The 19th-Century Maritime Superstitions That Were Believed To Protect Men At Sea

Beneath the dominant histories of European exploration, heroic naval battles and imperial claims to mastery of the seas, there was the daily reality of working, living and, not uncommonly, dying in a dangerous marine environment. The idea that the temperamental winds could be provoked by the smallest actions of the tiny human beings who passed over the ocean’s surface spoke to both mariners’ vulnerability at sea, but also a sense of personal responsibility for the good or bad fortune of their voyage. As the author and critic William Jones wrote in Credulities Past and Present(1880), the sailor who was fearless in battle or in the face of physical danger, often “shrinks with indescribable apprehension … at the sight of a coffin”.

Author: Editorial

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