The romance of the sea has always attracted interest, and, as Buckle once remarked, ‘the credulity of sailors is notorious, and every literature contains evidence of the multiplicity of their superstitions, and of the tenacity with which they cling to them.’ This is not surprising, for many of the weird old fancies with which the legendary lore of the sea abounds originated in certain atmospherical phenomena which were once a mystery to our seafaring community. In a ‘New Catalogue of Vulgar Errors’ (1761) the writer says: ‘I look upon sailors to care as little of what becomes of themselves as any people under the sun; yet no people are so much terrified at the thoughts of an apparition. Their sea-songs are full of them; they firmly believe in their existence, and honest Jack Tar shall be more frightened at the glimmering of the moon upon the tackling of a ship, than he would be if a Frenchman were to place a blunderbus at his head.’ The occasional reflections of mountains, cities, and ships in mirage gave rise to many strange stories of spectral lands. Early instances of this popular fancy occur, and Mrs. Jameson, in her ‘Sacred and Legendary Art,’ quotes an old Venetian legend of 1339, relating to the ring with which the Adriatic was first wedded. During a storm a fisherman was required to row three men, whom he afterwards learns were St. Mark, St. George, and St. Nicholas, first to certain churches, and then over to the entrance of the port. But there a huge Saracen galley was seen with frightful demons on board, which spectral craft the three men caused to sink, thus saving the city. On leaving the boat, the boatman is presented with a ring. In the Venetian academy is a painting by Giorgione of this phantom ship, with a demon crew, who, terrified at the presence of the three holy men, jump overboard, or cling to the rigging, while the masts flame with fire, and cast a lurid glare on the water. Collin de Plancy, in his ‘Sacred Legends of the Middle Ages,’ tells us how at Boulogne, in 663, while the people were at prayers, a strange ship—without guide or pilot—was observed approaching the shore, with the Virgin on board, who indicated to the people a site for her chapel—delusions which may be classed in the same category as the ‘phantom ship.’ Novelists and poets have made graphic use of such well-known apparitions, variations of which occur in every maritime country. But the author accounts for this philosophically, adding that ‘a great deal may be said in favour of men troubled with the scurvy, the concomitants of which disorder are, generally, faintings and the hip, and horrors without any ground for them.’

There were few ships in days gone by that ‘doubled the Cape’ but owned among the crew some who had seen the ‘Flying Dutchman,’ a phantom to which Sir Walter Scott alludes as the harbinger of woe. This ship was distinguished from earthly vessels by bearing a press of sail when all others were unable to show an inch of canvas.

The story goes that ‘Falkenburg was a noble-man who murdered his brother and his bride in a fit of passion, and was condemned to wander towards the north. On arriving at the sea-shore, he found awaiting him a boat, with a man in it, who said, “Expectamus te.” He entered the boat, attended by his good and his evil spirit, and went on board a spectral bark in the harbour. There he still lingers, while these spirits play dice for his soul. For six hundred years the ship has wandered the seas, and mariners still see her in the German Ocean, sailing northwards, without helm or helmsman. She is painted grey, has coloured sails, a pale flag, and no crew. Flames issue from the masthead at night.’[244] There are numerous versions of this popular legend, and O’Reilly, in his ‘Songs of Southern Seas,’ says—

Captain Marryat made this legend the basis of his ‘Phantom Ship,’ and Longfellow, in his ‘Tales of a Wayside Inn,’ powerfully tells of—

There are, also, a host of stories of spectral ships, some of which are still credited by sailors. The Germans have their phantom ships, to meet which is regarded as an omen of disaster. In one instance, the crew is said to consist of ghosts of condemned sinners, who serve one hundred years in each grade, until each has a short tour as captain. This mysterious vessel is described by Oscar L.B. Wolff in ‘The Phantom Ship’:

