The Superstitions of Sailors

The sea has always played an important part in the lifeblood of Brittany; its waters have nourished and sustained generations of Bretons since time immemorial but the price paid has often been so very high. Little wonder then that, in a land once seeped in legend and superstition, those hardy souls that risked their lives upon the roaring waves surrounded themselves in practices designed to preserve them from misfortune.

For many Breton mariners, Fridays and Sundays were once generally considered unfavourable days on which to trust one’s life to the sea but certain days of the year were regarded as particularly inauspicious, namely; the Feast of Candlemas on 2 February, the Feast of the Holy Innocents on 28 December 28 and the Feast of Saint Sylvester on 31 December 31, New Year’s Eve.  

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When undertaking any sea voyage, whether to fish for cod off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland or to carry a cargo of mistletoe to Great Britain, certain sights were taken as omens predicting the success or failure of the voyage. For instance, around the north-east port of Saint-Malo it was considered a most propitious omen to see a donkey before setting out to sea; seamen there considered the animal stupid but courageous.

Similarly, sighting a rabbit or a hare before a voyage was a sign of ill fortune to come and even talking of these animals was believed to invite disaster. Some Breton fishermen were noted to have abandoned setting out to sea, in favour of tending to their boats and nets, if a hare had crossed their path on their way to the boats. These animals were also regarded as bad omens for those undertaking journeys on land but some have suggested that they were regarded as particularly ominous to sailors on account of the danger they posed to rope and caulking.

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The humble cat was also not viewed with any favour by Breton fishermen; the animal was not welcome aboard any sailing vessel and, like the hare, sighting a black cat before setting out to sea was enough to cause many sailors to postpone or even cancel their departure. Black cats were also once believed to possess the power to spoil the day’s catch if they merely crossed the path of fishermen here. Although seen as an unlucky animal, it was not one to cast away lightly as the killing of a cat was said bring-on bad weather.

Omens were not restricted to the creatures of the land, for the sky also had much to tell those who could interpret the signs. The sight of a cormorant at sea indicated that the catch of the fishermen would be poor and its cries were almost always believed to herald the approach of bad weather. Around the west coast port of Brest, the cries of seagulls above the breaking waves were also said to indicate the approach of a storm.

Along this part of the coast, these birds were believed to contain the souls of the shipwrecked and the drowned; warning the living to take care to avoid calamity. It was therefore popularly prohibited to touch a seagull for fear of harming the pitiful dead. A similar belief was noted around the Bay of Saint-Malo to the east where the sight of gulls perched atop the Phare du Jardin lighthouse announced that a boat from Saint-Malo had been lost; the number of resting gulls represented the number of fatalities to be expected.

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Conversely, along the coast of the Bay of Morlaix to the west, the appearance of the black-headed gull was regarded as a good omen and one that was said to announce a spell of fine weather at sea. Along the northern coast more generally, sighting a goose in flight was popularly taken as a sign of approaching good fortune.

Tales of the malevolent sea creatures and mermaids that once abounded off the Breton coasts have been recounted in earlier posts so I will not repeat them here but it is worth noting that the Devil or his demons were sometimes said to take the form of large fish to frustrate and terrorise the region’s fishermen. Not so the porpoise, for these creatures, especially those found in the Bay of Saint-Malo, were said to have a particular affinity for the mariners of Brittany. It was said that these mammals were the souls of sailors who had perished in shipwrecks and who now returned to catch sight of places once so familiar to them.

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Several superstitions were attached to the people sailors might encounter on their way to their vessels. For instance, it was considered very bad luck to encounter a lame person but good luck was assured if one chanced to meet an idiot. People were careful not to stop a seaman heading to his boat as such an interruption was said to invoke some misfortune upon him at sea; even calling out to the sailor was said to bring him bad luck. It was also important to never wish an embarking sailor good luck; to do so was to curse him with bad luck throughout his voyage. Likewise, to point one’s finger at a ship leaving port was said to condemn it to certain shipwreck.

Given the real perils often posed by the sea, surrounding the sailor with as much good fortune as possible was of keen concern to the people of Brittany’s coastal communities. Here, it was customary when building a boat to splash the hull with sea water so as to acclimatise it to its destined environment; such rituals being accompanied by prayers and charms for protection.

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The prayers of the Church were also called upon to keep sailors from harm in a formal ceremony popularly known as the ‘blessing of the boats’. Such services were once very common across Brittany’s coasts and saw priests bless all the boats in harbour, either conducting the ceremony on the quayside or, more typically, in a boat that sailed amongst the other craft. In some port towns, the tradition continues to this day and usually takes place on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary on 15 August or the Sunday nearest to it.

It was once believed that certain acts performed on land could cast their affects across the waves and women who had a loved one at sea were cautioned against combing their hair after darkness had fallen for fear that they would cause a storm at sea. Another, albeit more recent, superstition related to unintended consequences said that those who lit their cigarettes from a lighted candle risked causing the death of a sailor at sea.

