Lore 301: Lost at Sea

The woman had been dead for three whole days. As per tradition, during those three days her body had lain undisturbed in the bed where she had died. Her name was not spoken. The corn crib where essential food was stored was not opened, while cold ashes from the fireplace, a symbol of death itself, were sprinkled around the corpse. All tactics to help the woman's spirit cross into the afterlife. Which was important, not just for the sake of the dead woman herself, but for the whole community as well. That is the Kataba Indian nation of the Carolinas. No should the disease spirit linger longer, it might just turn around and infect the living. Like so many funerary rituals throughout the world, the Kataba's ancient traditions melded spirituality, practicality, superstition, and mourning. But there's something that makes their practice different than the rest. Because once the ceremonies were complete, the Kataba people had a way of knowing exactly whether or not the ritual had worked. And all it took was a small bowl of water. You see, on the third day, a little water filled dish would be placed by the deceased's head. They would wait. Wait for what exactly? Well the idea was that eventually the spirit would get thirsty and come back to take a sip. When they did, the water would ripple, and the diviners would read the patterns in those ripples to determine exactly where in the afterlife the spirit was residing. Water is everywhere. For a planet covered 70% in the stuff, it makes sense that it would be used in everything from baking bread and water parks to actual divination. And if just a tiny dishful can give us insight into the world of the dead, then what about an entire ocean? I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is lore. There are countless ways to die, at sea. In rainstorms and tempests, beneath giant waves or between the gnashing teeth of sharks. According to the National Geographic, over 80% of the ocean has never been mapped, explored, or even been seen by humans. And when it comes to the actual floor of the deep ocean, we've only poked around in 2.001% of it. Heck with 2,000 new species of sea creatures accepted by the scientific community each year, it's no exaggeration to say that we really have no idea what is down there. At the end of the day, the seas are vast and monstrous. In comparison to that vastness, we, as humans, are very, very small. Still, since the earliest days of humanity, we have insisted on fleeing ourselves out into the waters on tiny, fragile ships, and basically hoping for the best. So when people tell you that sailors are, and always have been, deeply superstitious individuals, it's easy to see why. Now because sailors traverse the entire world, many of those superstitions transcended cultures and were adopted by semen of many nationalities, meaning it's often hard to pin down exactly where each bit of sailing lore started. Like for example, the fact that Greek, Roman, Hindu, and Welsh sailors alike all insist that every 9th wave is extra powerful and deadly. Who came up with it? No idea. Think of this like a maritime law. Once you're at sea, borders tend to melt away with the tides. Now for sailors, there are two things they need to worry about more than anything else. Good luck and bad luck. And watch out because there are a stressful number of ways that you could accidentally curse your ship and cast bad luck onto an entire voyage. Perhaps the most famous way to incur bad luck is by bringing what's known as a Jonah on board. A Jonah, named for the biblical figure of the swallowed by a fish fame, is sailing lingo for an unlucky person. And what makes that person unlucky? Well throughout history, simply being a woman, a redhead, or a priest has been enough to get you banned from boats worldwide. So considering changing the name of your ship, well, think again, that's one super bad luck. Apparently Poseidon has a little ledger with every ship's name in it, and if you change that name, he might think that you're trying to outsmart him and decide to punish you instead. Now sure, sometimes a ship is sold or recommissioned and does in fact need a name change. Well don't worry, there are ways to avoid ticking Poseidon off. Just remove everything bearing the ship's old name, documentation, life belts, the whole shebang. Next write that old name on a piece of paper, burn it, and toss the ashes into the sea. Lastly, call upon the big guy himself, Poseidon, to inform him of the change. And speaking of, well speaking, there are a whole gaggle of words and phrases considered unlucky to say aloud while aboard a ship. And some of these are obvious ones like drowned goodbye and the number 13. But some are left fielders too. Like you'll get in big trouble for saying the word pig. Yes, pig, the animal. To avoid it, sailors would use euphemisms like curly tail, little fella, and my