Swedish sailors have a vessel of this kind. She is so large that it takes three weeks to go from poop to prow, and hence orders are transmitted on horseback. Danish folk-lore has its spectral ship, and a Schleswick-Holstein tradition relates how a maiden was carried off by her lover in a spectral ship, as one day she sat on the shore bewailing his absence. In ‘MÉlusine’ for September 1884,[245] it is stated that, ‘in many localities in Lower Brittany, stories are current of a huge ship manned by giant human forms and dogs. The men are reprobates guilty of horrible crimes; the dogs, demons set to guard them and inflict on them a thousand tortures. Such a vessel wanders ceaselessly from sea to sea, without entering port or casting anchor, and will do so to the end of the world. No vessel should allow it to fall aboard, for its crew would suddenly disappear. The orders, in this strange craft, are given through huge conch-shells, and, the noise being heard several miles off, it is easy to avoid her. Besides, there is nothing to fear, if the “Ave Maria” is repeated, and the Saints appealed to, especially St. Anne d’Auray.’

Stories of phantom ships are found, more or less, all over the world, and are associated with many a romantic and tragic tale. Bret Harte[246] relates how some children go on board a hulk to play, but it breaks away from its moorings, drifts out to sea, and is lost. Yet at times there are heard:

And Whittier[247] tells how the young captain of a schooner visits the Labrador coast where, in a certain secluded bay, two beautiful sisters live with their mother. Both fall in love with him, and, just as the younger is about to meet her lover and fly with him, she is imprisoned in her room by her mother, whereupon her elder sister goes in her stead, and is carried to sea in the vessel. The disappointed lover, on learning the deception, returns only to find his loved one dead. But the schooner, adds Whittier, never returned home and:

In Dana’s ‘Buccaneer,’ the pirate carries a lady to sea, who jumps overboard, and on the anniversary of her death:

Occasionally a spectre ship is seen at Cap d’Espoir, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which is commonly reported to be the ghost of the flagship of a fleet sent to reduce the French forts by Queen Anne, and which was wrecked here, and all hands. On this phantom ship, which is crowded with soldiers, lights are seen, and on the bowsprit stands an officer, pointing to the shore with one hand, while a woman is on the other side. The lights suddenly go out, a scream is heard, and the ill-fated vessel sinks. Under one form or another, the phantom ship has long been a world-wide piece of folk-lore, and even in an Ojibway tale, when a maiden is on the eve of being sacrificed to the spirit of the falls, a spectral canoe, with a fairy in it, takes her place as a sacrifice.

Dennys, in his ‘Folk-lore of China,’ gives a novel variety of the phantom ship. The story goes that a horned serpent was found in a tiger’s cage near Foochow by a party of tiger-hunters. They tried to ship it to Canton, but during the voyage the serpent escaped, through a flash of lightning striking the cage and splitting it. Thereupon the captain offered a thousand dollars to anyone who would destroy the monster, but its noxious breath killed two sailors who attempted the task. Eventually the junk was abandoned, and is still believed to cruise about the coast, and cautious natives will not board a derelict junk.

One of the chief features of many of these phantom-ship stories is the idea of retribution for evil deeds, as in the following, told by Irving in the ‘Chronicles of Wolfert’s Roost.’ A certain Ramnout van Dam had ‘danced and drank until midnight—Saturday—when he entered his boat to return home. He was warned that he was on the verge of Sunday morning, but he pulled off, swearing that he would not land until he reached Spiting Devil, if it took him a month of Sundays. He was never seen afterwards, but may be heard plying his oars, being the Flying Dutchman of the Tappan Sea, doomed to ply between Kakiot and Spiting Devil until the day of judgment.’ Moore in his account of the phantom ship seen in the description of Deadman’s Island, where wrecks were once common, writes:

Turning to our own country, similar phantom vessels have long been supposed to haunt the coast, and Mr. Hunt[248] describes one that visited the Cornish shores on the occasion of a storm, and to rescue which delusive bark help was despatched: ‘Away they pulled, and the boat which had been first launched still kept ahead by dint of mechanical power and skill. At length the helmsman cried, “Stand by to board her.” The vessel came so close to the boat that they could see the men, and the bow oarsman made a grasp at the bulwarks. His hand found nothing solid and he fell. Ship and light then disappeared. The next day the “Neptune” of London was wrecked, and all perished. The captain’s body was picked up after a few days, and that of his son also.’ Among other Cornish stories may also be mentioned those known as the ‘Pirate-wrecker and the Death Ship;’ and the ‘Spectre Ship of Porthcurno.’ Occasionally off the Lizard a phantom lugger is seen, and Bottrell[249] tells how, at times, not only spectral ships, but the noise of falling spars, &c., are heard during an incoming fog.

