Mother Carey And Her Chickens

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Title:     Mother Carey And Her Chickens
Author: Benjamin Taylor [More Titles by Taylor]

Who was Mother Carey the appearance of whose 'chickens' is supposed by the mariner to foretell a coming storm? This question is often asked, but seldom answered, and so a little light on the subject is desirable.

Charles Kingsley gives a very vivid picture of her. In his charming book about The Water-Babies, he tells how little Tom, in search of his old master, Grimes, is instructed to find his way to Peacepool and Mother Carey's Haven, where the good whales go when they die. On his way he meets a flock of petrels, who invite him to go with them, saying: 'We are Mother Carey's own chickens, and she sends us out over all the seas to show the good birds the way home.' So he comes to Peacepool at last, which is miles and miles across; and there the air is clear and transparent, and the water calm and lovely; and there the good whales rest in happy sleep upon the slumbering sea.

In the midst of Peacepool was one large peaked iceberg. 'When Tom came near it, it took the form of the grandest old lady he had ever seen--a white marble lady, sitting on a white marble throne. And from the foot of the throne there swam away, out and in, and into the sea, millions of new-born creatures, of more shapes and colours than man ever dreamed. And they were Mother Carey's chickens, whom she makes out of the sea-water all the day long.'

Now, this beautiful fancy of Kingsley's--and how beautiful it is can only be realized by a reading of the whole story--is based upon fact, as all beautiful fancies must be.

The fundamental idea of Kingsley's picture is that of a fruitful and beneficent mother. And Mother Carey is just the Mater Cara of the medieval sailors. Our Mother Carey's chickens are the 'Birds of the Holy Virgin,' of the South of Europe, the 'Oiseaux de Notre Dame' of the French seamen.

One reason for associating the petrel with the Holy Mother may possibly have been found in its supposed sleeplessness. The bird was believed never to rest, to hatch its eggs under its wings, and to be incessantly flying to and fro on the face of the waters on messages of warning to mariners. Even to this day sailors believe that the albatross, the aristocratic relative of the petrel, sleeps on the wing; and the power of the albatross, for good and evil, readers of the Ancient Mariner will remember. We say for good and evil, because opinion fluctuated. Thus:

'At length did cross an albatross,
Through the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.'

When the mariner with his crossbow did shoot the albatross, the crew said:

'I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work them woe;
For all averred I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
"Ah, wretch!" said they, "the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!"'

And once more, when the weather cleared, they changed:

'Then all averred I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist;
"'Twas right," said they, "such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist!"'

Coleridge got his idea from Wordsworth, who got it from a passage in Shelvocke's voyages, where a long spell of bad weather was attributed to an albatross following the ship.

The poet who sang,

'Oh, stormy, stormy peterel!
Thou art a bird of woe,
Yet would I thou could'st tell me half
Of the misery thou dost know!'

has, however, misunderstood the feeling with which that little harbinger is regarded. So have many other persons. The petrel is not a bird of woe, but a bird of warning.

The Virgin Mary--Mater Cara--was the special protectress of the early Christian seamen, just as Amphitrite had been the tutelary genius of his Greek, and Venus of his Roman, progenitors, and just as Isis, the moon goddess, had been the patroness of the Egyptian navigators. The Catholic mariner still believes that the Virgin has especial power over the winds and the sea.

At Marseilles is the shrine of the Notre Dame de la Garde, greatly venerated by all the Provencal sailors; at Caen is the shrine of Notre Dame de Deliverance; at Havre, that of Notre Dame des Neiges. Brand tells, in his book of Antiquities, that on Good Friday Catholic mariners 'cock-bill' their yards in mourning and hang and scourge an effigy of Judas Iscariot. The practice still continues, and as recently as 1881 a London newspaper contained an account of the ceremony performed on board several Portuguese vessels in the London Docks. The proceedings always closed with a Hymn to the Virgin Mary.

In Rome, at the Church of Santa Maria della Navicella, there is a small marble ship which was offered by Pope Leo the Tenth in execution of a vow after his escape from shipwreck. The first thing done by Magellan and his crew after their safe return to Seville was to perform penance barefooted, clad only in their shirts, and bearing lighted tapers in their hands, at the shrine of Our Lady of Victory. And it is related of Columbus, that on safe arrival after a storm at the Azores, 'The Admiral and all the crew, bearing in remembrance the vow which they had made the Thursday before, to go barefooted, and in their shirts, to some church of Our Lady at the first land, were of opinion that they ought to discharge this vow. They accordingly landed, and proceeded, according to their vow, barefooted, and in their shirts, toward the hermitage.'

Countless instances might be cited, but these will suffice to show the estimation in which Mater Cara was held by Catholic seamen.

How it came to be supposed that the smaller Procellariae are only visible before a storm is not very apparent. In point of fact, there is no more reason for associating the petrel specially with storms than there is for the belief expressed in the old Scotch couplet quoted in the last chapter:

'Seagull, seagull, sit in the sand;
It's never good weather when you're on the land!'

