Woman on a ship: myths, legends, omens, true stories and causes of superstitions

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

Probably only small children have never heard of the superstition associated with the female sex and maritime transport. "A woman on a ship - unfortunately" - so says the ancient belief. What is the reason for this and what is the history of this superstition?

A woman on a ship: is it really that rare?

It's no secret that the ships are mostly men. Of course, passenger, sightseeing ships are not taken into account, where gender is not so important, and the sex ratio is not at all obvious. But on merchant and military ships (and we must not forget about pirate ships!) the female gender is indeed a rare, almost exclusive phenomenon. It is hardly possible to imagine a woman - the captain of a ship (although there are several of them in the world; we will talk about them separately and a little later) or a boatswain in a striped vest. These professions are still purely masculine, requiring more endurance and endurance than is inherent in women. However, even on such ships, the lady, as a rule, has a place. What kind of job can a woman have on a ship?

Ship duties of the weakgender

We will return to ship captains in skirts, but for now let's talk about other speci alties that are more suitable for the female sex and can be useful at sea. You don’t have to go far and think for a long time: of course, first of all, this is a ship’s cook! Or a chef, to put it simply. It is women who mainly perform the duties of a cook on ships - no, of course, there are also men among them, but there are still more women. This has been the custom from time immemorial, since antiquity, and even the literature is full of such examples.

Who else can a woman work on a ship? A waitress in a restaurant, a bartender, a maid, an administrator, a cleaner - in general, everything that is now called "attendants". At the same time, it is not very easy to get a job on a ship - firstly, you need to have relevant work experience on the shore, and secondly, you need to know a foreign language (mainly, of course, English), have international service standards, be stress-resistant and friendly. And such serious requirements are made just for a cook or a waitress - what can we say about a woman who decides to take a place on the captain's bridge?.. Oh yes, and the most important thing: you have to love the sea very much in order to connect your life with it.

Who came up with the omen?

No one knows for sure with whose light (or maybe, on the contrary, heavy) hand the playful sign about the cursed female sex, which brings only grief in the sea, began to walk around the world. The fact that a woman on a ship is a bad omen, does not know unlesslazy, and this superstition has lived for centuries. Even in this progressive century, many believe and obey him - and this despite the fact that women nevertheless constantly go to sea.

However, we will return to the question of whether this sign is justified a little later. In the meantime, it is still worth trying to find out what events served as an impetus for such a fiction.

The sign about the women on the ship: what was behind it?

Oddly enough, but the source of life of this superstition exists by no means in a single copy. There are at least five different versions of why the sign of the woman on the ship came to life. And they all have every right to exist. Where exactly "the legs grow" and "the wind blows" cannot be said with absolute certainty - everyone chooses the most preferable and plausible option for themselves. What if they are all true?..

British forethought

English is international not only on land. Sea wolves also solve their interstate issues on it. And in the language of the British, the ship has several names, and any of them are feminine. It was as a woman, she (that is, "she"), from time immemorial, that British sailors addressed their ship. They believed that each ship has its own soul, and called this soul female - after all, women are always treated with condescension: the weaker sex is weak enough to forgive him and help him. This means that sea spirits and natural forces will not be touched in which case the ship,where the female soul reigns. For the same reason, boats were called women's names, they were looked after and protected. And that is why they in every possible way prevented the ascent of a woman to the ship: after all, they will become rivals with the soul of the ship, rivals for male attention. Which, of course, was initially directed exclusively at the ship, but which can weaken and switch to an insidious homemaker and temptress. Then jealousy will begin on the part of the ship's female soul - and who knows what troubles all this mess can turn into. Therefore, it is better not to let women on the ship - this is how the sailors of ancient times reasoned. And if it happened that an extraneous beauty was still on the ship, and at the same time it fell into a storm, the brave sailors could not hesitate to throw the unfortunate overboard, because everyone has long known that the best way to appease natural forces is sacrifice. Who else to sacrifice but a woman?

