The herald., 1894-08-05
SAILORS JONAHS.
JACKS suPERSTITloNs HAD STRANGE
FORMS IN EARLY DAYS.

Stolen Wood Mortised Into the Keel to
Make tho Vessel Sail Faster-Lawyers.
Women and Clergymen Looked at With
Disfavor ON Sailing Vessels.
Lieutenant J. d. Jerrold Kelley gives
IN interesting chapter of ''Superstitions
of the Sea- in The Century. After
studying them fairly well he doubts If
modern sailors are more superstitious
than any other class with equal training
and opportunities He believes that
everybody is leavened with supersti-
tion, notably the noisiest scoffers and
those mountebanks, the Thirteen clubs,
for these gentry protest too much. lt
seems to be a human instinct, modified
by racial inheritances and developments.
In the youth of the world its manifesto
tions were the earliest recorded utter
ances of men concerning the visible
phenomena of the universe and its grip
ON simple words was an outgrowth OF
the fear of the unknown. OF all people
sailors must deal at first hand, and help
lessly to some degree, with the most
unknowable, uncomfortable of material
problems, the sea, and it is only nat
ural that their folklore should be in
part land stories fitted with sea mean
ing and In part of blind explanation of
sea phenomena, both being maintained
valorously by the grewsome conserva-
tism of the seaman, even after rational
causes come to the rescue.
In earlier days superstition was as
much part of every ship as the water
she was to float in, for it entered with
the wood scarfed into her keel and
climbed to the flags and garlands wav-
ing at her mastheads. 1t ran riotously
at her launching, controlled her name,
her crew and cargoes. 1t timed her
days and hours of sailing and conveyed
her voyages. 1t summoned apparitions
for her ill fortune and evoked portents
and signs for her prosperity. 1t made
winds blow foul or fair, governed her
successful ventures and arrivals, and
when her work was done promised
port Of rest somewhere off the shores of
Fiddler's Green, where all good sailors
rest eternally, or threatened foul moor
ings deep in the uncanny locker of Davy
Jones of ballad memory.
In many countries stolen wood was
mortised into the keel. as it made the
ship sail faster at night, though if the
first blow struck in fashioning this keel
drew fire the ship was doomed to wreck
upon her maiden voyage. Silver-usu-
ally a coin-placed in the mainmast step
went for lucky ventures, and misguided
indeed was the owner who permitted
any of the unlucky timbers to enter into
the construction. Something of the cere-
monious character given to launohings
survives to this day. Where of old ships
were decked with flowers and crowns of
leaves flags now futter. The libation
poured On tho deck, the publication by
the priest, the amounting with egg and
sulphur, find their exemplars in the
well aimed and wasted magnums which
are shattered on the receding cutwater as
the craft released from the ways, slips,
we'll creased. into the sea. The jar of
wine put to his lips by the captain and
then enptiod on deck, the cakes and
ale set before the crew, the stoup Of
wine offeref to passersby on the quay
and. the refusal of which was an evil
ON 1-all arc realized in these sadder
lusA s,Ins by the builders feast in the
mold loft. Lawyers, clergymen and
women are over looked at with disfavor
on sailing ships as sure to bring Ill luck
lawyers undoubtedly from the antip-
athy Of sailors to the class, dislike SO
pronounced that ''sea lawyer" is very
bitter term of reproach, and "land
shark" is synonym. Clergymen-
priests and parsons-are unlucky proba-
bly, because Oh their black gowns and
their principal duty on shipboard--that
Of consoling the dying and bu1ying the
dead-though possibly because the devil,
the great storm raiser, is their especial
enemy and sends tempests to destroy
them. Women-who may reason out
their unpopularity? that ship is
the last place for them, or perhaps be-
cause of the dread of witches, for of all
spell workers in human form none is so
dreaded as tho female brewers of hell
broth. Like the priests of the middle
ages, they can raise prime quality of
ntOilu ny tCSrillS Sstiu VI o.O1eS Ill Iue
air and, like Congreve's Lapland sorcer-
ess, are supposed to live by selling con-
trary winds and wrecked vessels. Ger
tain families could never get sea en-
ploynent under their own surnames,
not even such members as were born
with cauls. for they were tabooed,
barred And many animals-hares,
pigs and black cats, for example-could
neither be carried nor mentioned on
shipboard, save under very stringent
conditions. Scarborough wives kept a
black cat in the house to assure their
husbands lives at sea, but on voyages
every black cat carried a gale in her
tail, and if she became unusually frolic-
some storm was sure to follow.
Years ago on board the flagship
Franklin, up the Mediterranean, we
had yarn that illustrated survival of
this antipathy to certain forms of ami
NAL life. Two old quartermasters were
heard during the morning watch ex-
changing in tho cockpit dismal expert
ences of their dreams the night before.
One was particularly narrowing, for the
narrator wound up with: "And 1 say,
Bill, was never SO afeared in my life.