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>From The Oxford Companion to Ships & The Sea, ed. by Peter Kemp, section on
'Superstitions" (about a page-full of superstitions):

"Priests, because of their black dress and their office of burying the
dead, are thought by sailors to be unlucky passengers on board, as, for
some reason, are women, an old belief that the sea grows angry at the sight
of a woman. This superstition was also strongly held by fishermen, and up
to the end of the 19th century in the Firth of Forth a fisherman would
refuse to go to sea if a bare-footed woman crossed his path while on his
way to his boat. Yet many seamen used to believe that gales and high winds
would subside if a naked woman appeared before them. It was for this reason
that so many of the figurehads of ships showed a woman with a naked breast.

Evert
Ohlson 38 'Toucan'

Pierre Boucher wrote:
>
> Has anyone herd of a superstition or something similar regarding the fact
> of NEVER prononcing the word "priest" or "black robe" on board a vessel?
>
> Pierre Boucher
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