Scotch sailors have their stories of phantom ships. Thus a spectral vessel—the ghostly bark of a bridal party maliciously wrecked—is said to appear in the Solway, always hovering near a ship that is doomed to be wrecked; and Cunningham[250] has given a graphic account of two phantom pirate ships. The story goes that, for a time, two Danish pirates were permitted to perform wicked deeds on the deep, but were at last condemned to perish by wreck for the evil they had caused. On a certain night they were seen approaching the shore—the one crowded with people, and the other carrying on its deck a spectral shape. Then four young men put off in a boat that had been sent from one ship, to join her, but, on reaching the ship, both vessels sank where they were. On the anniversary of their wreck, and before a gale, these two vessels are supposed to approach the shore, and to be distinctly visible. A Highland legend records how a large ship—the ‘Rotterdam’—which went down with all on board, is seen at times with her ghostly crew, a sure indication of disaster. But perhaps this superstition has been most firmly riveted in the popular mind by Coleridge’s ‘Ancient Mariner,’ wherein an ominous sign is seen afar off prefiguring the death of himself and his comrades. It is a spectre ship in which Death and Life-in-Death play at dice for the possession of the crew—the latter winning the mariner.

Stories of ghosts having appeared at sea have been told from early days, and have everywhere been a fruitful source of terror to sailors. But this is not surprising for, as Scot says,[251] ‘innumerable are the reports of accidents unto such as frequent the seas, as fishermen and sailors, who discourse of noises, flashes, shadows, echoes, and other things, nightly seen or heard upon the waters.’ Brand,[252] for instance, narrates an amusing tale of a sea ghost. The ship’s cook, who had one of his legs shorter than the other, died on a homeward passage and was buried at sea. A few nights afterwards his ghost was seen walking before the ship, and the crew were in a panic. It was found however that the cause of this alarm was part of a maintop, the remains of some wreck floating before them that simulated the dead man’s walk. On another occasion a ship’s crew fancied they had not only seen but ‘smelled’ a ghost—a piece of folly which so enraged the captain that he ordered the boatswain’s mate to give some of the sailors a dozen lashes, which entirely cleared the ship of the ghost during the remainder of the voyage. It was afterwards ascertained that the smell proceeded from a dead rat behind some beer-barrels. In the same way, many a ghost story might be explained which, proceeding from natural causes, has been the source of superstitious dread among the seafaring community. Cheever, in his ‘Sea and Sailor,’ referring to the credulity of sailors, says: ‘The sailor is a profound believer in ghosts. One of these nocturnal visitants was supposed to visit our ship. It was with the utmost difficulty that the crew could be made to turn in at night. You might have seen the most athletic, stout-hearted sailor on board, when called to take his night-watch aloft, glancing at the yards and tackling of the ship for the phantom. It was a long time, in the opinion of the crew, before the phantom left the ship.’ It may be remembered that Sir Walter Scott[253] relates how the captain of an English ship was assured by the crew that the ghost of a murdered sailor, every night, visited the ship. So convinced were the sailors of the appearance of this phantom that they refused to sail, but the mystery was cleared up by the discovery of a somnambulist.