personal favorites, Mr. Dennis. And note to listeners, if any of you happen to have a pig in need of a name, might I recommend calling them Mr. Dennis. Just a fun, free idea. Oh, and by the way, if someone does accidentally speak one of the forbidden words, don't panic, the bad luck can be reversed by drawing blood, usually by straight up punching the speaker in the face. And one other forbidden word by the way is banana, referred to instead as, and I quote, that curved yellow fruit. And look, this particular fear may seem, well bananas, but there's actually a historical reason behind it. You see, sailing with bananas as your cargo was once genuinely dangerous. Since they spoiled quickly, to successfully deliver a load of bananas before they went to rot, ships would have to sail fast and take risks. And thus, banana boats tended to have more accidents than others. And as folklore tends to do, a genuine hazard warped into an abstract superstition. The practical origins were forgotten, and merely a fear of bananas remained. Today, modern fishermen often refuse to sail with bananas on board, believing that they won't catch any fish if one is present. But hey, that's enough doom and gloom, so what about good luck? Well, for those of you who like to arrive at the airport four hours before a flight, this one's for you. Because it turns out that you can start raking in good luck so early, the ship doesn't even have to exist yet. When it's being built, simply place a coin under the mast to ensure profitable voyages. Meanwhile, if the ship goes down, the coin doubles as payment for the ferryman, taking lost sailors to the afterlife. Now it might be bad luck to say the word pig, but it's good luck to have one tattooed on your ankle. Rooster tattoos are also good luck. The idea was that if you went overboard, God would take pity on those land animals and help them, and you by proxy, find the shore. While everyone knows that seeing a mermaid swimming beside a ship means eminent doom, seeing a dolphin only boats well. It's also lucky to see a bee on board, unless you're allergic to bees, I suppose. And of course, let's not forget the value of a good old-fashioned lucky charm. Sailors used to carry all sorts of tokens and talismans to ensure their safety. They would stuff their pockets with pieces of coral, with rend feathers, especially if that rend was killed on New Year's Day, and best of all, with a call. Yes, that membrane that some infants are born with often linked to second sight. Now, sure, it sounds a lot easier to get your hands on some coral than a newborns fresh call. But if you happen to be a sailor in the 17th or 18th century in England, all you had to do was buy one. One newspaper from the time advertised, and I quote, to persons going to see a child's call in a perfect state-sold cheap. In coins and code words to tattoos and talismans, sailors have tried just about everything to keep themselves out of Davy Jones' locker. But sometimes, no matter what you do, the sea simply demands a sacrifice. It wasn't the first of its kind to go missing. No less than a year prior, a ship called the Dunedin had been sailing from New Zealand to London when it up and vanished along with its crew. And now, the tragedy seemed to be repeating itself. The latest casualty, a ship called the Marbara, which had not only been traveling along the same route as the Dunedin, but was built at the very same Scottish shipyard. Also like the Dunedin, the Marbara was a refrigerated ship designed for transporting frozen meat, sheep meat specifically, which was kind of a big deal given that this was the year 1890. Floating refrigeration was high-tech stuff. Yes, these were state-of-the-art sailing vessels with all the modern bells and whistles. They were big, they were advanced, and they were fast. In short, they should not have been disappearing so easily. While the trip between New Zealand and London usually took 100 days or more, the Marbara once did it in only 71, and it was no stranger to that route in general. By 1890, it had already made the same trip 13 times. And I can't help but wonder if one of the crew made the mistake of celebrating this achievement out loud, of saying that forbidden word, 13, because it would have been in the midst of its very next trip that the Marbara would disappear into thin air. It was last seen in January, only two days after leaving ports in Littleton, New Zealand, but by mid-May it was clear something had gone wrong. Remember even a slower ship would have needed only 100 days to sail from port to port. By May it was at least a month late, if not two, and everyone back home knew what that meant. The Marbara must have plunged beneath the waves, dragging her 30-person crew down with her. At least that's what people assumed had happened. Then the rumors started. First, sailors began claiming to have seen men signaling from good success bay