As a matter of fact, seagulls do fly far inland in fine weather, and especially during ploughing-time. And also, as a matter of fact, the petrel lives at sea both in fine weather and foul, because he is uncomfortable on land. It is only the breeding season that he spends on shore; while the seagull is just as much at home on the land as on the sea.

The scientific name of the petrel tribe is Procellariae, from the Latin procella--a storm. It is a large family, all the members of which are distinguished by a peculiar tube-like arrangement of the nostrils. Their feet, also, are peculiar in being without any back toe, so that they can only with great difficulty rise on the wing from dry land.

Mother Carey's chickens are among the smaller species of this family, and they have both a shorter bill and a longer leg than their relatives. But all the Procellariae are noted for ranging further from land than any other of the sea-birds. Thus they are often visible from ship-board when no other animal life can be sighted; and thus it was, doubtless, that their appearance suggested safe harbour, and consequent thanks to Mater Cara, to the devout seaman.

Why the petrels are associated with storms is thus not easily explained, seeing that they are abroad in all weathers; but a feasible suggestion was advanced by Pennant. It is that they gather from the water sea-animals which are most abundant before or after a storm, when the sea is in a state of unusual commotion. All birds are highly sensitive to atmospheric changes, and all sea-birds seem to develop extra activity in threatening and 'dirty' weather.

There is another interesting thing about Mother Carey's chicken, and that is, that he is also called petrel, from the Italian 'Petrello,' or Little Peter. This is because he is supposed to be able, like the apostle, to walk on the water, and as in fact he does after a fashion, with the aid of his wings.

Now, St. Peter, both as a fisherman and for his sea-walking, was always a favourite saint with sailors, and was often invoked during storms. He was the patron saint of Cortez, as he was also of the Thames watermen. There is an old legend that St. Peter went on board a fisherman's boat somewhere about the Nore, and that it carried him, without sails or oars, to the very spot which he selected as the site for Westminster Abbey.

In the Russian ports of the Baltic there is firm belief in a species of water-spirits called Rusalkas, who raise storms and cause much damage to the shipping. The great anniversary of these storm-spirits is St. Peter's Day. The John Dory is St. Peter's fish, and it is said that the spots on each side of its mouth are the marks of the apostle's thumb and forefinger. It was called 'janitore,' or doorkeeper, because in its mouth was found the penny with which the temple-tax was paid. Now, St. Peter also was the doorkeeper of heaven, and from janitore to John Dory was an easy transition.

With fishermen, as was natural, St. Peter was held in high honour; and in Cornwall and Yorkshire, until recently, it was customary to light bonfires, and to hold other ceremonies, on St. Peter's Day, to signalize the opening of the fishing season, and to bespeak luck. An old writer says of these customs at Guisboro', in Yorkshire, that:

'The fishermen, on St. Peter's daye, invited their friends and kinfolk to a festivall kept after their fashion, with a free hearte, and no show of niggardnesse. That day their boats are dressed curiously for the showe, their masts are painted, and certain rytes observed amongst them with sprinkling their bows with good liquor, which custome or superstition, sucked from their ancestors, even continueth down unto this present tyme.'

Perhaps at 'this present tyme' the ceremonies are not so elaborate; but survivals of the 'custome or superstition' are to be found yet in our fishing villages.

It is probable that the observers of St. Peter's Day do not know the origin of their curious customs. It is certain that sailors, as a class, do not now know why their favourite little bird is called petrel. We have tried to remove the stigma which in modern times has come to rest upon Mother Carey's chickens. Let us no longer do them wrong by supposing that they are always the harbingers of woe. They have a busy and a useful life, and it is one, as we have seen, with tender, even sacred, associations.

It may be recalled as an interesting, although not an agreeable item, that in the days of the French Revolution there was a notorious brood of Mother Carey's chickens in Paris. They were the female rag-tag-and-bobtail of the city, whose appearance in the streets was understood to forebode a fresh political tumult. What an insult to our feathered friends to bestow their honoured name on such human fiends!

The real Mother Carey is she who appeared to Tom and Ella in Peacepool, after they had learned a few things about themselves and the world. They heard her voice calling to them, and they looked, crying:

'"Oh, who are you, after all? You are our dear Mrs. Do-as-you-would-be-done-by."

'"No, you are good Mrs. Be-done-by-as-you-did; but you are grown quite beautiful now!"

'"To you," said the Fairy; "but look again."

'"You are Mother Carey," said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice, for he had found out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened him more than all that he had ever seen.

'"But you are grown quite young again."

'"To you," said the Fairy; "but look again."

'"You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!"

'And when they looked again she was neither of them, and yet all of them at once.

'"My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there."

'And they looked into her great, deep soft eyes, and they changed again and again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond.

'"Now read my name," said she at last, and her eyes flashed for one moment, clear, white, blazing light; but the children could not read her name, for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in their hands.

'They were only water-babies, and just beginning to learn the meaning of love.'

[The end]
Benjamin Taylor's essay: Mother Carey And Her Chickens

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