In 1588 Francis Drake is said to have met the devil and various wizards to whistle up tempests to disrupt the Spanish Armada. The spot near Plymouth were they gathered is now called Devil’s Point. He is also said to have whittled a stick, of which the pieces became fireships as they fell into the sea; and his house at Buckland Abbey was apparently built with unaccountable speed, thanks to the devil’s help. Drake’s drum is preserved in the house and is believed to beat of its own accord when the country faces danger.
Denizens of the deep
With the mirror and comb, her ling hair, bare breasts and fish tail, the mermaid is instantly recognisable, but nowadays only as an amusing convention. However, she once inspired real fear as well as fascination and sailors firmly believed she gave warning of tempest of calamity.
As recently as seventy years ago, Sandy Gunn, a Cape Wrath shepherd, claimed he saw a mermaid on a spur of rock at Sandwood Bay. Other coastal dwellers also recall such encounters, even naming various landmarks. In Corwall there are several tales involving mermaids: at Patstow the harbour entrance is all but blocked by the Doom Bar, a sandbank put there by mermaid, we are told, in relation for being fired at by a man of the town. And the southern Cornish coast between the villages of Down Derry and Looe, the former town of Seaton was overwhelmed by sand because it was cursed by a mermaid injured by a sailor from the port.
Mermaid’s Rock near Lamorna Cove was the haunt of a mermaid who would sing before a storm and then swim out to sea – her beauty was such that young men would follow, never to reappear. At Zennor a mermaid was so entranced by the singing of Matthew Trewella, the squire’s son, that she persuaded him to follow her; he, too failed to to return, but his voice could be heard from time to time, coming from beneath the waves. The little church in which he sang on land has a fifteenth – century bench – end carved with a mermaid and her looking – glass and comb.
On the other hand, mermaids could sometimes be helpful. Mermaid’s Rock at Saundersfoot in Wales is so called because a mermaid was once stranded there by the ebbing of the tide. She was returned to the sea by a passing mussel – gatherer, and later came back to present him with a bag of gold and silver as a reward. In the Mull of Kintyre a Mackenzie lad helped another stranded mermaid who in return granted him his wish, that he cpuld build unsinkable boats from which no man would ever be lost.
Sexual unions between humans and both sea people and seals are the subject of many stories, and various families claim strange sea – borne ancestry: for example the Mc Veagh clan of Sutherland traces its descent from the alliance between a fisherman and a mermaid; on the Western island of North Uist the McCodums have an ancestor who married a seal maiden; and the familiar Welsh name of Morgan is sometimes held to mean “born of the sea”, again pointing to the family tree which includes a mermaid or a merman. Human wives dwelling at sea with mermen were allowed occasional visits to the land, but they had to take care not to overstay – and if they chanced to hear the benediction said in church they were never able to rejoin their husbands.
Matthew Arnold’s poem “The Forsaken Merman” relates how one human wife decides to desert her sea husband and children. There is also a Shetland tale, this time concerning a sea wife married to a land husband:
On the island of Unst a man walking by the shore sees mermaids and mermen dancing naked in the moonlight, the seal skins which they have discarded lying on the sand. When they see the man, the dancers snatch up the skins, become sea creatures again, and all plunge into the waves – except one, for the man has taken hold of the skin. Its owner is a mermaid of outstanding beauty. And she has to stay on the shore. The man asks her to become his wife, and she accepts. He keeps the skin and carefully hides it.
The marriage is successful, and the couple has several children. Yet the woman is often drawn in the night to the seashore, where she is heard conversing with a large seal in an unknown tongue. Years pass. During the course of a game one of the children finds a seal skin hidden in the cornstack. He mentions it to his mother, and she takes it and returns to the sea. Her husband hears the news and runs after her, arriving by the shore to be told by his wife: “ Farewell, and may all good attend you. I loved you very well when I lived on earth, but I always loved my first husband more.”