in Tiara Del Fuego. Given that this was close to the route, speculation circulated that it could be the survivors from the Marbara, or even the Dunedin, crying out for help, but when a British naval ship went out to investigate, no trace of them was found. Then, in 1913, 23 years after the disappearance, mind you, an incredible story began circulating in the newspapers. Or should I say, stories, because there were nearly as many versions of the tale as there were publications. Regardless, they all began the same way. It had been June of 1890 when a ship was wrecked in Tiara Del Fuego, captain by a guy named Berly. Just a month after the Marbara had officially been declared lost at sea. Hoping to flag down a whaling ship, captain Berly and some of his crewmates wandered down to good success bay. But they didn't find the rescue they hoped for. No, instead, they came across a scene straight out of a nightmare. First, another wrecked ship appeared on the horizon, washed up on the beach. Or, depending on the newspaper, a rowboat that had clearly come from a larger ship. In either case, a very telling word was emblazoned clearly on the side. That's right, the name Marbara. At far off, Berly spotted a cluster of tents, and drawing near them he was horrified to discover that the tents were occupied by skeletons. Yeah, unsurprisingly, readers had a blast with this spooky story, and not long after captain Berly's account hit the press, another tale began to make the rounds as well. In this second report, allegedly came from a British ship that had been sailing that same little tin to London route. It was a weirdly wild evening, the report began, with the red orb of the sun setting on the horizon. The stillness was uncanny. This report went on to say that in the orange glow, the crew spotted a strange ship about a mile away. But something wasn't right. Only scraps of canvas remained where there should have been billowing sails, and when the British ship tried to signal it, they received no response. Looking through their binoculars, they could see no movement on the ship. Only a sickly green rot coating the masts. And finally, close enough to board, the first mate stealed his courage, recruited a small group of his comrades, and climbed onto the ghost ship. And of course, what did they see first but a skeleton, lined by the ship's wheel. But the bony bash didn't end there. Careful not to break through the rotten decks they tipped toad through the ship, finding three more skeletons in the hatch way. Ten in the mess room, and another six on the bridge. Yet he corpses in total, doomed to forever more sail the open seas. And finally, leaning over the bow, the first mate was able to make out faint lettering, spelling out the ship's name. It said none other than the Marboro. And look, are any of these sighting tales actually true? Probably not. Heck, when it came to Captain Burley's story, while it was true that he did crash in Tierra del Fuego, that actually happened in 1888, two years before the Marboro's final voyage. And as for the skeletons on the floating ship, well, it seems like the tabloids saw how well Burley's story sold and decided to whip up a version of their own. Almost a quarter century after its sinking, the Marboro wreck was suddenly invoked. In all likelihood, the ship that saw the Marboro two days after it first left New Zealand was the actual last sighting. But then again, Captain Burley's ever-changing story might have some truth to it, just not in the way that you think. In fact, it involves another shipwreck altogether. You see, in 1883, a ship called the Eat-Key-K vanished off Cape Horn. It's not impossible that the wreck might have ended up washing ashore in good success bay, where Captain Burley might have come across it and mistaken it for the Marboro. And I know the whole point of Burley's story was that the name of the ship was written right there on the side of the boat. But here's the thing, the Eat-Key wasn't always called Eat-Key. As we all know, Poseidon hates a name change, especially if you forget to remove the old name from, say, a lifeboat that may or may not have washed up on shore. And the Eat-Key's old name? Oh, I think you already know that. It was called the Marboro. A name is a powerful thing. To know a name can grant you freedom, as the princess from Rumpel Stiltskin can attest. To speak a name allowed can summon a devil, as the maintenance learned the hard way after saying Beetlejuice won too many times. To change your name can anger a seagod, as the Eat-Key may have done. Then there are the names that become nothing short of a self-fulfilling prophecy, which was exactly the fate of one British naval ship called the HMS Guariddice. First launched on May 16th of 1843, this 140-foot-long wooden frigate served everywhere, from North America and the West Indies all the way down to South Africa. Eventually though, it