but not lasting longer than three minutes. It is seen before easterly and southerly storms, and at all seasons. I Flames are said also to issue from old wrecks on Sable Island, the surface of the ocean being covered with them, some being twenty feet in altitude. * Dubarry.— Roman d'un Baleinier, in Mel., August, 1884. + History of Block Island. * Secrets of Sable Island.— C. Halleck, in Harper's Mag., Vol. V, p. 34. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 319 Spectral lights are seen in two places in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In one place, they were seen by an emigrant ship, burning for two hours from midnight, and looking like a burning vessel. They were a sign of impending wreck. A French pilot described them as early as 1811. * Lights, said to indicate a northwest gale, are seen in Chaleur Bay, even coming on ice. They are described in the Colonial Times (Miramichi), of November 2, 1801, "It appears as if the hull of a vessel was on fire." A ship is said to have been wrecked in a northwesterly gale, and afterwards some of the crew, who had murdered others, were again wrecked and destroyed. Another legend says the latter were pirates. But to return to the St. Elmo light. We find a belief in the supernatural character of the lights among the Chinese, f Doolittle says they believe that their sea-goddess, the " Mother of Heaven," appears in these lights. If they rise, the indications are evil; if they descend, the portent is good. They thus reverse the European rule, as in many other things. As we have seen, the lights have been called after a variety of names. Helena, St. Helene, Helenen feuer and Heleneneld; Cas- tor and Pollux, Leda's twins; St Elmo, St. Elemi, St. An- selmo, St. Ermyn, Santelmo, St. Telme, St. Helm, St, Ermo, and St. Elmo feur; Hermes, St. Hermes, St. Nicholas, St. Peter, St. Claire, and St. Elias feur; Corposant, Cormazant, Comazant, Ampizant, Corpusant, Corpusanse, Cuerpo San- to; Fermies' Fire, J Capra Saltante, Sainte Herbe, La Feu des Gabiers, Corbie's Aunt, Helenen Feuer, Friedefeuer, Elmo vuer. Zee Licht, Fire Drake, Dipsas fuole, Looke fu- ole, Furoles, Flammeroles, and Flambars; San Pedro de Gonzales; Coroa de Nossa Senhora; Vree vuuren, Wetter- licht, Veirlys, and Helle and Phryxus, comprise these varied titles. We have given some reasons for calling it St. Elmo. Its French titles would seem to point to the ancient name, but the St. Helena of the middle-ages was the empress of Con- stantine the Great, who, undertaking a voyage to Palestine in search of the true cross, was venerated by mariners. § Mrs. Jameson says St. Elme is St. Erasmus, who is shown * Le Moine.— Chronicles of the St. Lawrence. + •' Chinese." * See Melusine, August, 1884. § Legends of the Madonna and the Saints. 320 LEGENDS OF THE SEA. in early art with a lighted taper on his head. * Ruscalli says St. Ermo was buried at Gaeta, and his tomb was ven- erated by mariners two centuries ago. Becchi says he was a Sicilian bishop. At sea, in a storm, he was taken very ill. He promised the distressed mariners, in dying, that he would appear if they were destined to be saved. After his death, a light appeared at the mast-head, and was named for him. Another authority says St. Elmo is St. Erasmus, a Chris- tian martyr (A.D. 303), who is usually invoked by Mediter- ranean mariners. Saint Claire, or Santa Clara, was a virgin of Assisi, the patron saint of sailors, as was, above all, St. Nicholas. We may strongly suspect that clair^ clear, is the origin of that name. Corpo Santo, and its variations, means the Holy Ghost, supposed to appear, as in the instances we have given, and in the French phantom-ship story. Buckland thinks Corposant comes from the French coin blazant^ "blazing wedge." The Fire-drake was originally a sort of fire-works. In German tradition, Fur Drak is the evil one, " often seen passing through the air as a fiery stripe." The other names have been explained, or indicate their own origin. St. Elias is a favorite Eastern saint, and Her- mes, or Mercury, a classical messenger. AH the attempts, ancient and modern, to explain these lights as supernatural, seem now ridiculous, in the light of modern science. As over marshes and pools on land, so at sea, these electrical manifestations only occur in the rarefied air-gases, before or during a storm. These are naturally adherent to the iron of the spars, but, if touched, will harm- lessly stream from human fingers, or at the most, give a slight shock to the experimenter. * Notes to Hoole's Ariosto. CHAPTER IX. THE DEATH-VOYAGE TO THE EARTHLY PARADISE OR HELL. *' Upon a sea more vast and dark The spirits of the dead embark, All voyaging to unknown coasts." Longfellow — The Golden Legend. "There Charon stands, who rules the dreary coast, ******* He spreads his canvas; with his pole he steers; The freight of flitting ghosts in his thin bottom bears," Dry den's JEneid, B. vi. HE mysterious islands described in the last chapter, do not com- prise all that was thought and ^ written concerning such lands in the waste of waters encom- passing the globe. Many such are reserved for the present chapter, as they are inextricably interwoven with the legends of mysterious voy- ages, ghostly barks, and spectral forms that suffice to fill a volume. Legends of a voyage at the end of life's journey, where a river is to be crossed, or an ocean, are found in remote antiquity. *The dead bodies of the Egyptians, after embalming, were conveyed by water through the canals, across the lakes toward the setting sun, where lay the sepulchres, in many cases. And to the westward lay the Earthly Paradise. The Greek. Charon, ferrying souls over the Styx, is familiar to most readers. Sometimes the water was Avernus, Cocytus, Acheron, or the Acheru- sian lakes of the lower world. * Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 272. 31 331 322 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS * In the Vedas, the river is Vaiteraiii, " hard to cross^' and the dead were not long since committed to the care of the sacred Ganges in a boat, with a funeral fire kindled in it. But the Greeks transferred these rivers to the under world, and so they named the 'Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate, Sad Acheron, of sorrow black and deep Cocytus named of lamentation loud." These names themselves, Acheron and Acherusia, are supposed to be derived from the same root as aqua, water. These were under-world rivers. But the stream of death was more commonly on earth. It was earliest a river of death, and only became a sea later in men's history. Among the early Aryans, this river was often an aerial stream, in the great air sea above us. The soul, which, with the spirit, the breath or ghost, was identified, as we have seen, with the wind, was thus, at death, borne along through the watery element to some unknown land, either Hades or Hel (the concealed, or hid- den), or to Paradise (the high land). In time, the aerial stream, as well as the under-world river, became rivers of earth, and the abodes of souls were localized also in various remote parts of the earth's surface. These river-myths grew into a great tribe of similar legends, even extending into a sea of death, the path (Pontus) to the abode of souls. The sea of death appears in all the Aryan folk-lore, in forms and legends too numer- ous to mention here. As Miss Harrison aptly puts it: "We remember that for centuries the sea voyage has been the symbol of the troub- lesome waves of this world, and the transit to the next." On Greek tombs, the words " Euploia " (favorable voy- age) show the popular ideas on the subject. For this, modern Greeks substitute a pair of oars, laid on the grave. The first great sea epics are now supposed to be accounts of the soul voyage. f The Odyssey, since it has been care- fully studied, has been declared a succession of tales of such voyages, and the famous Argonautic expedition is as cer- tainly a myth of the sun voyage or of the soul's migration. Both were made in the western sea, although later legends represent Jason as sailing to the eastward in the Euxine. *Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief, 381. + Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS 323 Both were doubtless to the westward, the home of the set ting sun, whose night journey was early typical of the soul- voyage. So, in Egyptian sculptures, Osiris, the sun god, journeys in the under-world in his golden bark, attended by the hours. An invocation to the sun-god in a papyrus reads, — * " Oh thou ruler of the waters, that cometh up out of the river, Sit thou on the deck of the solar bark." Thus these imaginary voyages are to the westward, and have ever continued in that direction. The mysterious Argo, which bore the Greek heroes in their search for the golden fleece, which, like the golden apples of the Hesperian gardens, lay across the waters, will be alluded to again. Ulysses' ship, in which he journeys from Circe's Island to Hades, was a true death ship. Circe says, — f " Soon shalt thou reach old Ocean's utmost bounds, * * * * * * * There fix thy vessel in the lonely bay, And enter there the kingdoms void of day." J The Phaeacian ships in the " Odyssey " are also ships of the dead, " No pilots have they, no oars, no rudders, and they know the thoughts of men." They carry souls to Al- cinous's gardens of Paradise. In one, Odysses is laid asleep, and returned to Greece. The Ichthyophagi and the Lotophagi, according to Ptole- my, buried their dead in the sea. Hector was buried in an ark-shaped boat, or Larnax. Popular belief shrouded Pontus with darkness. This is indicated by its modern title of Black Sea, which it gets in most European tongues. This Pontus was \\\^ path or way to the new home of the Aryan, as well as to the under world. These legends, as men became more and more acquainted with navigation, were transferred to the west, as the earthly paradise was so transferred. So the sea became in later times the River of Death.