As we know from David Thomson’s fine book “The People of the Sea” (1984), such stories are still widely told in parts of Ireland and in Scotland and may explain why sailors were reluctant to kill seals. There was also a belief that seals embodied the souls of drowned mariners.
The friendly dolphin invariably brings good luck to seafarers, and has even been known to guide them to the right direction. As recently as January 1989 the newspapers reported that an Australian swimmer who had been attacked and wounded by a shark was saved from death only by the intervention of a group of dolphins which drove off the predator.
Also worthy of mention here is another benevolent helper of seamen lost in open boats: a kindly ghost known as the pilot of the “Pinta”. When all seems lost he will appear in the bows of the boat and insistently point the way to safety.
Other denizens of the deep inspired fear and terror. The water horse of Wales and the Isle of Man – the kelpie of Scotland – grazes by the side of the sea or loch. If anyone is rash enough to get on him, he rushes into the water and drowns the rider; furthermore his back can conveniently lengthen to accommodate any number of people. There are several tales believed of the water horse, for example, if he is harnessed to a plough he drags it into the sea. If he falls in love with a woman he may take the form of a man to court her – only if she recognises his true nature from the tell-tale sand in his hair will she have a chance of escaping, and then she must steal away while he sleeps. Legnd says that the water horse also takes the shape of an old woman; in this guise he is put to bed with a bevy of beautiful maidens, but kills them all by sucking their blood, save for one who manages to run away. He pursues her but she jumps a running brook which, water horse though he is, he dare not cross.
Still more terrible are the many sea monsters of which stories are told. One played havoc with the fish of the Solway Firth until the people planted a row of sharpened stakes on which it impaled itself. Another serpent – like creature, the Stoor Worm, was so huge that its body curled about the earth. It took up residence off northern Scotland and made it known that a weekly delivery of seven virgins was required, otherwise the towns and villages would be devastated. Soon it was the turn of the king’s daughter to be sacrificed, but her father announced that he would give her in anyone who would rid him of the worm. Assipattle, the dreamy seventh son of a farmer, took up the challenge and put to sea in a small boat with an iron pot containing a glowing peat; he sailed into the monster’s mouth, then down into its inside – after searching for some time he found the liver, cut a hole in it, and inserted the peat . The liver soon began to burn fiercely, and the worm retched out Assipattle and his boat. Its death throes shook the world: one of its teeth became the Orkney Islands, the other Shetland; the falling tongue scooped out the Baltic Sea, and the burning liver turned into the volcanosof Iceland. The king kept his promise, and the triumphant Assipattle married his daughter.
Perhaps, the most famous of all water monsters is that of Loch Ness, first mentioned in a life of St Columba written in 700 AD.
Some 150 years earlier one of the saint’s followers was apparently swimming in the loch when the monster “suddenly swam up to the surface, and with gaping mouth and with great roaring rushed towards the man”. Fortunately, Columba was watching and ordered the monster to turnback: it obeyed. The creature (or its successor) then lay dormant for some 1 300 years, for the next recorded sighting was in 1871.
However, during the last fifty years there have been frequent reports and controversies. In1987 a painstaking and and expencive sonar scan of the loch revealed a moving object of some 400 lb in weight which scientists were unable to identify. Sir Peter Scott dubbed the monster “Nessiterras Rhombopteryx”, after the diamond – shaped fin shown on a photograph taken by some American visitors; the Monster Exhibition Centre at Drumnadrochit on Loch Ness describes it as “The World’s Greatest Mystery”. Tourists from all over the world flock to visit Loch Ness, monster and centre.
Nautical customs
The seas will always be potentially dangerous for those who choose to sail them and most seafarers tried hard to avoid incurring the wrath of Davy Jones – they once were sometimes reluctant even to save drowning comrades lest they deprive the deep of a victim which would serve as a propitiatory sacrifice though the dilemma could be resolved by throwing the drowning man a rope or spar. This was a much less personal intervention than actually landing a hand or diving in to help and therefore less risky.
