The 19th-Century Maritime Superstitions That Were Believed to Protect Men at Sea

Maritime folklore has long been shuffled to the margins of nautical history, presented as the quaint, colourful oddities of a former age. Yet this body of beliefs, practices and stories can offer important insights into how seafarers of the 19th century viewed and understood their working environment.

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.

This folklore – which was exchanged between multinational crews of mariners and carried across the oceans – provides a way into appreciating their everyday fears, longings and hopes. It reveals a rich emotional and psychological engagement with the ocean, a history of sea fearing that does not sit easily with the stereotypical macho image of mariners.

These ideas are explored in my new book, The Perilous Deep: A Supernatural History of the Atlantic, a study of the imaginative and supernatural world of seafarers.