retired from seafaring to become a training ship on which countless British Navy men literally learned the ropes. And she might have gone on like that too, teaching into her old age while rocking softly in the harbor of her native portsmith England, if not for that darn name. In Greek mythology you see, the character of Euridice was killed by a poisonous viper and sucked down into the world of the dead. Desperate to save her, Euridice's husband Orpheus descended to Hades and almost rescued her, only to fail in the final moments with the exit to the underworld well within sight. And just like the Euridice of the old tales, the HMS Euridice would also perish within sight of land, and to find herself trapped between the world of the living and the dead. But back to portsmith, after years as a teaching tool, the ship was eventually recommissioned and sent back out to sea. All appeared to be going well until March 24th of 1878. For it was then, just as Euridice had nearly completed a journey back from the West Indies and was within sight of the English channel that she finally reenacted the Greek myth for which she was named. I'll let someone who was actually there describe what happened. This witness by the way was a three and a half year old boy gazing down from the cliffs, and to him, the disaster looked almost like a magic trick. Years later, this is what he wrote. We saw a great splendid ship with all her sails set, passing the shore only a mile or two away. Then all of a sudden there were black clouds and wind, and the first drops of a storm, and we just scrambled home without getting wet through. The next time I went out on those cliffs there was no splendid ship in full sail, but three black masts were pointed out to me, sticking out of the water in a stark way. She was the Euridice. And if you're imagining Joe Bluth's disappearing yacht trick from a rest of development, you basically have the idea. At least that's how it looked from the shore. For those aboard the ship, it was a different experience entirely though. First, they would have felt the weather change. It was late March and a winter storm blew in out of nowhere. Wind and heavy clouds swirled around the vessel, snow blotted out the world, and although the captain gave the orders to lower the sails, the storm was just too strong for them to do so. And suddenly, the ship flipped over. As she sank beneath eleven fathoms of icy black water, she sucked the crew down with her. There were over 300 men on board the ship that day, and only two would live to tell the tale. One of them, Benjamin Cutford, was 35 years old. The other, Sydney Fletcher, was only 19. And if only they had known the danger in advance, maybe more lives could have been saved, but predicting a freak shipwreck, that's impossible. At least, it should be. It was earlier that same day, March 24, and Sir John McNeil was dining with the Bishop of Ripon 70 miles away in Windsor, when McNeil was struck with a sudden vision. He saw a ship sailing into a snowstorm, its gun ports standing open. Unable to contain himself, he shouted right there at the dinner table, good heavens, why don't they close the port holes and reef the sails? Little did McNeil know that not only was the HMS Euridacy about to hit that snowstorm all those miles away, but the ship's gun ports had been left uncharacteristically open. On the very same day, Eleanor Beckett of Portsmouth suddenly heard the sound of footsteps outside her door, and was overcome with terror. According to the story, there are two versions of what happened next. And one, she opened the door to find no one there, but in the other, she flung the door open to find a ghostly figure standing before her, dripping with water. With horror, she realized the figure was her own brother. A brother that she would later learn had gone down on the HMS Euridacy. It's an incredible story, multiple people claiming to have foreseen the wreck before it happened. But like any good ghost story, the eariness doesn't end with the sinking itself. Oh no, ever since the disaster, witnesses have claimed to see the phantom frigate haunting the waters where it sank. In fact, as recently as 1998, Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, claimed to have seen the Euridacy while filming a documentary TV series. At the time it happened, Prince Edward was telling the story of the Euridacy when someone excitedly saw the very ship he was describing out at sea, fast approaching. They waited eagerly but it inexplicably vanished before reaching the shoreline. And by the way, the film crew claimed to have caught the whole thing on video, but the tape jammed in the machine when they tried to go back and watch it. Which, yeah, sounds a little bit too convenient if you ask me, but some sightings are a bit more difficult to dismiss. In 1934, for example, Commander Lipscomb was on the Royal Navy's submarine