Various shipboard ceremonies were observed and maintained religiously: at Christmas a tree would be lashed to the top of the mast (the custom is still followed, and on ships lacking a mast the tree is tied to the railings on the highest deck). At midnight as New Year’s Eve becomes New Year’s Day the ship’s bell is rung eight times for the old year and eight times for the new – midnight on a ship is normally eight bells – the oldest member of the crew giving the first eight rings, the youngest the second.
“Burying the Dead Horse” was a ceremony which was continued in merchant ships until late in the nineteenth century, and kept up most recently in vessels on the Australian run. The horse was a symbol for the month’s pay advanced on shore (and usually spent before sailing); after twenty-eight days at sea the advance was worked out. The horse’s body was made from a barrel, its legs from hay, straw or shavings covered with canvas, and the main and tail of hemp. The animal was hoisted to the main yardarm and set on fire. It was allowed to blase for a short time and was then cut loose and dropped into the sea. Musical accompaniment was provided by the shanty “Poor Old Horse”:
Now he is dead and will die no more,
And we say so, for we know so.
It makes his ribs feel very sore,
Oh, poor old man.
He is gone and will go no more,
And we say so, for we know so.
So goodbye, old horse,
We say goodbye.
On sailing ships collective work at the capstan, windlass, pumps and halliards was often accompanied by particular songs known as shanties.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries big, full-rigged vessels were bringing cargoes of nitrate, guano and saltpetre to Britain to South America ports. When a ship was loaded and ready to sail round Cape Horn and home, the carpenter would make a large wooden cross to which red and white lights were fixed in the shape of the constellation known as the Southern Cross. As this was hoisted to the head of the mainmast, the crew would sing the shanty “Hurrah, my boys, we’re homeward bound”, and then the crew of every ship in harbour took turns to cheer the departing vessel.
Seafarers crossing the equator for the first time – and sometimes the tropics of the polar circles – are often put through a sort of baptism or initiation ceremony. The earliest recorded reference to such a ritual dates back to 1529 on a French ship, but by the end of the following century English vessels were involved in the same custom, which continues to this day in both Royal Navy and merchant service.
One of the crew appears as Neptune, complete with crown, trident and luxuriant beard; others represent Queen Amphitrite, a barber, a surgeon and various nymphs and bears. Neptune holds court by the side of a large canvas bath full of sea - water, and any on board who have not previously crossed “the Line” are ceremonially shaved with huge wooden razors, then thoroughly ducked. Finally, the victim is given a certificate which protects him from the same ordeal on ane future occasion. Even passengers are put through a modified form of the proceedings, though women are given a still softer version of the treatment.
When a naval captain leaves his ship he can expect a ritual farewell. Even Prince Charles was unable to escape when in 1976 he relinquished command of the minesweeper, HMS “Bronington”; he was seized by white – coated doctors (his officers), placed in a wheelchair and “invalided out” to the cheers of his crew members who held up a banner inscribed: “Command has aged me”.
Other marines departed in a less jovial manner. When a man died at sea his body would be sewn into canvas, weighted, and committed to the deep. The sailmaker was responsible for making the shroud, and would always put the last stitch through the corpse’s nose, ensuring that there was no sign of life and that the body remained attached to the weighted canvas. This practise was followed at least until the 1960s, the sailmaker receiving a bottle of rum for his work. Nowadays the bodies are seldom buried at sea but are refrigerated and brought back to land. However, those consigning a body in this way still receive the traditional bottle of rum for their trouble.
CHAPTER 3
We have had a look at some samples of well and carefully preserved British folklore that relates about the British “waterworld”. But the question of our time no less important is whether the people with such an affection for their land try to preserve it from the harm that may cause our age of highly developed machines, ships, tunkers, etc.
