Seafaring Lore and Legend

by Peter D. Jeans

Overview

"A valuable and lively resource. Jeans sorts truth from fiction with a sure hand and does full justice to both."—Peter Stanford, President Emeritus, National Maritime Historical Society

“A veritable sourcebook of nautical history, beliefs, and heritage. Every true mariner will get lost in this book.”—Boating

Seafaring Lore and Legend is a storehouse of wonders for those who love the sea. From Noah’s Ark to Thor Heyerdahl’s raft, from Atlantis to the Northwest Passage, author Peter Jeans scours the ages and the seven seas for fanciful, inspiring, and bizarre tales of sea monsters, ghost ships, lost continents, castaways, pirates, explorers, superstitions, and customs.

Discover the surprising truths behind:

• The origins of naval salutes and the Beaufort Scale
• Flogging a dead horse and other oddities of nautical custom
• Sea chanties, scurvy, and the hardships of life at sea
• Infamous and noteworthy sea captains and their ships
• Famous wrecks and mutinies
• Mermaids, sirens, and sea nymphs
• Nautical superstitions such as the albatross and Fiddler’s Green
• And much more

This is a book you can open anywhere to savor for a few minutes or an afternoon. But be careful: it's easy to lose track of time at sea.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780071508780
Publisher:	McGraw Hill LLC
Publication date:	02/05/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	382
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Peter D. Jeans is the author of Ship to Shore: A Dictionary of Everyday Words and Phrases Derived from the Sea.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Note to the Reader Introduction 1. In the Beginning Great Floods Moses and the Red Sea The Rainbow Maui, Creator of New Zealand Oceanus King Neptune Poseidon Amphitrite Aphrodite Portunus Castor and Pollux Nereus Hero and Leander Scylla and Charybdis Manannan, Celtic Sea God 2. Fabled Lands Pillars of Hercules Colossus of Rhodes Ultima Thule The Hesperides Tarshish Taprobane Distant Ophir Magnetic Islands Hy Brasil Island of Ogygia Island of Delos Lemuria, Lost Continent Lost Land of Lyonesse 3. Legendary Voyages Sindbad the Sailor Gulliver’s Travels Hanno the Navigator Prince Madoc of Wales Voyages of Saint Brendan Voyages of Gil Eannes Polynesian Seafarers The Kon-Tiki Expedition 4. Sea Quests of Old The Argosy The Argonauts The Odyssey Vinland USA The Northwest Passage The Great South Land Moby Dick 5. Maritime History The British Royal Navy Naval Salutes Plimsoll Line Lloyd’s of London P&O Shipping Line Beaufort Wind Scale 6. Nautical Custom The Bucentaur Crossing the Line To Flog a Dead Horse The Getting of Grog Traveling POSH 7. Life at Sea Ocean Waves Trade Winds The Sargasso Sea The Seven Seas Cape Horn The Cape Horners On the Spanish Main Prize Money First Rate Of Knots and Logs Scurvy Deep-Sea Diving Sea Chanties 8. The Captain and His Ship Ship Types The Age of Sail The Clipper Ships The Windjammers Christopher Columbus Lord Anson Captain James Cook John Paul Jones Lord Nelson 9. A Murmuring of Men The Batavia Wreck and Mutiny HMS Bounty Mutiny HMS Hermione Mutiny Spithead and the Nore Mutiny The Press Gang 10. Big Ships and Battles RMS Titanic HMS Ark Royal RMS Queen Mary HMS Dreadnought The Spanish Armada The Battle of Copenhagen The Battle of Jutland The Sinking of HMAS Sydney 11. Death and Disaster USS Scorpion HMS Royal George The Gilt Dragon HMS Birkenhead RMS Lusitania SS Waratah The Whaler Essex The William Brown Wrecker’s Coast 12. Navigable Waters The Amazon River The Panama Canal The Suez Canal 13. Castaways and Survivors Robinson Crusoe Icebound by North Poon Lim Herbert Kabat John Caldwell Tropic Island Hell 14. At Odds with the Law Pirates Buccaneers Earrings for Cutthroats Henry Every William Kidd Edward Teach (“Blackbeard”) Anne Bonny Mary Read 15. Sea Fancies Mermaids Sirens The Lorelei Selkies Halcyon Days King Canute 16. Myth and Mystery Fabled Atlantis The Bermuda Triangle The Flannan Isles The Flying Dutchman The Mary Celeste The Schooner Jenny USS Cyclops 17. Sea Monsters Monster Caddie Captain M’Quhae’s Monster Haiphong Monster Monster Kraken Loch Ness Monster Rattray Head Monster Cape Cod Monster Cape São Roque Monster Halifax Monster Whaler Daphne’s Monster Nahant Beach Monster Jonah and the Whale Orcs, Whales, and Leviathan The Bunyip of the Billabongs 18. Wraiths of the Sea Capes of Virginia Phantom Gulf of Saint Lawrence Ghost Ship Long Island Sound Ghost Ship New Haven Ghost Ship Ghosts of Dead Men The Vikings of Solway Firth Phantom Pilots 19. Superstition and Belief Launching a Ship Coin Under the Mast Ships’ Names Ships’ Figureheads Departures The Eyes of Her Guiding Star The Lodestone Unlucky Ships Women Aboard Ship Whistling Aboard Ship Ringing Glass Aboard Ship Sharks Astern Ship’s Cat Coffins Aboard Ship Flowers Aboard Ship Flags, Bags, Bells, and Rags Umbrellas Aboard Ship The Albatross Our Flat Earth Saint Elmo’s Fire Priests Aboard Ship Ebb Tide Wren’s Feather Death by Drowning Davy Jones’s Locker Fiddler’s Green Sources and Notes Select Bibliography Index