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Most of us, even the veriest landsmen, must have heard of " Davy Jones Locker," though few could give it a "local habitation " as well as " a name." Almost all superstitious people-and certainly sailors as a body may be classed as such-have a great objection to telling their beliefs to those whom they think will not receive their communications in a sympathetic spirit ; hence it is often exceedingly difficult in most cases to arrive at all at a satisfactory conclusion, as, even after an explanation has been given, we find that what we were told was a mere putting off of the matter at issue, and their real
belief has all the time been concealed from us. The following explanation of the seaman's phrase we give for what it is worth, which in our humble opinion is not much. We are told that Jones is a corruption of Jonah the prophet, while deva or dufa amongst the natives of the West India islands is a spirit or ghost. The sailor's locker, we are all aware, is the one place on board where his private possessions are more or less safe, so that when we hear of an unfortunate having gone to Davy Jones's Locker, we may conclude that he is believed to have gone to some far-down place of safe-keeping in the Spirit-world, as Jonah, by inference, did. It is, however, a decidedly weak point in this explanation that Jonah, whatever may have been his experiences in the depths of the sea, soon exchanged his temporary "locker" for dry land again, and was no doubt ultimately gathered to his fathers in the bosom of mother-earth. Smollett, in his " Peregrine Pickle," ignores all reference to the faithless prophet, and, without seeking out the why or the wherefore of the name, goes, we think, very much more directly to the point when he writes-" This same Davy Jones, according to the mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is seen in various shapes, warning the devoted wretch of death and woe." Like the Irish Church and many other venerable institutions, Davy is now probably disestablished, or shelved like some fine old admiral on the half-pay list, though it would be interesting to hear the opinion of some navy chaplain on the point, as these old superstitions die very hardly, and at times rather clash with more orthodox theology.
The widespread worship of the serpent is a subject of the greatest interest, though it would take us far away from our present subject if we dwelt at length upon it. The place held by the serpent in ancient mythologies has, however, caused the creature to pass far from the region of commonplace zoological fact into the realm of myth. One old belief more precise than nice was that the serpent first vomits forth its venom, before drinking, in order that it may not poison itself by swallowing it ; while another curious belief was, that sleeping children whose ears were licked by serpents thereby received the gift of foretelling future events. Cassandra was said thus, amongst other less famous personages more or less believed in by the ancients, to have received the gift of prophecy. |