§ That it was early so regarded we may believe, for from a Sanscrit root are the two words, meer^ sea, and mors^ death, derived, and Ulysses sails across * Records of the Past. + Pope's Odyssey, Book X. * Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 322. § Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 344. 824 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS the Western Sea to Hades, and to other Hells and Paradises. From being a river around the world, Oceanus became a sea, and thus a sea of death was to be traversed. Similar myths of the sea of death exist in all Aryan my- thology. Ancient Norsemen called it GjoU (the sounding). * Thorpe says Gjoll is the horizon, and has reference to the sun sinking with a sound. Here the sea is again mixed up with the myths of death. f The Norseman named the home of the dead, Nava^ which word seems to hint at the ship and nautical origins. In the legends of Baldur, the great hero, he is set afloat in his ship " Hringhorn " and in a pyre, set adrift at sea. This ship Hringhorn was the greatest of all ships. The Edda say: J; "After their sorrow was a little appeased, they carried the body of Baldur down toward the sea, where stood the vessel of that god, which passed for the largest in the world. But when the gods wanted to launch it into the water, in order to make a funeral pile for Baldur, they could never make it stir, wherefore they caused to come from the country of the giants a sorceress." This sorceress was Hyr- rokin (smoking fire), "Then the sorceress, bending over the prow of the vessel, set it afloat with one single effort, which was so violent that the fire sparkled from the keel as it was dragging to the water." § We have here another myth of the sun and of death. Baldur is the Sun-god, Hringhorn the Sun's disk, and this burial the sunset, typifying the journey of the dead. II Sigmundr carries his son Sinfiotli, and puts him in a boat brought by a stranger, leaving him to his fate. ** Jarl Magus was conveyed, with his widow, to the Holy Land in a ship. \\ Flosi was abandoned, in a leaky ship, to the mercy of the waves. Scyld was also so buried. Beowulf says: "They bore him to the sea-shore, as he himself requested. There, on the beach, stood the ring-prowed ship, the vehicle of the noble, ready to set out. They laid down the dear prince, the distributor of things, in the bosom of the ship, the mighty one beside the mast. They set up a golden-ensign high overhead. They gave him to the deep." * Northern Mythology. + Keary.— Myths of the Sea and River of Death, Cont. Rev., 1883. $ Grimnismal.— Saemundr Edda, 39. § Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 401. II Sneraundr Edda. 170. ** Jarl Magus Saga, 45. ++ Daseut.— Burnt N jal. I OF TliE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 325 *Sceaff (Skiff), another hero, was found, when a child, floating in a ship, with a treasure in the vessel. Tradition- ally, he was a descendant of Odin, and a progenitor of the Danish Royal Skyldings. At his death, he also was placed, as William of Malmesburg says, " According to a custom of parts of Scandinavia," in a boat, with a sheaf of corn at his head, and set adrift on the sea. The Saxon Chronicle says he was a son of Noah, born in the ark. We read in the Heimskringla: "King Hake had been so grievously wounded, that he saw his days would not be long; so he ordered a war-ship which he had, to be loaded with his dead men, and their weapons, and to be taken out to sea, the tiller to be shipped, and the sails hoisted. Then he set fire to some tar-wood, and ordered a pile to be made of it in the ship. Hake was almost, if not quite dead, when he was laid upon this pile of his. The wind was blowing off the land, the ship flew, burning a clear flame, out be- tween the islets, and into the ocean." Asmundr, Geimundr, and others, were buried in ships, and such burial became so common that an early law pre- scribed the number of slaves to embark in the boat with a chieftain's body, varying in number from one to ten. f Odin has a golden ship in which he conveys souls to Valhalla. The river to be crossed was there Gurungu-gap, and Val- halla, the hall of heroes, was in Godheim, or Paradise. J; This vessel is traditionally buried in Runemad, in Sweden. The Vikings' boat, found in 1881, in a mound near San- defjord, Norway, has in it a sepulchral chamber, in which a man's bones were found. It was pointed with its prow to the sea. These death-ships abounded in the middle ages. They move of their own will, without oars, sails, or rudder some- times, are of all sizes and shapes, and some, like "Skid- bladnir," fold up, or diminish into small space. King Arthur is borne to Avalon in such a death ship. § Layamon says: "There approached from the sea a little short boat, floating with the waves, and two women therein wondrously formed, and they took Arthur anon, and bare him quickly, and laid him softly down, and forth ♦Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 459. + Grimm.— Teut. Mythology. t Afzelius.— Svenska Folks Visor, I., i. §Brut. B26 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS they gan depart." The tale is told in full, in the old chron- icle of the Arthurian deeds. *Sir Galahad goes in one, in search of the Holy Grail, and legends represent this soul-carrying bark as telling the life-story or the wrongs of the souls embarking in it, and in the story of the " Fair Maid of Astolat," Hermanic became the ship of Faith, warning the mistrustful not to embark. It carries Sir Parsifal to the spiritual place. fThe Demoiselle D'Escalot "begged to have her body put into a ship richly equipped, that would be suffered to drift at the mercy of the winds." So Tennyson represents Elaine as set adrift in a barge, with a mute slave at the helm. The old German tribes generally believed in a ferryman of souls. J; The Rhine became the German Styx in one of these stories, a fishermen being called upon one calm night to ferry monks across, his boat each time mysteriously wafted back by a gale. Mysterious persons, in other tales, call fishermen at night, and leave quantities of gold to pay for their passage. Such stories are told of ferrymen or fishermen at Spires, and at Saalfeld, in the Weser. It is Perchta, goddess of death, who calls the boat, in the last story. §The bodies of St. Maternus, in the Rhine, and of St. Emmeranus, in the Danube, were mysteriously borne up these rivers in rudderless boats. A Cologne legend says a certain learned Jew, Rabbi Amram, left the following request behind him: "When I am dead, place me in a coffin, and put it in a boat on the Rhine, and let it go where it will." This was done, and the boat is said to have floated up the Rhine to Mayence. When it arrived, if a Christian tried to touch it, the boat would drift back, and Jews only were able to remove the body. There is a bay of the departed in Brittany, near Cape Raz (Bale des Trepasses), where boats were summoned, according to the fishermen, to convey souls, especially of drowned men, to Isle au Sein, or the Isle of the Dead. II This boat is, in local tradition, crowded with invisible passengers, whose wails and cries are heard. Later, this * Cox.— Aryan Mythology, Bk. I, Chap. 6, + Romance of Lady of the Lake, 13yL Grimm, I, 831. JWolf. — Deutsches Sagen. §Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief, 469. B ViUemarque.— Barzas Breiz, vol. I. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 327 tradition was applied to Great Britain, then to Ireland, and so on to the westward; and the inhabitants and fishermen are represented as serving as ferrymen. *At Guildo, on the Breton coast, small skiffs are said to come out at night, from under the cliffs, and row away with the souls of mariners, who have been drowned. All fear to pass the spot at night. The Rhone was also a death-stream, and was sacred as late as the twelfth century, the dead often being committed to its care. Philip of Rennes, was traditionally carried from St. Vilaine to Rennes in an oarless boat. f Middle-age legends represent that the soul of Dagobert was wafted to the terrestrial paradise in a ship. As Walter of Aquitaine, was sailing to Ireland, he met a ghostly ship, with a black crew and captain, which latter, when asked where he was going, replied: "I flee from the archbishop, and I go to Hades." According to a legend of 1585, the devil engaged all the children in Holland to go on a crusade, and got them on board ship, but they never came back. I Old Finnish legend represents Wainamoinen, the great hero,, as being rowed to the lower world by Tuoni, goddess of death, in a black boat, built by Manata, daughter of the king of death. There is a Spanish legend of a certain Count Arnaldos, who saw at sea a galley slowly drawing near the land, and in it an old sailor, who sang a wondrous sweet song. When asked to stop and sing the song, he replies: § " I can tell the song to no one Save to him who sails with me." Longfellow has a poem on this subject. II A tradition exists that Pope Pius II. (Piccolomini) found at the bottom of the river Numicius a galley coated with bitumen, iron, and lead, and in it a coffer and amphora, believed to contain the ashes of the Roman emperor Ti- berius. **An Irish legend relates that a boat, moved by a hun- * Sebillot.— Contes des Paysans et Pecheurs. t Ludlow.— Popular Epics. $Le Due— Kalevala. § Poems.—" Sea and Shore." II Renard.— Les Merveilles del' Art Naval, 177. ** McPherson.— Int. to History of Great Britain. 328 LEGENDS OF THE SEA. dred self-impelled oars, and white sails, but with no crew, appeared out of a dark cloud in a storm, to a certain Druid, at Skerr. A voice said, "Behold the boat of the heroes!" He entered in it, and journeyed seven days to the westward, arriving at Flath Innis, or Noble island, a terrestrial para- dise. * Boat burial has been common among many nations. Keary gives an account of an early instance of this, among the Russ people in 942-76. The bodies of the poorest and richest alike were buried in boats. After burial in a ditch for ten days, a boat is prepared. " I went to the banks of the stream on which was the vessel of the dead. I saw that they had drawn the ship to land, and men were engaged in fixing it upon four stakes, and had placed around it wooden stakes. On to the vessel they bore a wooden platform, a mattress and cushions, covered with a Roman material of golden cloth." When the time came, the body, richly attired, was placed thereon, and with that of a strangled female slave, a dog, two horses, and three "fowls, was buried along with the weapons of the deceased. f Ralston says all Slavonic people believe in the voyage and river of death, and coins are still placed in graves. I Scheffer says Lapps and Ostiaks buried their dead in boats, or boat-shaped coffins. § The Garrows of Bengal still burn their dead in a boat, four days after death. Borneo Kanowits set adrift a canoe containing some worthless property of the deceased, to typify the whole of his possessions. The sea Dyaks also place their dead in a canoe, with some property, and set it adrift. ||The boats used in the funeral procession of Thrien Thri, a king of Cochin China, in 1849, were burned on his pyre. The dead are still carried to the grave in boats or barges, in Siam, just as in the Parish of Plougoel, in Brit- tany, they are rowed by a longer way than the land route, through a passage called "passage of hell." Canoe burial is reported of many Indian tribes. The Musquitos burned their dead in a canoe, or cut the boat up, and placed it in the grave. The Aleuts used boat-shaped coffins. ** The Shokomishes, Clallams, Chinooks, Flat- * Outlines of Primitive Belief, 405. + Songs of the Russian People, pp. 107-8. % Lapponia. § Tyler.— Anthropology. II Tyler.— Primitive Culture, p. 489. ♦* Bancroft.— Native Paces, V. 1. 1, p. 206. SEA D yak's boat SACRIFICE. 329 330 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS heads, Nootkans, and some Columbia river tribes buried their dead in canoes elevated on poles. Swan says some old boats lying on a point of land in Shoalwater Bay, were deemed the property of departed spirits, and were never molested. Wilkes found 3,000 canoes in one cemetery. * The Cherokees and Chinooks sometimes buried their dead in the sea, as did the Ilzas of Guatemala, and the Aleuts. Esquimaux often placed a kayak in or near the grave, or at least a model of one, to assist the deceased in his journey. The Greeks early invented a traditional fare for the dead ferryman (the naulas), and an obolus was put into the mouth of the corpse to pay the passage. This custom existed in the Middle Ages in France and Germany, and bodies were found in a church-yard in France in 1630, with coins in the graves. The Chinese put a coin in the coffin, to pay the passage or fare of the corpse, f The custom is not yet ex- tinct in Burgundy, and in Altmark, Havelland, and other parts of Germany it also survives, although the coin is now a charm to keep away a vampire (Nachzehrer). In Markland, when several deaths occur in a family, it is because the penny was omitted in the case of the first one. Wallachians still put the obolus in the mouth of the corpse, and Baring Gould says a man was buried not long ago in Yorkshire, with a penny, a candle and a bottle of wine in his grave. We find in " Hamlet," the grave-digger says, — "And hath shipped m^ intill the land, As if I had ndver been such," possibly alluding to this belief of a death-ferryman. Nor are the savage tribes without such legends. In " Hiawatha " we find he " Came unto the Lake of Silver, In the Stone Canoe was carried To the Islands of the Blessed, To the lands of ghosts and shadows." J The Athabascas and Chippeways had also a stone canoe in which souls crossed the waters. Many Indian tribes cross the water, on their way to heaven. A Dacotah tale is of a youth who journeyed south in * Bancroft.— Native Races. Vancouver's Voyages, Vol. II, p. 545. + Grimm.— Teutonic Mythology. * Jones.— Traditions of the American Indians, p. 356. 1 OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 331 search of the abode of souls, the entrance of which is guarded by Chibiabos. A canoe of shining white stone conveys souls across the lake. *The Fijians embarked from the northwest cape of their island, being rowed by a Charon to Mbula, a land of spirits. As the soul approaches, a paroquet gives warning of it. f Mangaians journeyed to the west in a mystic canoe, called in a song, Puvai's canoe. Williams and Mariner were told by Fijians that they could see the souls of canoes floating down a spirit stream. New Zealand tribes have their death-bark, and a woman was said to have made the final journey, and returned to earth. In the Soloman Islands, a canoe comes to the West Cape, and carries all the dead to Gotogo, their heaven. J Chilian souls went westward in a death-bark, and Aus- tralian legends embody similar fictions. § The Chinese, sixty days after death, place on the water an egg-shell, and an image of a duck with a man astride of it; the duck and boat are to assist the soul — represented by the small figure — in its voyage. Thus we see, there has existed from antiquity, a belief in the death voyage, and as a consequence, we shall find num- erous myths of a terrestrial abode of souls. Mythologists claim that the ideas of primitive nations as to these abodes of the soul or breath (psyche) became localized gradually to this earth from their former aerial or heavenly positions. There is generally a water to be crossed, be it Styx, Acheron, or the Atlantic, and then the soul arrives at an island or continent, generally to the westward. The ancient Egyptian rowed across the Nile, or over the lake to the westward, and to the westward lay the evening mirage, and the desert became the sea of death to the inland tribes. In fact, philologists tell us that sea and desert were once iden- tical, and possibly both corresponded to death, in the mind of the Aryan. II For the same word gave rise to mare, sea, meru, desert, and viors, death (inurder also). Rivers were at first the death-streams, and even the Caspian, the first sea known to the Aryans, was a river around the world. The ^gean, or Pontus, next became th.t path of souls, and across * Gill.— Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, 94. + Gill.— Myths and Songs of the South Pacific. $ Tylor.— Primitive Culture II, p. 61. § Doolittle.— Chinese. I Keary.— Myths of the Sea and River of Death. 