Below, our own Karl Bell, Associate Professor in Cultural and Social History, writes about his exciting new book on the supernatural legends associated with the seafarers of the Atlantic Ocean. Karl’s research specialises in supernatural and environmental history, the history of beliefs and mentalities, folklore, and Victorian popular culture, on which he has published extensively. The modules Karl teaches at Portsmouth include a third-year special subject on Magic and Modernity, a new second-year option on The Age of Crisis and Victorian Enchantments for the MA in Victorian Gothic: History, Literature and Culture.
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My new book, The Perilous Deep – A Supernatural History of the Atlantic (Reaktion Books) offers a different take on our more heroic sense of maritime history. Rather than bold explorers or daring naval battles, this book examines how the Atlantic Ocean made ordinary seafarers feel and the supernatural stories they told to express those feelings. As is often the case with those who work in dangerous or unpredictable environments, seafarers were renowned for being a superstitious bunch.
Through an exploration of maritime gods and demons, magic and omens, mermaids, selkies and sea monsters, ghosts and phantom ships, and mysterious islands and underwater worlds, the Atlantic is revealed as a place where fear and enchantment were churned together.
Aware that previous books of maritime folklore have often been little more than gathered snippets of nautical lore, I set out to explore how certain supernatural figures, creatures, or tales evolved over time, and how and why those stories were transmitted on ships and ashore. Rather than just a collection of tales, The Perilous Deep reflects on the cultural purpose of storytelling, for seafarers, their loved ones back home, and for landlubbers who liked to present the ’Sons of Neptune’ as a strange and separate seaborne tribe.
While charting these longer cultural histories, the book’s main chronological focus is on the mid-eighteenth- to the mid-twentieth century. This important transitional period, from the age of sail to the age of steam and diesel, supposedly caused older beliefs to fade in the wake of modern maritime technology. Yet, as the book shows, the supernatural was both more tenacious and adaptive than critics suggested. It did not take long before ghosts were supposedly haunting steamships or submarines, while tales of sea serpent sightings became a popular press story through to the early twentieth century.
Captain Hendrick Van der Decken of the Flying Dutchman 19th century etching.
One of the biggest challenges of writing the book was to make it engaging for a broader readership beyond fellow scholars. Given the current fascination with folklore, storytelling, and our relationship with the oceanic environment, the publisher was keen for a scholarly book that was also accessible and entertaining. For a project that had its origins during Covid, it has felt like a long voyage. I hope its cargo of ideas encourage maritime folklore and ‘superstition’ to be brought in from the historical margins, to prompt a re-evaluation of its importance in the cultural history of seafaring and sea fearing.
The Perilous Deep – A Supernatural History of the Atlantic is available from Reaktion Books and all good bookshops.
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