Occasionally, the ghost of a former captain is supposed to visit a vessel and to warn the crew of an approaching storm. Symondson in his ‘Two Years abaft the Mast’ records the appearance of such an apparition, at one time ‘to prescribe a change of course, at another, in wet and calm weather, quietly seated in his usual place on the poop deck.’[254] Sometimes similar warnings have come from other sources. Thus a curious occurrence is told by Mary Howitt, which happened in 1664 to Captain Rogers, R.N., who was in command of the ‘Society,’ a vessel bound from England to Virginia. The story goes that ‘he was heading in for the capes, and was, as he reckoned, after heaving the lead, three hundred miles from them. A vision appeared to him in the night, telling him to turn out, and look about. He did so, found all alert, and retired again. The vision appeared again, and told him to heave the lead. He arose, caused the lead to be cast, and found but seven fathoms. Greatly frightened, he tacked ship, and the daylight showed him to be under the capes, instead of two hundred miles at sea.’[255] With this story may be compared a mysterious story told in the ‘Chicago Times’ of March, 1885.

It appears that, as two men had fallen from the topmast head of a lake-vessel, the rumour spread that the ship was an unlucky one. Accordingly, writes one of the crew, ‘on its arrival at Buffalo, the men went on shore as soon as they were paid off. They said the ship had lost her luck. While we were discharging at the elevator, the story got round, and some of the grain-trimmers refused to work on her. Even the mate was affected by it. At last we got ready to sail for Cleveland, where we were to load coal. The captain managed to get a crew by going to a crimp, who ran them in, fresh from salt water. They came on board two-thirds drunk, and the mate was steering them into the forecastle, when one of them stopped and said, pointing aloft, “What have you got a figurehead on the mast for?” The mate looked up and then turned pale. “It’s Bill,” he said, and with that the whole lot jumped on to the dock. I didn’t see anything, but the mate told the captain to look for another officer. The captain was so much affected that he put me on another schooner, and then shipped a new crew, and sailed for Cleveland. He never got there. He was sunk by a steamer off Dunkirk.’

Another curious phantom warning to sailors seen in years gone by was the ‘Hooper,’ or the ‘Hooter,’ of Sennen Cove, Cornwall. This was supposed to be a spirit which took the form of a band of misty vapour, stretching across the bay, so opaque that nothing could be seen through it. According to Mr. Hunt,[256] ‘it was regarded as a kindly interposition of some ministering spirit, to warn the fisherman against venturing to sea. This appearance was always followed, and often suddenly, by a severe storm. It is seldom or never now seen. One profane old fisherman would not be warned by the bank of fog, and, as the weather was fine on the shore, he persuaded some young men to join him. They manned a boat, and the aged leader, having with him a threshing-flail, declared that he would drive the spirit away, and he vigorously beat the fog with the “threshel,” as the flail is called. The boat passed through the fog, and went to sea, but a severe storm arose, and no one ever saw the boat or the men again, since which time the “Hooper” has been rarely seen.’ Similarly a mist over the river Cymal, in Wales, is thought to be the spirit of a traitoress, who lost her life in the lake close by. Tradition says she had conspired with pirates to rob her lord of his domain, and was defeated by an enchanter.[257]

But sailors’ yarns are so proverbially remarkable that the reader must estimate their value for himself, not forgetting how large a factor in their production is the imagination, worked upon by nervous credulity and superstitious fear, a striking instance of which is recorded by a correspondent of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine:’ ‘My friend, Captain Mott, R.N., used frequently to repeat an anecdote of a seaman under his command. This individual, who was a good sailor and a brave man, suffered much trouble and anxiety from his superstitious fears. When on the night watch, he would see sights and hear noises in the rigging and the deep, which kept him in a perpetual fever of alarm. One day the poor fellow reported upon deck that the devil, whom he knew by his horns and cloven foot, stood by the side of his hammock the preceding night, and told him that he had only three days to live. His messmates endeavoured to remove his despondency by ridicule, but without effect; and the next morning he told the tale to Captain Mott, with this addition, that the fiend had paid him a second nocturnal visit, announcing a repetition of the melancholy tidings. The captain in vain expostulated with him on the folly of indulging such groundless apprehensions; and the morning of the fatal day being exceedingly stormy, the man, with many others, was ordered to the topmast to perform some duty among the rigging. Before he ascended he bade his messmates farewell, telling them that he had received a third warning from the devil, and that he was confident he should be dead before night. He went aloft with the foreboding of evil on his mind, and in less than five minutes he lost his hold, fell upon the deck, and was killed on the spot.’