332 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS the circumambient Ocean lay the Cimmerian land, which abode of shades Ulysses visits in the "Odyssey." These fabled islands early became the traditional homes of souls, lost or saved, and thus we have, in all ages, stories of Isles of the Blessed across the waters of death. The terres- trial abodes of condemned souls. Hades, or Hel (both words meaning tmseen or concealed), were early reputed to be islands, and the belief was closely connected with the Charon-boat and the sea of death. At first these islands were reported as being in the ^gean Sea, and only as the other parts of the Mediterranean became known, were these fabled islands removed farther and farther from the seats of Grecian civil- ization, even into the Atlantic. These many fictions of mysterious islands would be strengthened and localized by the tales of wandering Phoe- nician and Greek mariners. So, many of Homer's myths of foreign lands seem to be compounded of real and imaginary experiences. The prevalence of Sun-worship doubtless aided in form- ing these myths. We have seen how this is apparent in the early myths of the sea of death. Homer says the sun rises and sets in the ocean, and travels along the surface in his shining bowl. * The Jewish Midrash compares the course of the sun with that of a ship with three hundred and sixty- five ropes in it, coming from Great Britian, or one from Alexandria with three hundred and fifty-six ropes in it (Lunar year). Egyptians represented him as performing his night journey in the ocean, and hence it was to them accursed. The Homeric books give us the first tales of such mys- terious islands. The first purgatories are Ogygia (Ocean place) and ^ae (land of wailing). The islands of Calypso and of Circe were mysterious abodes, f Keary has shown them to be homes of the dead. Calypso (from kalyptein, to co?tceal) is none other than the Norse Hel, the concealer, and is death dwelling in her cave by the sea-side. Circe is the hawk, or death in bird-shape. From her island, or Purgatory, Ulysses sails direct to Hades, just beyond the Cimmerians. Scheria, Lotos-land, and Hesperia, were Homeric paradises, the first and last fabled islands remote from Ulysses' Ithacan home. Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians, means shoj-e, and lies " at the end ♦ Goldhizer.— Myths Among the Hebrews, 101. + Outlines .—Primitive Belief, OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 333 of the watery plain." The trees of Alcinous' garden are perpetually green, and we have seen that the Phaeacians were carriers of souls. This Paradise, at first in the east, was transferred to the west, among the Blameless Ethiopians or Hyperboreans, following the course of the Sun again. " By a train of fancy easy to follow, it is often held that the home of the dead has to do with that far west where the sun dies at night." So Hesperia, at first in Africa, was finally transferred to Spain, and then to the Atlantic islands. An early locality for these mysterious abodes was in the North. * There lay Olympus, home of the gods. There were the Hyperboreans, the Cimmerians, and ^olia, the abode of the god of the winds. Aristotle and Indicopleustes say the sun goes northward in his under-world journey, and Pytheas confirms this, by saying that he was shown the place where the sun dwelt at night; that is, he saw the mid- night sun. Diodorus says there was a feast among the Hyperboreans in the Island ot the Gods, every nineteenth year. Amber, says Pliny, comes from this garden of the gods, dropping from the trees, and drifting to northern shores. Avalon, to which Arthur was taken, was to the northward. f Two recent authors discuss the subject of the Northern Paradise, from a scientific standpoint. So fixed in the minds of men became these traditions of earthly paradises, just out of sight of African headlands, that ages afterwards these islands were still sought, to the westward of the Azores and Madeiras, although the fabled Atlantis had been overwhelmed in the waves. In the middle ages, these legends became abundant, doubtless aided by saintly authority and church sanction. Justin Martyr says Paradise is in the Western Atlantic. Claudian says an island exists near Gaul, ruled over by Ulixes, where the spirits of the departed abide. In Norse mythology, Jotuuheim, or giants' home, a cold region beyond the ocean stream, was, like Cimmeria, a sort of purgatory. Many fables were related of these Atlantic, and of the Panichsean, islands. The golden apples of Hesperic gardens are, perhaps, oranges brought by Phoenician mariners from far-off Africa or Spain. Proclus says, on the authority of * Keary .--Myths of the Sea and River of Death. + Warren,— Paradise Found— 1885, Scribner.— Where Did Life Begin? 334 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Marcellus, that there were seven Atlantic islands, — one ded- icated to Pluto, one to Ammon, and one to Poseidon. Euhemerus tells us of Panichaean islands, inhabited by god-like men. These Atlantic islands, elsewhere numbered as ten, were appropriately governed by Neptune's sons, and it was further said that weeds and debris long impeded ships, and their sinking traditionally accounted for the Sargasso Sea of weeds. * Plato tells us this, "For in those days the Atlantic was navigable, and there was an island situated in front of the strait which you call the Columns of Hercules. . . . But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of rain, all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared and sank beneath the sea. And that is the reason why the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is such a quantity of shoals and mud in the way, caused by the sinking of the island." Plato further says the Egyptians (from whom these ac- counts were derived) told Solon that this occurred 9,000 B.C. Hesiod calls the Western Islands the Isles of Souls, f Proclus says, " There life is easiest unto men; no snow or wintry storms, or rain at any time is there." Diodorus says Panchaia was southward from Arabia Fe- lix, and was also sunk in the sea. Thor was rowed across the death stream by Harbarth,]; whose boat would not bear the weight of a living person. Gorm the Wise also sailed to the West with three ships. They landed on an island of flocks and herds, from which they took more than they needed, and in consequence were pursued by a band of fearful monsters, who only left them when three men were sacrificed to them. In another island, Biarmia, they found the paradise and purgatory. Leonardo de Argensola says there is a desert, rocky island, Poelsetta, near Italy. Cries, roarings, groanings and other sounds were heard in it, and it was fabled to be peopled by devils. Marco Polo represents Cipangu as a sort of terrestrial paradise, a city of golden streets, and of white-robed inhab- itants. ♦Timaeus, IT, 517. •!■ Boeck.— Fragments. $Keary.— Outlines of Primitive Belief. OF THE bEA AND OF SAILORS. 335 *Onogorojima, the island of the congealed drop, was a fabled Japanese Paradise. f Allusion has been made to a traditionary isle of the dead near Cape Raz, in the Bay of Deposit. This " Isle au Seir " was said to be peopled by souls of the departed, and fishermen were said to be called to ferry souls over. Another spot on the coast of France is traditionally in- habited by the souls of drowned persons, and fishermen fear to approach the opposite beach, at night, where phan- toms are believed to wander, I A Breton legend is told of a fabled island of souls, and a death ferr3anan at Carnoet ferry, in a Breton stream. A young couple came along to cross the ferry, but the lover lingered behind, and the maiden was induced to enter the boat, while waiting for him. She was spirited away in the boat, forgetting to make the sign of the cross. § In Norse mythology, Heligoland, as indicated by its name, was a sacred island, the abode of the gods, and was reverenced by early mariners. There was a sacred fountain on it, where early Christians were baptized. II Hornum, near the Danish coast, is said to be inhabited only by the ghosts of murderers, strandwalkers, sea-women, fiends, etc. **A group of islands near Norway are also rep- resented as being inhabited by elves, and fit only for graz- ing. f f Russians believe in an island paradise, Boyan, to the eastward. The Cimbri called the Northern Ocean Mari Mortuus (sea of the dead), and German-lore gave us a Dumslaf (fro- zen sea) of wondrous properties. Helvoetsfuis, at the mouth of the Maas, was another fabled islet of souls, and many legends concerning it were current. JJ; These fancies of antiquity descended to later times. Procopius, an early Gothic historian, says Brittia, in the Northern Ocean, was in his day the fabled abode of souls. * Warren.— Paradise Found, p. 140. + Cambry.— Voy. dans la Finnisterre, IT, p. 240. tTh. and K. McQuoid.— Pictures and Legends of Normandy and Brittany, p. 19. § Grimm.— Deutsche Mythologie, Vol. I, p. 150. II Thorpe.— Northern Mythology, Vol, II. p. 8. ** Landrin.— Les Monstres Marins. ++ Ralston,— Songs of the Russian People, p. 375. tt History Goths, Bk. IV, Ch. 40. Keary, p. 437. 