Britain’s marine, coastal and inland waters are generally clean: some 95% of rivers, streams and canals are of good or fair quality, a much higher figure than in most other European countries. However their cleanliness cannot be taken for granted, and so continuing steps are being taken to deal with remaining threats. Discharges to water from the most potentially harmful processes are progressively becoming subject to authorisation under IPC.
Government regulations for a new system of classifying water in England and Wales came into force in May 1994. This system will provide the basis for setting statutory water quality objectives (SWQO), initially on a trial basis in a small number of catchment areas where their effectiveness can be assessed. The objectives, which will be phased in gradually, will specify for each individual stretch of water the standards that should be reached and the target date for achieving them. The system of SWQOs will provide the framework to set discharge consents. Once objectives are set, the enterprises will be under a duty to ensure that they are met.
There have been important developments in controlling the sea disposal of wastes in recent years. The incineration of wastes at sea was halted in 1990 and the dumping of industrial waste ended in 1992. In February 1994 the Government announced British acceptance of an internationally agreed ban on the dumping of low- and intermediate – level wastes was already banned. Britain had not in fact dumped any radioactive waste at sea for some years preveously. Britain is committed to phasing out the dumping of sewage sludge at sea by the end of 1998. Thereafter only dredged material from ports, harbours and the like will routinely be approved for sea disposal.
Proposals for decommissioning Britain’s 200 offshore installations are decided on a case – by – case basis, looking for the best practicable environmental option and observing very rigorous international agreements and guidelines.
Although not a major source of water pollution incidents, farms can represent a problem. Many pollution incidents result from silage effluent or slurry leaking and entering watercourses; undiluted farm slurry can be up to 100 times, more polluting than raw domestic sewage. Regulations set minimum construction standards for new or substantially altered farm waste handling facilities. Farmers are required to improve existing installations where there is a significant risk of pollution. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food publishes a “Code of Good Agricultural Practice for the Protection of Water”. This gives farmers guidance on, among other things, the planning and management of the disposal of their farm wastes. The Ministry also has L2 million research and development programme to examine problems of farm waste and to minimise pollution.
Britain is a signatory to the 1992 North East Atlantic Convention, which tackles pollution from land – based sources, offshore installations and dumping. It also provides for monitoring and assessment of the quality of water in the convention’s area. In order to minimise the environmental effects of offshore oil and gas operations, special conditions designed to protect the environment -–set in consultation with environmental interests – are included in licences for oil and gas exploration.
Pollution from ships is controlled under international agreements, which cover matters such as oil discharges and disposal of garbage. British laws implementing such agreements are binding not only on all ships in British waters, but also on British ships all over the world. The Marine Pollution Control Unit (MPCU), part of the Coastguard Agency, is responsible for dealing with spillage of oil or other substances from ships in sea.
So great care is being taken to manage to preserve all that precious that Britain has. Keeping the waters in a good conditions would help to keep the traditions connected with it as well, and to pass them on to other generations.
There is no other way to understanding people, their character, past and present but through its linguistic and cultural inheritance. If a person is determined to get a closer acquaintance with the inner world of the French, Italian or English, he should study their language and culture, because only through this he can really get in touch with a strange nation. Finding out some facts, materials on this or that country he would no more than get informed, develop his intellectual abilities and that of the rational memory. But linguistic and cultural education inspires imaginative thinking, influences his emotions and forms his taste. Linguistic materials, and the national folklore is certainly an important part of it, are inseparable from the language: the language itself plays the part of the informational source of the national history and culture.
So in this work we showed the essential role of the English folklore relating about the water world of the country in the development of the English language, forming of the national identity and character and its close connection with the British history.
Списоклитературы
Dorothy Whitelock “The Beginnings of English Society”, Penguin 1977
Roy Palmer “Britain’s Living Folklore”, Oxford 1986
A.R.Myers “England in the Late Middle Ages”, Penguin 1980
Верещагин Е.Г., Костомаров В.К. «Язык и культура». Москва, 1983.
Dictionary of the British Mythology, Oxford 1990
“British Cultural Identities”, 1993