HMS Proteus, which was in the English Channel at Dunnose Point near the Isle of White. Lipscomb was on the conning tower of his boat when a warship appeared from nowhere and it was headed straight for him. Desperate to avoid a collision, he moved to change course only for the warship to vanish as if it had never been there at all. And the strangest part, it wasn't until much, much later that Lipscomb even heard the tale of the Euridacy's watery demise. The sea takes no prisoners. It is fickle and unfeeling with no compassion for the men and women afloat on its surface, little more than flecks of dust rolling on the expanse. There's something deeply frightening about such a huge and powerful entity carrying so little for us. Cosmic horror right here on Planet Earth, and what do humans do when we feel powerless is that we tell stories, we take the narrative back. The sinking of the HMS Euridacy marked the end of an era though. In fact it was the very last sale training ship ever used by the Royal Navy. Once that ship was gone, the age of sales gave way to iron clad and steam ships. It's as if the Euridacy's sinking dragged every other sail down with it, along with thousands of years of seafaring tradition. And it helps the ghost story make more sense. Countless sailors had dedicated their lives and their deaths to traveling by sale. And then suddenly, just as that technological chapter faded into history, here came a floating immortal symbol of the world as it had been. A ghost, not just of a ship, but of an entire way of life. In a very ironic way, it seems that telling tales of the sunken ship and its dead had become a way of keeping history alive. Oh and by the way, the Euridacy wasn't the only notable piece of history in this story. Because remember that three and a half year old boy, the one who watched the deadly sinking from a top of cliff? Well that fellow went on to leave a mark of his own on history. Because that boy you see was none other than Winston Churchill. I hope you've enjoyed today's literal deep dive into the watery abyss from shipwrecks to cursed bananas. Don't worry though, we've still got some wind in our sails. Because while hauntings at sea are one thing, what happens when the ocean creeps up onto dry land? I have one last story for you that answers just that. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. This episode was made possible by Simply Safe. If you're like me, you become desensitized to the flood of notifications on your phone every single day. But if that latest ping is from your security camera, ignoring it could spell disaster. Picture this, someone is breaking in but you're giving a huge presentation at work, at the movies or on a flight at 30,000 feet. You'll see the footage in a couple of hours but by then it's too late. That's why I choose Simply Safe. Simply Safe is a customizable whole home security system backed by 24-7 monitoring agents. I can rely on to act even when I can't. 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Optional services and products may have fees or charges. See Chime.com slash fees info. Advertised annual percentage yield with Chime Plus status only. Otherwise 1.00% APY applies. No mean balance required. Chime card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. Details and applicable terms. It was a cold October night when the sisters became stranded by the seaside. At least so claims a text written nearly a century ago reprinted verbatim in B.A. Botkins treasury of New England folklore. The story is called the Telltale Seaweed and was a ghost story in the oral tradition for who knows how long before being captured in writing. According to the tale, the two girls were motoring along the winding roads of Woods Hole Massachusetts in the wee hours of the night when their car broke down and refused to start up again. Maybe they were on their way home from a party or perhaps they were just out for a midnight drive. In any case, what they were now was stuck. These were the back roads of Cape Cod, mind you, totally deserted at that time of night and cell phones were about 100 years away from invention. No, their best bet would be to wait until morning when they might be able to wave down another driver and get a tow. In the meantime, the sisters decided to cut their losses and try to find somewhere to bed down for the night. As they walked along the wind swept road by the glow of a flashlight beam, they finally spotted a lone dark house against the horizon. This slanted up against the sky, sticking up like a rotten tooth from the frosted ground. Not exactly inviting, but what choice did they have? After banging on the door to no avail, it became clear the house was long abandoned, but luckily there was a broken window around the corner and climbing through, the girls found themselves in a vast, dilapidated library. Everything in there was covered in dust and