336 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS The home of the dead was beyond, noxious to living beings, but peopled by souls ferried across by fishermen from the opposite coast. These, called in turn at night, find barks laden with souls, and are wafted over by mysterious winds. *Tzetes, another chronicler, says: "On the coast of the ocean opposite Brittania (England), dwell fishermen who are subjects of the Franks, but they pay them no tribute, on account, as they say, of their ferrying over the souls of the departed. They go to sleep in their houses in the even- ing, but after a little time they hear a knocking at the door, and a voice calling them to their work. They get up and go to the shore, not knowing what the need is; they see boats there, but not their own, with no one in them; they get in, row away, and perceive that they are heavy as if laden with passengers, but they see no one." f England long remained the abode of spirits. German witches were thought to rendezvous there; and Ireland suc- ceeded to England as the Blessed Isle. J; In German stories, the nightmare says her mother is in England, and German mothers still say, referring to the dead, "How my children are crying in England." In Armorican belief, the dog of the parish priest of Braspar carries souls to Great Britain. § Welsh legends tell of the " Green meadows in the sea," islands in the Irish Sea, the abode of souls of Druids, and they also call them White Man's Land. Gallic tradi- tions speak of them as the Noble Land, Pembrokeshire sailors, in the eighteenth century, told of an Island of Green Meadows in the Irish Sea, and they say some visited them in the present century, but when they re-embarked, these islands suddenly disappeared. ||Fairies are said to inhabit them; and Welsh traditions represent them as visiting Milford Haven, coming through a tunnel under the sea. Other Welsh legends are of voyages in search of Blessed Isles, by Merlin and by Madoc, the latter reputed to have found our own shores, in his search. Merlin (Merdyn Ennis) sailed with twelve companions, and Gavran sailed westward to find the Gwerddonan Llian (Green Islands of the Sea). These islands were fabled the * In Eraser's Mag., Vol, IT, p. 223. i Wright,— St. Patrick's Purgatory, pp. 66 and 129. i Kuhn.— Westphalische Sagen, p. 154. § Sikes.— British Goblins and WeUh Folk-lore, p. 8. II Sikes.— British Goblins and Welsh Folk-lore, p. 9, OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 337 abodes of the Tylwith Te^g, fat?- fafuily, the souls of certain Druids, who abode in this lower heaven. They were said to revisit Wales, and to carry men to their island. These, when they returned, thought an absence of ten years but a day. These islands could be seen from a turf in St. David's churchyard, but they disappeared when sought. One man conceived the happy thought of sailing in search of them on a sod from the churchyard, and found them. *Madoc's voyage has been immortalized by Southey: " Themselves, immortal, drink the gales of bliss, Which o'er Flath Innis breathe eternal spring." Irish souls crossed Lough Derg, and, in Loch Cre, was one island where all lived forever, and another where none could live. After Arran was blessed, no corpse could decay. The Norse, in the tenth century, called Ireland Hvit- manna Land (white man's land). The traditional Green Isle, or the Isle of the Dead, lay beyond the Isle of Youth, and between Scotland and Ireland lay Caire Lewan, another mysterious island. f There were numerous Druidical stories of such islands, Sir-na-m-Beo, Isle of the Living, and Hy-na-m-Balla, Island of Life, were of these, and were traditionally inhabited by the Firbolgs. By many, they were said to be inhabited by the ghosts of drowned men. J The Landnama bok tells us: "Ari was storm-cast on the White Man's Land, which some call Great Ireland. This lies in the western sea, near Vinland, the good; it is called six days' sail west from Ireland." §Maildun, a Celtic hero, also undertook a voyage in search of these Blessed Isles. He sailed in a "Coracle," large enough to accommodate sixty-four people. He found islands of demons and monsters, a Circe, and finally the terrestrial paradise. So, in McGee's poem, we read of Eman Oge, who also sailed in search of these islands. St. Patrick is said to have set a neophyte adrift in a boat, with the boat-chain wrapped about him; and he, too, found this earthly paradise. II But a more widespread tradition was of the voyage of St. Brandan, an early saint. He sailed, with twelve fellow- * Southey.— Madoc, XI, + Kennedy .—Fictions of the Irish Celts. tin B. Gou'd.— Curious Myths, 550. § Slkes.— British Goblins, p. 9. H Voyage Merveilleux de St, Brandan, Ed. Michel, 338 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS monks, in search of the Isles of the Blessed. He was fabled to have found the holy island, inhabited by twenty-four monks. Besides, he found an island of birds (fallen angels), an island of sheep, and an island inhabited by fiends, who attacked him. This is like the Island of Birds and Island of Sheep, in the "Arabian Nights." One version of the story calls the islands Hy-Breasil. * " Seven dayes they sayled awaye in that clere water. And thenne there came a southe winde, and drof the shyppe northward, wheras they sawe an ylonde full dirke and full of stench and smoke; and then they herde grete blowinge and blasting of belowes, but they might see noothynge, but herde grete thunderynge" . . . "and soone ther came a greate nombere of fendes, and assayled them with hokes and brennying yron mattys, whiche rannen on the water, following theyr shyppe faste in such wyse that it seemed all the see to be in a fyre." He also saw other wonderful islands, and met Judas floating on a rock in the sea. He sailed east, then north, then west, then east to Ireland. Before him, a monk (Meruuke) had found the earthly paradise, sailing three days to the eastward, until a dark cloud came up; when it cleared, he found an island. "In that ylonde was joye and mirthe enough." So St. Brandan finally found the Blessed Island, thenceforth to bear his name, or that of Hy Brazil (Royal island). f " On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell, A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell: Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest, And they called it O'Brazil, the isle of the blest." These islands were long believed to lie west of Ireland, or of Spain. In an old chart of 1751, one is put down three hundred miles to the westward of Ferrol, in latitude twenty-nine degrees. After the discovery of the Canaries and Madeiras, these islands were supposed to lie still farther to the westward, and the loom of land was thought to have been seen, but they would fade as fast as they were neared. I A Lisbon pilot of the fifteenth century, storm-beaten, was said to have found them, and a noble Spanish lord fitted out an expedition to find them. Separated from his fleet in a storm, he is said to have been driven to them, and, *Wynklin de Worde.— Golden Legend. + Gerald Griffin.— Hy Brazil. $W. Irving.— Chronicles of Wo^l fort's Roost. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 339 after a Rip Van Winkle sleep of years, returned to Spain, reporting that they were ruled by descendants of Rodrigo, the last king of the Goths. * The Portuguese called the isle St. Sebastian, and alleged that some Wednesday of holy week, a fog would come up, and in it the fleet of that mon- arch, bringing him back to his kingdom. fCanary islanders thought they saw it, and, on the globe of Martin Beheim^ it was figured two hundred leagues to the westward of Canary. Many other accounts of the island were given by early writers. Irving's story, "The Adelantado of Seven Cities," is founded on these old traditions. It was even mentioned in the treaties between Portugal and Spain. The Spanish retained traditions of it in the sixteenth century, calling it the island that ^''quando se busca no se halla^ An expedition sailed in search of it as late as 1721. J Irving says it was also called aprositus (inaccessible) There are many early accounts of it. William of Worcester twice mentions Brasyle. He says his brother sailed to it, in 1401, from Bristol, steering due west for nine (?) months; but scarcely had he discovered the island, when they were driven back by storms. §One of the maps contained in the work of an Italian geographer of 1605 has Hy Brazil figured in it. II A manuscript in Trinity College library, Dublin, dated 1636, states that "many old mappes lay down O'Brazile in longitude 03.00; latitude 50.20," Werdenhagen, an old Dutch author, gives a chart, in which an island is figured near this spot. Hardiman quotes a letter from a Mr. Hamilton to a cousin in London, in which he says he "was told by a Captain Nisbet that one of his ships had sailed to this island, in 1614. ** Jeremy Taylor alludes to O'Brazile, or the Inchanted Isle, in 1667. f f Dr. Guest says a work was published in London, in 1674, entitled, "The Western Wonder; or, O'Brazile," giv- * Brewer.— Reader's Hand Book. ■!■ Irving.— Voyages of Columbus, Vol. II, note 25. * Irving.— Chronicles of Wolfert's Roost. §G. Bronero Broneri.— Relazione Universali. llJas. Hardiman.— Irish Minstrelsy, V, 368. ** Discussion Against Popery, 1671. tt Notes and Queries, October 33, 1883. 