19733-1 (Water World as Another Home for the English Nation Reflected in the English Folklore), страница 4

Nautical customs

The seas will always be potentially dangerous for those who choose to sail them and most seafarers tried hard to avoid incurring the wrath of Davy Jones – they once were sometimes reluctant even to save drowning comrades lest they deprive the deep of a victim which would serve as a propitiatory sacrifice though the dilemma could be resolved by throwing the drowning man a rope or spar. This was a much less personal intervention than actually landing a hand or diving in to help and therefore less risky.

Various shipboard ceremonies were observed and maintained religiously: at Christmas a tree would be lashed to the top of the mast (the custom is still followed, and on ships lacking a mast the tree is tied to the railings on the highest deck). At midnight as New Year’s Eve becomes New Year’s Day the ship’s bell is rung eight times for the old year and eight times for the new – midnight on a ship is normally eight bells – the oldest member of the crew giving the first eight rings, the youngest the second.

“Burying the Dead Horse” was a ceremony which was continued in merchant ships until late in the nineteenth century, and kept up most recently in vessels on the Australian run. The horse was a symbol for the month’s pay advanced on shore (and usually spent before sailing); after twenty-eight days at sea the advance was worked out. The horse’s body was made from a barrel, its legs from hay, straw or shavings covered with canvas, and the main and tail of hemp. The animal was hoisted to the main yardarm and set on fire. It was allowed to blase for a short time and was then cut loose and dropped into the sea. Musical accompaniment was provided by the shanty “Poor Old Horse”:

Now he is dead and will die no more,

And we say so, for we know so.

It makes his ribs feel very sore,

Oh, poor old man.

He is gone and will go no more,

And we say so, for we know so.

So goodbye, old horse,

We say goodbye.

On sailing ships collective work at the capstan, windlass, pumps and halliards was often accompanied by particular songs known as shanties.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries big, full-rigged vessels were bringing cargoes of nitrate, guano and saltpetre to Britain to South America ports. When a ship was loaded and ready to sail round Cape Horn and home, the carpenter would make a large wooden cross to which red and white lights were fixed in the shape of the constellation known as the Southern Cross. As this was hoisted to the head of the mainmast, the crew would sing the shanty “Hurrah, my boys, we’re homeward bound”, and then the crew of every ship in harbour took turns to cheer the departing vessel.

Seafarers crossing the equator for the first time – and sometimes the tropics of the polar circles – are often put through a sort of baptism or initiation ceremony. The earliest recorded reference to such a ritual dates back to 1529 on a French ship, but by the end of the following century English vessels were involved in the same custom, which continues to this day in both Royal Navy and merchant service.

One of the crew appears as Neptune, complete with crown, trident and luxuriant beard; others represent Queen Amphitrite, a barber, a surgeon and various nymphs and bears. Neptune holds court by the side of a large canvas bath full of sea - water, and any on board who have not previously crossed “the Line” are ceremonially shaved with huge wooden razors, then thoroughly ducked. Finally, the victim is given a certificate which protects him from the same ordeal on ane future occasion. Even passengers are put through a modified form of the proceedings, though women are given a still softer version of the treatment.

When a naval captain leaves his ship he can expect a ritual farewell. Even Prince Charles was unable to escape when in 1976 he relinquished command of the minesweeper, HMS “Bronington”; he was seized by white – coated doctors (his officers), placed in a wheelchair and “invalided out” to the cheers of his crew members who held up a banner inscribed: “Command has aged me”.

Other marines departed in a less jovial manner. When a man died at sea his body would be sewn into canvas, weighted, and committed to the deep. The sailmaker was responsible for making the shroud, and would always put the last stitch through the corpse’s nose, ensuring that there was no sign of life and that the body remained attached to the weighted canvas. This practise was followed at least until the 1960s, the sailmaker receiving a bottle of rum for his work. Nowadays the bodies are seldom buried at sea but are refrigerated and brought back to land. However, those consigning a body in this way still receive the traditional bottle of rum for their trouble.

CHAPTER 3

We have had a look at some samples of well and carefully preserved British folklore that relates about the British “waterworld”. But the question of our time no less important is whether the people with such an affection for their land try to preserve it from the harm that may cause our age of highly developed machines, ships, tunkers, etc.

