Why Is the Sea Always Ruled by Somebody Angry? A Power Nobody Could Control

Coastal and seafaring societies faced a power that supplied a large part of their food and killed people constantly, that could not be predicted reliably, that could not be influenced by any practical action, and that did not respond to skill in the way land does. A farmer who works harder gets more, while a fisherman who works harder in a storm drowns. That combination of dependence, danger and unpredictability is exactly what produces a personified power to be bargained with, and it is why sea deities across unrelated traditions are characteristically powerful, capricious, easily offended and requiring propitiation rather than obedience.

Figures from unrelated traditions share a striking number of features:

• •Great power, frequently ranking among the most senior in the tradition
• •An unpredictable temper, with storms attributed to being offended
• •Association with earthquakes as well as with water in several traditions
• •Ownership of what the sea yields, so a catch is a gift rather than a taking
• •Requirements about what may not be done or said at sea
• •A shape-changing or many-formed nature, mirroring the sea itself

Setting several side by side shows the pattern and the differences. The Greek figure is one of the three brothers who divided the world, holds the sea by lot, causes earthquakes, and pursues a grudge through an entire epic. The Norse tradition has a giant who hosts the gods at feasts and a wife whose net drags sailors down, which makes drowning an abduction rather than an accident. Inuit tradition has a woman living at the bottom of the sea who controls the sea mammals and withholds them when human wrongdoing has fouled her hair, which a shaman must travel down to comb. Yoruba and related traditions have powerful sea and river spirits with elaborate requirements. Japanese tradition has a dragon ruler of the sea holding tide-controlling jewels.

Traditions that personify the sea also populate it, and the creatures share a logic with the deities. Enormous serpents and dragons appear across Mesopotamian, Hebrew, Greek, Norse and Chinese traditions, frequently as a chaos that an ordering power must subdue, which is a narrative found in several unrelated cultures. Whirlpools and rocks are given monstrous form, which converts a navigational hazard into something that can at least be reasoned about. Beings that lure sailors by sound or appearance recur, from Greek singers to northern European water spirits. Ships and islands that turn out to be creatures appear in several traditions. And accounts of vast tentacled animals attacking ships from northern waters have a documented basis in real deep-sea squid.

Belief translated into practice in ways that are documented in living memory across many coasts. Enormous numbers of words were prohibited at sea, with fishing communities in Scotland, Scandinavia, Japan and elsewhere maintaining lists of things that must not be named aboard, frequently including animals, clergy and the names of certain fish, and substitute words existed for each. Days on which nobody would sail were observed. First catches were returned or offered. Blessings of boats and of the water were performed annually and still are in many places. Turning a boat against the sun was avoided. These practices persisted long after the associated theology was abandoned, which suggests they served the anxiety directly rather than the belief.

The sea supplied food, killed people, could not be predicted and did not reward skill the way land does, which is the combination that produces a personified power to be placated rather than obeyed. Figures across unrelated traditions share great rank, an unpredictable temper, ownership of the catch and elaborate prohibitions. Fishing communities maintained lists of words forbidden at sea long after the theology behind them faded.