And in Denmark in the middle of the sixteenth century, in accordance with this maritime custom, even a royal decree was issued stating a categorical ban on the appearance of ladies and … pigs on any ship. If this does happen, those who disobey should be immediately drowned. Obviously they did. In our time, at least they don’t drown - they have become more humane, more humane.

Worship of deities

Partly with the above version of the sign that a woman on a ship is in trouble, the following interpretation is also connected. At all times, sailors (and it began with the ancient Phoenicians and no less ancient Greeks)worshiped the deities - Poseidon and Neptune, the lords of the sea - and tried in every possible way to please them. The lords had problems with the female sex - the goddesses tried to twist and turn them, as they please.

Delivered a lot of problems to the unfortunate gods, in general. Therefore, it was not worth angering Poseidon and Neptune by taking on board women - that is, those from whom the gods only get in trouble.

Church ban

This version, unlike the previous ones, is associated with Ancient Russia and has rather long roots in the Christian past. The thing is that in those distant, ancient times, the church recognized women as sinners, harlots, a source of evil and all kinds of misfortunes - the list goes on and on. This alone no longer added to the brave sea wolves of the desire to travel side by side with such devils. But not only that: they, being pious people, could not do this, even if they suddenly really wanted to. The fact is that before sending the ship on board, a clergyman without fail went up. He blessed the ship and its crew for the journey, and sprinkled the entire perimeter of the ship with holy water. After such a procedure, not a single female soul was even allowed to step onto the ladder. And since it was by no means only men who were pious, very few dared to violate such a ban.

Male attention

This version of the origin of the signs that a woman on a ship is in trouble lies on the surface. At sea, on a voyage, the ship spends quite a lot of time. Accordingly, the people who are on itare found devoid of all temptations. If this is a purely male team, it's one thing, but if a woman appears in it, then, of course, there will be trouble.

Competition for her attention may not turn out to be the most rosy consequences for the crew, which is completely unacceptable on the high seas. In order to avoid such problems, they tried not to take women on board, and, probably, in order to avoid possible rumors and gossip, they came up with a similar sign.

Women's weaknesses

Another variant of why a woman on a ship is in trouble is connected with the peculiarities of the female character. Ladies, as you know, are capricious, demanding creatures who love comfort, coziness, and peace. In many ways, they are picky, in addition, they constantly need attention to their person. Neither special comfort, nor coziness, much less attention on a permanent basis at sea can be provided to women. Among other things, swimming is not a pleasure trip. Anything is possible at sea, and therefore, in order to protect the weaker sex from possible sea troubles, it is best not to take them with you at all.

Is the omen justified?

So, according to this superstition, what is the name of a woman's stay on a ship? That's right, trouble and continuous trouble. However, is it really so? Were there any troubles with those ships that were carrying women just because of their presence?

Marine disasters are indeed not uncommon, and this is a very unfortunate fact. In one onlyIn the twentieth century, more than two hundred and thirty catastrophes occurred in the world - and these are just the numbers of the largest, those that claimed the lives of hundreds and more people. All these accidents occurred on a variety of ships from various countries and for a variety of reasons. On some of them there was only a male team, on some there were also ladies. And to say that a woman is to blame for everything is ridiculous and pointless.

The Woman in the Sea: Historical Facts

It has already been mentioned above that there are several female captains in the world. Let's talk about them briefly.

The title of the very first "captain" in the world belongs to Anna Shchetinina, who was the only one who was able to bring her ship from Tallinn to Kronstadt under continuous bombing in the difficult forty-first year. In addition to her, the list of women in high naval positions includes: a Swede - a submarine commander; Turkish woman - navigator; German - sea captain; African - the commander of a patrol ship. There is even a special women's shipping association - of course, only women are members of it.

And remember what happened before? Amazons plying without a shadow of fear on the Black Sea; famous pirates Anna Bonnie and Mary Reed; Queen of the Persians Artemisia; Queen of Egypt Cleopatra; Saint Ursula; the Chinese pirate Ms. Qing; Englishwoman Hannah Snell, who served on the ship in male form for ten years…

These and many other examples emphasize once again: there have always been and will always be women on ships, and superstitions for that and superstitions - people need to believe in something!