Such a notion likely derived from the idea that using the flame of a candle saved the use of a match and thus denied a little income for the Hospitaliers Sauveteurs Bretons (the Breton Sea Rescue Society) who raised funds by selling matches. However, some have suggested that the belief may have been associated with the practice of households’ keeping a candle burning at the window for those sailors expected home from sea. Romantic and ancient as it sounds, the latter suggestion is unlikely as the cigarette lighting superstition was not recorded here before the 20^th century.

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The act of spitting as a gesture to invoke good fortune was once noted in many places across the world and, unsurprisingly, the known superstitions of Breton sailors contain two notable examples that suggest spitting was thought to cast some form of magical protection against bad luck. In the first instance, fishermen spat on their nets in the belief that doing so helped to ensure a good catch. Spitting was also used in a popular charm to ward off the malign power of the rainbow; regarded here as a symbol of bad weather. Dangerous winds at sea were linked to the rainbow, whose ends were said to terminate in a terrible maelstrom.

To Breton sailors, the rainbow marked the passage between the realm of the living and that of the dead; to pass under the rainbow was to risk being taken by the sea. To ward off this bad omen, sailors would cut it by spitting in the palm of their left hand and cutting the spit with a strike from the side of the right hand or by tracing a cut across the sky with a piece of rope while reciting: ‘Cut, cut, rainbow or I will cut you with my thread’. Little wonder therefore that sailors took care never to point at a rainbow out of fear that their boat would fall victim to its storms.

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Another simple act that was traditionally discouraged aboard a boat here was whistling, as this too was said to raise uncontrollable winds and to even attract the attention of the Devil. It was believed that favourable winds could be summoned with a whistle but whistling during a breeze was frowned upon lest the breeze became a storm and sailors would not whistle when the weather threatened for fear of increasing the force of the wind.

If the prevailing wind at sea was weak or unhelpful, sailors were not long in invoking the intervention of Saint Clement, patron saint of mariners. If the saint appeared slow in responding to their supplications, then he was considered asleep but it was thought that he could be awakened and roused into action if he was loudly cursed at.

Other early Christian saints were also commonly petitioned; appeals were made to Saint Anthony, another saint regarded as a patron of mariners, for a favourable wind. Saint Mary the Virgin and Saint Houarden, who was said to have travelled to Brittany on a stone boat, were popularly invoked to calm the fury of a storm while Saint Budoc was called upon to change the direction of the wind; the saint was reputedly born in a barrel at sea.

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On the Île de Sein, Saint Corentin, one of the seven founding saints of Brittany, was particularly invoked and his statue in the chapel turned in the direction of the most propitious wind. Likewise, in Saint Michael’s chapel near Carnac, women, whose husbands were at sea, swept-out the chapel in the direction that they wanted to see a favourable wind blow but the ritual was not complete until they had prayed at the sacred fountain nearby and drank its water. Similar practices were once popularly noted in several other chapels across western Brittany.

The sailors of this same part of Brittany believed that sea water somehow protected one from catching a cold and claimed that those who suffered with a cold while ashore were quickly cured at sea by the waves whipped-up by a strong breeze. Around the northern port of Tréguier, the sick were thought to suffer more during a rising sea and to recover when it was in retreat. However, about 100km (63 miles) to the east, around the Bay of Saint-Malo, the contrary belief prevailed; the sick gained vitality with a rising sea and weakened with a falling tide.

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There were myriad superstitions relating to death at sea and I highlighted many of these in an earlier post and will not repeat them here. However, it is worth noting that underscoring most of the old superstitions was the belief that those who perished at sea were to be pitied because they were condemned never to rest until their bodies were recovered and buried in consecrated ground. Local legends tell of these lost souls forever raging along the coast or endlessly traversing the sea in ghostly boats. These pitiable souls carried no ill will towards the living whom they were often believe to help by warning of impending storms and other dangers.

Sometimes, the influence of the dead on the sea was more mischievous. Around the northern port of Paimpol it was said that those who had drowned without being in a state of grace were condemned to labour at the bottom of the sea until Judgement Day; their movements being responsible for causing the wild waves offshore. Further east, around the Bay of Saint-Malo, such waves were attributed to the movements of a sorcerer frantically searching the sea bed for a magical mill that he had lost there.

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It was once believed here that three worms lived inside the human body and that when a person drowned, each of them became embodied in a bone. These bones subsequently detached from the corpse and turned into seashells. The old sailors of western Brittany used to say, when they heard of someone dying at sea: “One less man, three more shells.” According to legend, some cursed islands off Brittany’s northern coast were formed from the skeletons of the drowned and such origins were ascribed to the Sillon de Talbert near Pleubian; a long, bone-white, furrow that points out to sea like an accusing finger of the dead.

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