340 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS ing an accurate description, in the style of DeFoe, of a visit to the island. * A Mr. Fraser published a paper in 1879, giving an en- larged map in which the island is distinctly laid down. It is from a work by the Royal Geographer, Tusser, in 1674. Fraser thinks the island occupied the spot where Porcupine shoal now is, as shells have been found there, requiring regular atmospheric exposure to have attained their devel- opment. f Hy Breasil appears in a map of Andreas Bianco, and in others down to the time of Coronelli. Humboldt says it is on an English map, and it is found in an old map of Purdy's. The legends concerning Bermuda have been related. J An Italian chart of Jacomo di Gaetaldi, in 1550, calls Newfoundland " Isola dei Demonii (Isle of Demons), and figures demons near it. Thevet says the Indians were tor- mented by demons residing there. Champlain tells of a diabolic island near Miscou, on the St. Lawrence, where lived an ogress, taller than the tallest ships. § Baring Gould says Lambertus Floridus, in a MS. of the twelfth century, locates Paradise in the Indian Ocean, and a map in Cambridge library figures it at the mouth of the Danube, while the Hereford map of the thirteenth century also places it near India, but separated it from the conti- nent by a wall of brass. Even savages have such mysterous isles. Near Raratonga Island, in the Hervey group, in an islet reputed the home of souls, is " No-land-at-all," and souls embarked from the West Cape. II A Tongan home of souls was Bolotoo, an island to the northwest. Here mortals lived forever, and plants and animals were also reproduced. A canoe of warriors once reached it, but were instantly bidden to depart. They died from the effects of the air of this paradise. Naicobocoo was another island paradise, to reach which souls embarked from a certain cape. ** Pulola was the Samoan heaven, under the sea. In Mangaia, the abode of souls was an island to the * Notes and Queries, December, 1883. + Yule'sPoloII, 316. $Le Moine.— Chronicles of the St. Lawrence. § Myths of the Middle Ages. II Tyler.— Primitive Culture II, p. 62. ** Gill.— Myths and Songs- of the South Pacific, p. 168 OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 341 northwest. When bodies were thrown from cliffs into the sea, souls found their way to these islands. Fijians thought souls went westward. Their Islands of the Blessed lay to the northwest, and were named Boluta. The crew of a tempest-driven boat are said to have landed on it, but never returned. They also spoke of a paradise below the sea. When a thunder-clap was heard on the distant horizon, they said it was a soul descending to this paradise. Australrans, and other Polynesian tribes believed in Is- lands of Souls, generally to the westward, toward the setting sun. Nor are our own uncultured races without such tradi- tions. The Athabascans believe that their Isles of the Blessed lie in Lake Huron; and in " Hiawatha" we find the poet saying that Chibiabos went " To the islands of the blessed, To the land of ghosts and shadows." *Algonquins' souls paddled in a white stone canoe across a lake, where storms destroyed wicked souls, to a Blessed Island, Hurons and Sioux believed a river must be crossed, and Dacotahs, a crystal lake, while Choctaws, and Massachu- setts Indians went west to Kiehtan. f The Indians of Lake Superior have a tradition of an island with golden sands, about whose shores waves cease- lessly beat. Mortals landing on it, never return. This island is in Lake Manitobah, where a Manitou, or speaking God, is heard at night. Chilians and Peruvians believed that the abodes of souls lay to the westward. Sacred islands existed in Mexico and Guatemala. |To the westward lay Coaibai, .the Haytien paradise. Brazilian souls went west, and there in the ocean lay the paradise of the Aronco Indians, whose Charon was Tempalazy, the sailor. The Khonds say the Judge of the dead is in a rock be- yond the sea. To this " leaping rock " all must jump, across the black and muddy stream. § The Okanagans had traditions of a White Man's Island (Samahtumiwhoolah), from w^hence their ancestors came, * Tyler.— Primitive Culture, II, p. 63. + Schoolcraft.— Indian Tribes. *Tyler.— Primitive Culture, II, p. 63. § Bancroft.— Natives Races, III, p. 153. 342 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS. having been banished on a floating piece of the island, by its ruler, Scomalt, a woman. A southern * California tribe also believed in island paradises near Monterey. The discoveries of modern navigators have banished all thoughts of real islands mysteriously located, and inhabited by the souls of men. Since the remotest corners of the temperate ocean have been explored, and no terrestrial heaven, or earthly purgatory has been found, no shadowy lands remain on our charts to vex the night-wearied mar- iner, save such spectral rocks as are from time to time located in mid-ocean, by some careless skipper. Well may we then ask, — f* Where are they, those green fairy islands, reposing In sunlight and beauty, on Ocean's calm breast? What spirit, the things that are hidden disclosing, Shall point the bright way to their dwellings at rest?" J And we may answer these queries by this verse: " Here, 'mid the bleak waves of our strife and care, Float the green Fortunate Isles, Where all the hero-spirits dwell and share Our martyrdom and toils." * Bancroft.— Native Races, III, p. 535. + Mr8. Hemans' Poems. * J. R. Lowell's Poems. CHAPTER X. THE PHANTOM SHIP. 'Tis the Phantom ship, that, in darkness and wrath, Ploughs evermore the waste ocean path, And the heart of the mariner trembles in dread. When it crosses his vision like a ghost of the dead." Ayres. — Legends of Montauk, *' 'A ship's unhappy ghost,' she said, ' The awful ship, the Mystery.' " Celia Thaxter. 'HE legend of the Flying Dutch- man is the most picturesque and romantic of the many tales current among sailors half-a- century ago. It is also, per- ^mry^'^^^ haps, the best-known nautical y |-' ^8P^ ,,|^^^y^^ legend. Novelists have used it as their theme; poets have embel- lished the tale with their verse; dramatists have familiarized the public with it, and it has been the subject of modern opera. The tale is told with variations in nearly every maritime country, and folk- lore tales of wonderful spectral and phantom ships are abundant. The usually accepted version of the story is thus given by M. Jal: *"An unbelieving Dutch captain had vainly tried to round Cape Horn against a head-gale. He swore he would do it, and, when the gale increased, laughed at the fears of his crew, smoked his pipe and drank his beer. He threw overboard some of them who tried to make him put into port. The Holy Ghost descended on the vessel, but he fired his pistol at it, and pierced his own hand and paralyzed his arm. He cursed God, and was then condemned by the apparition to navi- * Scenes de la Vie Maritime, Vol. II, p. 89. 34a 344 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS. gate always without putting into port, only having gall to drink and red-hot iron to eat, and eternally to watch. He was to be the evil genius of the sea, to torment and punish sailors, the sight of his storm-tossed bark to carry presage of ill fortune to the luckless beholder. He sends white squalls, all disasters, and tempests. Should he visit a ship, wine sours, and all food becomes beans — the sailor's bete noir. Should he bring or send letters, none must touch them, or they are lost. He changes his mien at will, and is seldom seen twice under the same circumstances. His crew are all old sinners of the sea, sailor thieves, cowards, murderers, and such. They eternally toil and suffer, and have little to eat or drink. His ship is the true purgatory of the faithless and idle mariner." *This is the Phantom Ship, of which Scott sings: "Or of that Phantom Ship, whose form Shoots like a meteor through the storm; When the dark scud comes driving hard, And lowered is every topsail yard, And canvas, wove in earthly looms. No more to brave the storm presumes! Then, 'mid the war of sea and sky, Top and topgallant hoisted high, Full spread and crowded every sail, The Demon Frigate braves the gale; And well the doom'd spectators know The harbinger of wreck and woe." As the hero is a Dutchman, we should properly refer to Holland for the true version of the tale. f Several authorities give this as follows: " Falkenberg was a nobleman, who murdered his brother and his bride in a fit of passion, and was condemned therefor forever to wander toward the north. On arriving at the seashore, he found awaiting him a boat, with a man in it, who said, ^ Expecta-nius te.' He entered the boat, attended by his good and his evil spirit, and went on board a spectral bark in the harbor. There he still lingers, while these spirits play dice for his soul. For six hundred years the ship has wandered the seas, and mariners still see her in the German ocean, sailing northward, without helm or helmsman. She is painted gray, has colored sails, a pale flag, and no crew. Flames issue from the masthead at night." *Eokeby, Canto II, v. 2. + Bechstein.— Deutches Sagenbuch. Wolf.— Niederiandische Sagen, No. 130. Thorpe.— Northern Mj^hology, III, 295. THE PHANTOM SHH*. 345 346 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS Some of the features of this tale seem to be borrowed from a Norse tradition, that Stote, a Viking, stole a ring from the gods, and when they sought him they found him a skeleton, in a robe of fire, seated on the mainmast of a black spectral ship, seen in a cavern by the sea. This legend is embodied in Bishop Tegner's Fridthjof's Saga. * Marryat, /"<3!