Consider That

Spinning Yarn is the art of fictional storytelling among seafarers who could not just stay on board a ship. There were also good stories that were carried ashore and spun or even written down and printed.

Origin

The term “spinning yarn” has not existed for very long, it has only been known in writing since the early 19th century. It was James Hardy Vaux who, in his work of 1819, reported not only on his experiences as a criminal in England and later as a convict but also on the storytelling on board the ship that transported him, which he called spinning yarn.

Saturday Night at Sea by George Cruikshank (1792 -1878)

In the 1820s this kind of art was also carried out by Greenwich pensioners and some of them were even published in newspapers under the term Spinning Yarn. But where does this term come from? Seamen often had to spend time repairing ropes on board ships. This is a time-consuming job of twisting fibers together, which was supposedly called “spinning yarn”. While repairing ropes, sailors often told each other stories to pass the time. Over time, these stories came to be called “yarn” and the telling of a story came to be called “spinning yarn”. Presumably, however, this practice goes back to the Middle Ages, but it is no longer possible to say for sure.

The reason for these stories

First and foremost, they were told to escape boredom and fill the hours of idleness. But the stories also fulfilled other tasks, for one thing, they were there to create a bond among the comrades. Although these stories were largely fictional, they contained elements of everyday life, of the family, or of one’s own life story. Things that everyone on board could relate to and that created a bond.

The better the story, the higher the reputation and the higher the listenership of the narrator, which in turn could cause some discomfort on the part of the narrator, as the comrades would sometimes give him something extra to tell them an exciting new story. And it increased the likelihood that the story would be passed on ashore, which could also have positive effects on the storytellers. But the stories also had hidden messages in them, so they could contain a warning about the behavior towards some officials or criticism of them. But also parts about tired men and extraordinary phenomena.

The ghost stories are particularly noteworthy here. They entertained but also had a lasting effect and elevated the narrator a little higher in his position among the men. after all, he was a good man for having experienced it, even if the older ones knew that it was fiction. The younger ones had not yet had these experiences or were still too young to distinguish fiction from reality.

Yarns that were printed

Some of the stories made it into print for others to enjoy. It is important to distinguish whether the book was written by a Sailor, an author pretending to be a sailor or an ex-sailor. Today we would simply put it in the category of adventure stories. But at that time Sailor adventures were something special. Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, by J. Ross Browne 1846  is a hybrid of a logbook, journal, travelogue, and yarn. There he tells the story of a sailor and his journey on a whaler, later on, a whale, and that alcohol is not a friend.

Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, with Notes of a Sojourn on the Island of Zanzibar. by John Ross Browne (1821-1875) – here the ride on a whale

 The book was also read with great favor by Herman Melville. Richard Henry Dana Jr. also addresses spinning yarns in his work Two Years before the Mast.

And The Narrative of the Remarkable Occurrences in the Life of John Blatchford by unknown,18th century, but probably Blatchford himself recounts his life as an American Sailor during the Revolution and his sacrifice for the fledgling US Navy.

Owen Chase (1797-1869), the first mate of the Whaler Essex, also tells a story about the famous incident of the Whaler and its tragic fate in his book The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex. In particular, however, he emphasizes the cruelty of cannibalism in his book and reports so matter-of-factly that it must have sent shivers down the reader’s spine. Whether this is a classic yarn is questioned in research, but the book does not seem to have been written by Chase himself. Rather, it seems to be based on his reports and journal, which makes parts of the whole thing a yarn again, as they probably did not happen as portrayed. The same happens with Moby Dick by Herman Melville, 1851, which takes up the Essex and her story but spins his own adventure out of it.

All these stories had their subtleties, their depths, and their morals or even warnings, but a good story brought men together. It relieved boredom and caused astonishment, joy, or even goosebumps. Just as we experience today when someone tells us about a good adventure.