orphaned books sagged on mildewing shells. It wasn't exactly the rifts, but at least the sisters were out of the cold. And so, exhausted, they curled up together on the floor and tried to drift off to sleep, which is when they heard the footsteps. Clutching one another's hands and silence, they could only watch and wonder as a human figure entered the room they were in. He stood at the empty hearth as if to warm himself by some non-existent fire, and there, glowing phantom-like in the moonlight, the sisters were able to make out his sailors uniform, which dripped with water as if he had walked right out of the sea. Now in true idiots in a horror movie fashion, one of the girls simply couldn't help herself from challenging the figure. She yelled at the defiant, who's there? But as soon as the words had left her lips, it was like a spell had been broken, and the sailor dissipated into smoke right before their eyes. Now surely they were seeing things. What other explanation was there really? They were exhausted after all, not to mention curled up on a creepy library floor in an even creepier abandoned house that they'd broken into in the middle of the night. Of course their imaginations were in overdrive, that's all it was, and so convincing them that they'd made the whole thing up, they eventually drifted back to sleep. Adon, they awoke to a sun-filled room. By day, it wasn't half a spooky in there as they'd remembered. A little worse for where, sure, but it was just a normal library. At least so they thought, until they looked to the fireplace, because they're on the ground before the hearth, stood a pool of water. Now look, I know what you're thinking. There must be a leak in the ceiling, or maybe one of the girls tracked it in with their boots, but the more the sisters examined this puddle of water, the more they realized that there were no cracks in the ceiling, no footprints in the surrounding dust. Stranger still, floating in the middle of that puddle, was what looked like a piece of seaweed. And when, ill-advised, I must say, one of the girls dipped a finger into the puddle and gave it a lick, she found that the water tasted of salt. There was no doubt at all. This puddle had come from the ocean. It was only much later, once the girls had scurried off and managed to get toad to a nearby town that they asked anyone about the house. Oh, sure, the locals told them, there are all sorts of stories about that place. Some say it's haunted by the family's son who drowned at sea. It was even said that the family abandoned the place because of the hauntings. Next we flash forward an entire year. The sisters were at a dinner party and they decided to entertain their fellow guests by telling their tale of the seafaring ghost, which is when one of the listeners cut in, my dear lady, he said, I happen to be the curator of a museum where they are doing a good deal of work on submarine vegetation. In your place, I would never have left the house without taking the bit of seaweed with To which one of the sisters smiled and said, of course you wouldn't, and neither did I. And then she explained how she had plucked the seaweed from the puddle before they had left, dried it and saved it away in an envelope. If I can find it, she asked the man, would you want to see it? Now if a girl at a party asks if you want to see some haunted seaweed and you say, nah, I'm good, well, I'm not sure what to tell you other than we have very little income in my friend. Only though the museum curator did say yes, and the very next day the sisters mailed him the sample. Within just a few days, he responded with a note of his own, you were right, it said, this is seaweed. Furthermore, it may interest you to learn that it is of a rare variety which, as far as we know, only grows undead bodies. This episode of lore was produced by me, Erin Manke, with writing by Jenner Rose Netherkatz, research by Cassandra De Alba and music by Chad Lawson. Just a reminder, I have a brand new history book coming out on August 4th called Exhumed, which explores the roots of the New England vampire panic through the lens of centuries of folklore, medical advancements, pseudoscience and philosophy. It's available for pre-order right now, and if you pre-order the hardcover, my publisher has a cool web page set up where you can submit your receipts and get a free, gorgeous tote bag. Head over to erinmanke.com slash Exhumed to lock in your copy today. The link is in the description. Don't like carrying ads on lore? Well there's a paid version on Apple podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad free. Subscribers also get weekly mini bonus episodes called lore bites, and Patreon members get discounts on lore merch. One more over at lorepodcast.com slash support. Follow the show on YouTube, Threads, Blue Sky and Instagram to search for lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.