«753 AND SuP£kSTlTluNS eofnttiahded to " hollow out a great bald cypress, and yoU shall go into it when the water begins to rise towards the Sky-." * Tezpi, the Michoacan Noah, had a vessel, and Teoce- pactli, a raft. Jamaica Indians told the Spaniards that their ancestor built a ship, and passed safely through the flood. There are various traditions of arks among North Amer- ican legends. \ln Cherokee story, a dog saves a man in a canoe, and Manabozho, according to the Ojibways, escaped on the trunk of a tree, J Szenkha, the F'imas Noah, saved himself on a ball of resin, and Thlinkeets escaped the flood in a great floating building. The Papagos say Montezuma made a boat, while their Cayote ancestor saved himself on a reed. A raft served to save the Sibka Koloshes and Dog-rib Indians, and a bark canoe, the Mandan Noah. § In Caddoque legend, the Deluge vessel is traditionally made of the nail of the little finger, by blowing on it in the hollow of the right hand, and saying, '' Nail, become a canoe, and save me from the wrath of the moon." II In Kamtchatkan traditions the Ark is a raft. A tradition among the ** Voguls of Siberia is as follows: Their ancestors speak, " Let us cut a poplar-tree in half, hollow it, and make of it two boats; we will then twist a rope, five hun- dred feet long, and bring one end to the earth, and fasten the other to the prows of the boat." The legend further relates that the boat was lost, becatise they forgot to melt tallow and put on the gunwale of the boat, and so the cable was chafed in two. The next great legendary voyages in course of time are the Argonautic Expedition, and the Wanderings of Ulysses. Enough has been said of these, to show their character, as embodiments of myths of the soul voyage, and at the same time, of the mystic course of the sun. The Argo has also been spoken of as a speaking-ship. The legend of the voyage is well known. At first, the heroes led by Jason, who sought the famous golden fleece (the sun's rays?), went eastward through the Black Sea, but the route was after- * Mueller.— Americanische Urreli^ion, p. 515. + Schoolcraft —Algic Researches, p .358. $ Bancroft.— Native Races, Vol. Ill, p. 7P. § A. Jones.— Traditions of North American Indians, pp. 21-33. II Baring-Gould.— Legends of Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 113. ♦♦Regally, in Lenormant. Beginnings of History. OiF THE SEA ANt) OF BAILORS. 48? ward extended to the JEgean and western Mediterranean. The wonderful ship stuck in launching, like Hringhorn, but was finally moved by Orpheus (the wind). Castor and Pollux sailed in the ship, which carried fifty heroes. An- other legend of the ship reports that Danaus sailed from Egypt in one along with his fifty daughters. These ships are of the same class. *" Whatever then the Argo may be, it is clearly the bright vessel in which the children of the sun go to seek the lost light of day." Of a like nature is, perhaps, the mystic ship (one story says a real ship) in which Doedulus and Icarus voyage, as the latter loses his life by approaching too near the sun, thus melting the wax on his wings, i. e., the cloud is dispersed by the sun's rays. These cloud vessels existed, in popular fiction, during the middle ages. They were then believed to navigate the upper air, and a sea was supposed to exist there, f Gervase of Tilbury, a mediaeval English writer, says that in 121 1, people coming out of a church on a dark cloudy day, saw a ship's anchor in a pile of stones, with a cable reaching up above the clouds. Voices were heard from the aerial ship, and pres- ently a man slid down along the cable, but lost his life in the close atmosphere. An hour afterward, two shipmates cut the cable and sailed away, leaving the anchor hooked to a tombstone. We are gravely assured that ornaments for the church-door were made from this anchor. These ships came from a cloud-land, Magonia, and it was believed that corn was carried up to them from the fields by tempestarii^ or storm-fiends. \ Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, who wrote in the ninth century, tells us that he saw three or four persons who had descended to earth from this land. His words are: "We have seen and heard many who are sunk in such folly and stupidity, as to believe and assert that there is a certain country which they call Magonia^ whence ships come in the clouds for the purpose of carrying back the corn which is beaten off by the hail and storms; and which these aerial sailors purchase of the tempestariiy Gervase tells us a legend of Bristol, England, of a sailor from that town, who went voyaging in this cloud-land, and * Cox.— Aryan Mythology, I, p. 231. •fOtia Imperiala. in Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, Vol. II, p. 3. $ Jones.— Credulities, p. 3. 488 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS accidentally let his knife fall overboard from the aerial ship. At the same instant, it fell through the open roof and stuck in the table in his own home in Bristol, directly beneath him. "Who, then," he says, "after such evidence as this, will doubt the existence of a sea above this earth of ours, situated in the air, or over it?" The venerable Bede says there are waters in the celestial regions. We find all the Celts believing in this cloud-sea, and it was thought possible even to sail over the earth margin to it. *So Sir Francis Drake was thought to have "shot the gulf," and safely returned thence. The world was, by the uneducated in his time, thought to be a solid plane, with another over it, and thus he could sail from one to the other. Vendean peasants believed in this cloud-sea, and thought that birds found their way to paradise through it. Similar ideas seem to have been held by other people. The Japanese have a tradition that their ancestors came from the skies in a boat, f New Zealanders say the upper firmament is solid, and that the water is let through holes. Malays say their ancestors came from heaven in a great ship, built by the Creator. JGreenlanders say there is a heaven below the waters, and another above the air; and there is a legend of a man who went in a kayak to where the ocean met the upper heaven. Cosmos Indico pleustes says the waters of heaven rest on the firmament just above the earth. Hebrew tradition seems to point in the same direction, for we are told that the Creator divided the waters which were above the firmament from those which were under it. Sea and sky are everywhere confounded in early Aryan lore. In the middle ages, mysterious ships abounded. By far the greater portion of these were death-barks, and have been described in a previous chapter. Faust, the great German magician, built a glass ship, but could not sail it without the assistance of a Nix, or familiar spirit. § A legend somewhat like that of Danaus was reported of the settlement of Great Britain. According to this, the * Jones.— Credulities, p. 4. + Grey.— Polynesian Mythology. * Rink.— Tales and Traditions of the Esquimaux. § Brewer.— Dictionary of Thrase and Fable. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 489 thirty-three daughters of Diocletian of Syria were set afloat ill a ship, after the murder of their husbands, and came to Britain, the youngest, Albia, giving her name to the land of their choice. Many mystical vessels are described in the German legends of the middle ages. *In the story of Hagen, Hettel builds a ship for Hilda, capable of holding three thousand marines. Other curious barks are alluded to in fairy and folk-lore tales, and an account of some of these has already been given. In a Scotch poem, ''The Legend of the Lady Beatrice," occurs a ship mannedby fiends; and in f "The Daemon Lover," such a diabolic vessel is given to win a bride: "She sets her foot upon the ship, No mariners could she behold; But the sails were o' the taffetie, And the masts of beaten gold." New Zealanders, J Fijians, Samoans and Hervey Islanders have traditions of mysterious voyages in great ships, which they say were undertaken by their primitive ancestors, when their countries were colonized. Such tales, of ancestral gods coming in ships or canoes, are abundant, and may contain in them an element of truth, but many give evidence of being sun-myths. The ship of legendary deluges became a symbol in early Christian art. § It is often figured as the church militant. St. Ambrose says it is the church, and the mast is the cross, St. Augustine says the ark is the figure of the city of God. In a French church, Christ is shown carrying the church in a ship. Early churches were even built in the form of a ship, and in old French the name for the nave of a church and the ship were the same i^Nef). "A ship entering port was a favorite heathen emblem of the close of life," says Lindsay. The bark of St. Peter in a storm is also symbolical, and the celebrated picture in the porch of St. Peter's is an exam- ple of this symbolism. Ships of St. Nicholas and St. Ursula, often seen, are doubtless symbols of Christian qualities, but forgetful worshipers invented later legends, to explain their presence with those saints. * Ludlow.