Britain’s marine, coastal and inland waters are generally clean: some 95% of rivers, streams and canals are of good or fair quality, a much higher figure than in most other European countries. However their cleanliness cannot be taken for granted, and so continuing steps are being taken to deal with remaining threats. Discharges to water from the most potentially harmful processes are progressively becoming subject to authorisation under IPC.

Government regulations for a new system of classifying water in England and Wales came into force in May 1994. This system will provide the basis for setting statutory water quality objectives (SWQO), initially on a trial basis in a small number of catchment areas where their effectiveness can be assessed. The objectives, which will be phased in gradually, will specify for each individual stretch of water the standards that should be reached and the target date for achieving them. The system of SWQOs will provide the framework to set discharge consents. Once objectives are set, the enterprises will be under a duty to ensure that they are met.

There have been important developments in controlling the sea disposal of wastes in recent years. The incineration of wastes at sea was halted in 1990 and the dumping of industrial waste ended in 1992. In February 1994 the Government announced British acceptance of an internationally agreed ban on the dumping of low- and intermediate – level wastes was already banned. Britain had not in fact dumped any radioactive waste at sea for some years preveously. Britain is committed to phasing out the dumping of sewage sludge at sea by the end of 1998. Thereafter only dredged material from ports, harbours and the like will routinely be approved for sea disposal.

Proposals for decommissioning Britain’s 200 offshore installations are decided on a case – by – case basis, looking for the best practicable environmental option and observing very rigorous international agreements and guidelines.

Although not a major source of water pollution incidents, farms can represent a problem. Many pollution incidents result from silage effluent or slurry leaking and entering watercourses; undiluted farm slurry can be up to 100 times, more polluting than raw domestic sewage. Regulations set minimum construction standards for new or substantially altered farm waste handling facilities. Farmers are required to improve existing installations where there is a significant risk of pollution. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food publishes a “Code of Good Agricultural Practice for the Protection of Water”. This gives farmers guidance on, among other things, the planning and management of the disposal of their farm wastes. The Ministry also has L2 million research and development programme to examine problems of farm waste and to minimise pollution.

Britain is a signatory to the 1992 North East Atlantic Convention, which tackles pollution from land – based sources, offshore installations and dumping. It also provides for monitoring and assessment of the quality of water in the convention’s area. In order to minimise the environmental effects of offshore oil and gas operations, special conditions designed to protect the environment -–set in consultation with environmental interests – are included in licences for oil and gas exploration.

Pollution from ships is controlled under international agreements, which cover matters such as oil discharges and disposal of garbage. British laws implementing such agreements are binding not only on all ships in British waters, but also on British ships all over the world. The Marine Pollution Control Unit (MPCU), part of the Coastguard Agency, is responsible for dealing with spillage of oil or other substances from ships in sea.

So great care is being taken to manage to preserve all that precious that Britain has. Keeping the waters in a good conditions would help to keep the traditions connected with it as well, and to pass them on to other generations.

There is no other way to understanding people, their character, past and present but through its linguistic and cultural inheritance. If a person is determined to get a closer acquaintance with the inner world of the French, Italian or English, he should study their language and culture, because only through this he can really get in touch with a strange nation. Finding out some facts, materials on this or that country he would no more than get informed, develop his intellectual abilities and that of the rational memory. But linguistic and cultural education inspires imaginative thinking, influences his emotions and forms his taste. Linguistic materials, and the national folklore is certainly an important part of it, are inseparable from the language: the language itself plays the part of the informational source of the national history and culture.

So in this work we showed the essential role of the English folklore relating about the water world of the country in the development of the English language, forming of the national identity and character and its close connection with the British history.

Список литературы

Dorothy Whitelock “The Beginnings of English Society”, Penguin 1977

Roy Palmer “Britain’s Living Folklore”, Oxford 1986

A.R.Myers “England in the Late Middle Ages”, Penguin 1980

Верещагин Е.Г., Костомаров В.К. «Язык и культура». Москва, 1983.

Dictionary of the British Mythology, Oxford 1990

“British Cultural Identities”, 1993