The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1883-11-21
SUPERSTITIOUS SEAMEN.
kieciric Exhnlntions that arc Considered
Unlucky by Sailors.
[From the London Telegraph

From the london Telegraph
OF all the superstitions OF the sea the
most ineligible are those which gather
about the weird exhalations called com
posants. A green, faint and sepulchral
light. shining at a yardarm or boom end
on pitch black night and amid gale
OF wind, might well puzzle and agitate
the simple heart OF seaman staring
aloft at it. Shakespeare embodies the
shining appearance in the person of
Ariel, and opiritualizes it by his own
conception. ''Now on the beak, now in
the waist, the deck, in evory cabin, l
ham'd amazement; sometime I'd divide.
and burn in many places; on the top
mast, the yards and bowsprit, would
flame distinctly, then meet and join" II
is quite possible that one finds here the
groundwork of the belief formerly enter.
tanned that "St. Elmo's fires" or COM
posants, as they are usually called, were
women who took this form to bewilder
seamen. There are stories of sailors
giving chase to n composant, following
1t from lower yardarm to the truck, and
then being spirited of by the figure of n
female that suddenly cleaned out in the
darkness with the composant shining on
her hair like n star. Another supersti-
ton was that composants were the souls
OF seamen that had died aboard the ship
and who, in flaming form, haunted those
yards and arms upon which they had
often, when in life, hung on by their
"oyelids." No sailor liked one Of those
lights to shine upon him. II the renec-
ton fell upon his face he would 90 below
with the conviction that something evil
was sure to happen to him. As to the
Flying Dutchman. it is doubtful
whether Jack ever sincerely in his heart
believed in that apparition; hut Of FRI
day the marine dread was habitual; dead,
bodies and parsons were looked npon Ms
fatef,Il, and to drown cat was certain
way of provoking disaster. Davy Jones'
belonged to Jacks theology. What ap-I
pearance he assigned to this spirit, !
whether he had horns and tail, or
whether he more resembled Neptune as
personiiied in the olden times by men
of-wars-men who crawled over the bows
with crown and trident when the equator
hove i'll sight, is point that remains to
be settled; but there could be no doubt
that Davy Jones was dangerous mon
ster who lived ut the bottom of the sea
and whose days and nights were devoted
to the pleasing labors Of slowing away
in his immense locker the bodies of sea-
men who came floating down to his do
minions. Another nautical superstition
might, perhaps, be found in the sailors
unwillmgness to kill or capturea Mother
Oarey's chicken. Coleridge's "Ancient
Mariners" albatross is land going
fancy. No mariner, however ancient,
would anticipate evil in killing an alba
tross either with hook or crossbow. To
slay one of those little chickens, how
ever, which follow in the wake of ships. (,
rising and falling amid the stupendous
surges like divine intimations that EVEN
as tie lives of those sparrows of tho
deep are cared for, 30 is the poor sailor
himself watched over, woull, in Jacks
mind, he reckoned rs wicked az robbing
II church. But all such fancies and su-
rcrstitions are fast drifting AWAY, if, to
use n marine expression, they are not
already out of sight astern. Draughts
from the scuttle-butt in lieu of the old
"t.ts of grog' may have something to
do with the change, but the active agent
of the transformation is unqucstionably
steam, and its obnoxiousness to the an
cient rude poetry and imaginations of
the deep may be witnessed in the adver-
t;sements which daily announce the sail
ing of whole fleets Of steamers Oh
Fridays.