— Popular Epics of the Middle Ages. + Scotch and English Legendary Ballads. % Ellis. Polynesian Researches. Gill.— Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, § Lindsay.— Early Christi in Art. 490 LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS A Mosaic in the Vatican, by Giotto, represents the church as a ship, commanded by Christ, and devils as winds are trying to overthrow her. * In pictures in the Catacombs, the ship is the church, resting on the fish, Christ, who also steers. The dove fills the sails, and the prophets, as doves, keep lookout aloft. In St. Calixtus, is the ship of the world, and Jonah, being cast into the jaws of a monster. In another, this ship strug- les with the stormy waves of life, and the hand of God is stretched to aid her. The ship often typifies certain qualities or actions in the legends of Argo, Isis, and in other ancient representations. Many events in the lives of the saints are also typified by the presence of a ship in paintings. The Ship of State is a frequent figure, as is beautifully exemplified in Long- fellow's poem. A modern instance of the typical use of the ship is in the arms of the city of Paris. The isle of Paris is, or was, ship-shaped, and so the ship was adopted to rep- resent it in the coat of arms. A ship is marked St. Jude's and St. Simon's days in the Runic calendar, as they were fishermen. It is frequent as an inn sign in maritime towns, and a ludicrous instance is that of an inn in London, where a ship and a shovel are intended to typify Sir Cloudesly Shovel. The ship occurs as a hieroglyphic character; Norse gods swore by board of ship. In Japan it is lucky to dream of sailing in a ship, f A boat of glass was the symbol of initiation into the Druidical mysteries, probably typifying the Deluge or the universal redemption. An old Welsh adage was, "All must come unto the ship of the world." The moon was also represented as a ship. Manichaeans called the half-moon " Navis vitalium aquam " (ship of the living waters). The Egyptian Isis boat was double prowed, and says | Bryant, the ancients often described the Ark as a double-prowed ship, and called it Mea, and Selene, or the moon. § In English weather-lore, the moon, with her horns up or on her back, is a boat, and hence contains water, and it will not rain. In old legends, the moon is a mermaid, or a silver boat, sometimes both, and Isis, patron of navigation, is also the moon. * Palmer.— Early Christian Symbolism, p. 53. + Davies.— Celtic Researches. t Ancient Mythologv. § Dyer.- English Folk-lore. OF THE SEA AND OF SAILORS. 491 These legendary and mythical ships have been the sub- jects of much speculation by mythologists. Many of these conjectures and ideas concerning them have been recorded in other places. We have seen that the sun, the moon, the clouds and the worlds have been regarded by them as typi- fied by the legends and myths concerning the ship. We have also seen that the horse and ship were closely con- nected in these legends. As also remarked, the ships Skid- bladnir and Hringhorn have been regarded as typifymg the summer and winter^ — or nature in her growth and in her decay. As Cox says: "TheArgo, the Shell of Aphrodite, the Panathenaic ships are descendants of the Yoni, symbol of fertility." The same idea, we have seen, was also be- lieved to be represented in Wades' boat, Guingelot. The worship of Priapian deities was undoubtedly extended, and the analogy of pelvis (Latin for thigh) to pleva (Sanscrit for ship), has been urged to support this theory, which is ex- tended by Cox so as to include the various boats of sacred ceremonies, the forbidden lotus, the goblets of various myths, the boat-shaped cup of the Holy Grail, famous drink- ing horns^ the salt-grinding queen, and even Aladdin's magic lamp. Bryant regarded all these mystical ships as typical of the Ark, as well as the sun-cup of Hercules, the drinking- cups of Grecian festivals (called Scyphi), the man-bearing dolphin, the winged horse of Perseus, the whale of Jonah, and other mythical paraphernalia of legend. It is perhaps safest to conclude that each and all of these elements had their effect in giving rise to the many ship- legends. Nature-myths, as first causes, are most reasonably urged, and here, the analogy of the sun's dipping below the horizon, of the moon's sailing through the clouds, of the earth's rolling through space, of the clouds skimming the ether above, to the silent, swift, majestic motion of the ship on the waters, would seem to be sufficient any or all of them, to lead men's minds to represent the greater by the smaller. These myths were, then, principal causes of the legends concerning the ships of fable and song, while we may, perhaps, accede to the lesser influence of other causes in framing these myths. INDEX. Abbuto, Wind-god 38, 44 Abue 69, 93 Acheron 322, 331 Acherusia 322 Actions, Unlucky. (See Unlucky.) Actor, Unlucky 107 Adam, Legends of 35, 249 Adamastor, Cape Spectre 284 Adrumbo-Sambo 92 JEaea 15, 33, 332 -ffig-er 69 .ffig-ir. (See Oegir.) -ffiolia 37, 298. 333 iEolu's 37,58,63,101,298 Aerial Sea 66, 75, 196, 487-8 African Beliefs (see Egyptian), 30, 33. 69-70, 93, 105, 109, 1 .'2, 125, 140, 157, 167-8, 219, 237, 241, 247, 270, 280, 293-4, 341, 382, 390-1, 410, 452- 53, 456, 459, 467-99 Agrasti 216 Ahktarisset 1()3 Aistin Scheria 163 Akaeng-a 71 Akka 69 Akkad Inscriptions 219 Albatross 128, 272, 449 Albion 69, 488 Alcetre 206 Alcinous, Gardens of 323, 832 Alcyon 62, 130, 272 All Saints' Day 350, 411 All Souls' Day 441 Alo-Alo, Wind-god 43 Alrinach 69, 86 Altar-screen 80 Amaro, Saint 14 Amber 239-40, 272, 292, 333, 462 Amber&ris 239-40 Amber Whale 240 American Beliefs, 24, 29, 49, 81, 91, 104, 108, 117-8, 123, 134, 137, 144, 147, 150, 166, 186, 195-6, 215-16, 225, 227, 280, 236, 240, 257, 271, 276, 278, 285, 289-90, 293-94, 296. 313-15, 318, 347-48, 357-59, 360-61, 368, 400, 408, 419,431-32, 437-38, 443-45, 446-48, 454-55,462,473 Amphibia, Demoniacal 99 Amphitrite 33, 38, 59, 243, 245, 419 Amulets. (See Charms.) Anchor 83, 151-2, 451 Ancient Beliefs (see Greek, Ko- man, Egyptian, Assyrian and Bab- ylonian) . .37, 45, 76, 110, 219, 241-2, 272-4 Andromeda .... 203 Page Anemo-kostai, Wind-charm 455 Angels 40-1, 162, 252 Anghisky 155 Anglo-Saxon Beliefs.. 99, 110, 132, 450 Animals, Legends of 35, 122, 203 Wind-raising. (See Wind.) Sacrificed. (See Sacrifices.) Unluckj' at Sea. (See Unlucky.) Annedotes 55 Anne, Saint 76, 81, 314-5, 414 Anthony, Saint 78,144, 249 Aphrodite . . .34-5, 52, 61, 243, 431 Apollo 38, 63, 282 Apophis 86, 95 Apparitions at Sea, 64, 76-8, 81, . . . 281-84, 285-86, 291-94, 318, 432, 471 Apsaras 67 Aquilo 41 Arabian Beliefs, 13-4, 24, 28, 30, 33, 40, 86, 140-41, 149-50, 166, 169, 205, 139, 246, 249-51, 205, 265, 274, 390, 404-5, 452, 475, 482 Arabian Nights. 33, 86, 149, 205, 298, 475 Arb as 204 Argo 18, 64, 367, 376, 486 Argonaut 263 Argonautic Legends, 17, 162, 165, 199, 281, 297, 302, 322-23, 384 Argunas 86 Ariel 166, 305 Arion 132, 187, 243 Ark 88, 278, 4S3, 486, 490 Arnould, Saint 85 Arnar-Kuasak 70 Artemis 52, 63 Aryan Beliefs 35, 66, 131, 322 Asclas, Saint 83 Assyrian Beliefs 55-6, 455, 485 Astarte 57 Astrology 51, 452-54 Atalit 93 Atheists 102 Athene 38. 62-3, 464 Atmospheric Sea. (See Aerial.) Atlantic, Leg-ends of 13-14, 27, 332 Atlantis Island 333-34, 481 Auguries 452-54 Auk 273 Australian Beliefs 71, 219 Austrian Superstitions, 20, 9i, 160, 420, 468 Avalon 325, 335, 475 Avaron 64 Avernus 331 Baba-Yaga 43 Bab El-Mandeb 453 493 494 INDEX. Babylonian Myths. Bacch.us Bad 55 243 86 Bag-s, Wind 37-8 Bag--full 101 Bahr-El-Sheitan 297 Balarnu, Water-Demon 90 Balder's Burial 321 Balena 2C5 Ballads, 50, 91, 101,114, 148, 154, 159, 165-66, 170, r.6-77, J79-81, 183, 186, 189, 193, 201, 248, 251, 260, 262, 272, .... 275, 381, 385, 401, 441, 451, 459, 479 Banshee ]8y, 291 Baptism of Ship (see Christening), 400,401-2, 4i6 of Crew 417-20 of Novices 417-20 Barbara, Saint 81 Bardanetjee 201 Bardic Stories 26, 150 Barnacle Goose 263, 266-69 Barras, Saint 85 Bartholemew Saint 81, 45-8 Basin reversed 43 J Bathing-, 92, 9 i-7, 99, 142, 161-62, 167, 467 Bechard, Wind-demon 40, 86 Belgian legends 47, 9S, 189, 422 Bellerophon 59 Bells, Legends of 138, 251, 478 in Storms 138-9 Submerged 478 Benedict, Saint 83 Bergelmir 485 Bermudas 19, 301-2 Biblical Leg-ends, 34, 37, 237, 380, 483, 480 monsters 203, 219 Billukai, Kain-god 4', 269 Birds, Superstitions about, 41-2, 88, 113,166,314,363, 488 Sea J26, 261, 271-74, 449 Land 274-7 Omens from, 126-32, 269, 371, 389,449, 453 and Wind 41-2 Weather-wise 126-32, 449 Bishop-Fish. (See Fish.) Black Diver. (See Diver.) "Blaise, Saint 84, 441 Blessing- Ships 401-3 Blood 448 Blood-red Waves 136, 448 Blows 434 Boats, Ceremonies with New — 382, 400-2, 409-10 Curious 364-66, 370-74 Death 327-29, 331-32, 335-36, 366 Lucky. (See Luck.) Magical 151, 364 Moon. (See Moon.) SAvan 200 Unlucky. (See Unlucky.) Votive 388-9, 391, 420 Witches' 372-4 Bobbrie, Sea-bird 166, 272 Bochica 34 Bodies, Superstitions about, 82-3, . . 136-37, 448, 4.58, 473-4 Drowned 68, 175, 292, 472 Storm raising ];35-7 Unburif fi -v ■.^^ %. / ^^^ #-N !C ^^ ^c. . ', .^Vc ^ ^^^ ' ^z. v*i^^ <> f C ',:^^ J' •V'' i^' ^st'^:?x^- %