Beim Klabautermann!
A Klabautermann is a ship’s kobold whom you normally can’t see but hear when he works on the ship, rearranging freight or repairing damage. The name Klabautermann comes from the low German word ‘klabastern‘ which means walking around noisily. Sometimes he is also called Kalfatermann or Klabattermann, ‘kalfatern’ means ‘to seal with pitch and oakum’.
While he is a helpful spirit and warns the captain about danger, he is also known for playing pranks on the crew. Best to keep a chicken with you since the Klabautermann is weary of them and can be reigned in that way.
We don’t know exactly what he looks like because he normally only shows himself (to the captain or the helmsman, never to the entire crew) when tradegy is about to strike and/or the ship cannot be saved.
However, he is often described as a small man dressed in sailor’s clothes with red hair, white beard and green teeth. He often smokes a pipe, has a hammer and sometimes a sea chest. Descriptions vary since the people who would see him are about to die and can’t tell the tale about the Klabautermann.
Like many spirits, ghosts, and magical creatures, the Klabautermann has inspired stories, poems, and even movies though he has lost his meaning with the advent of steam boats.
German pop group Dschinighis Khan (German spelling of Ghengis Khan), famous for their songs “Moskau” and “Dschingis Khan”, made a song about a Klabautermann. When looking at the video remember that it was the early 80s.
Other works featuring Klabautermänner:
Von Land- und Leseratten
A person who doesn’t sail but rather stays on land is often called a Landratte, especially by people who do sail, and they normally don’t mean it in a nice way. Landratte literally means land rat and in English you would say ‘landlubber’.
Other ‘rats’ would be Wasserratte and Leseratte. A person who really likes the water and being in the water, and somebody who really likes to read, respectively.
There is a real animal called Wasserratte (water vole) but I am not sure how it became associated with the water loving person. Maybe because water voles also like the water? But then again, so do lots of other animals.
Lese– and Wasserratte both have a positive connotation but it wasn’t always like that. We find the word Leseratz in the South of Germany at the end of the 19th century from where it made its way to the rest of Germany, often as Leseratte. The theory is that just like the animal eats anything and everything, the Leseratte devours anything written and therefore was likened to a rat. While it has a positive meaning now it didn’t when the word first started to be used for avid readers.
The other animal name we have for book lovers is Bücherwurm (bookworm). Just like a worm the reader eats her way through the books. This expression has been around since the 17th century and originally described the larva of several bugs. They preferred to lay their larva in dead dry wood like furniture or books.
die Fische füttern ≠ to feed the fish
When you get seasick and have to vomit, you feed the fish. In American English, you can also use this expression among others. Mental Floss has listed the 15 most common.
However, in British English “to feed the fish” implies that you have drowned and are now feeding the fish with your body. So, be careful!
A Treasure Trove Full of Schätze
So many words with Schatz. This is not exactly a nautical word since there have been treasures and treasure hunters since there was gold. There are many undiscovered treasures in Germany, worth millions.
Schatz means treasure but it is often used as a pet name for your significant other or your child. Obviously, you can also use diminutives with it and make it even sweeter: Schatzi, Schätzchen, Schatzilein.
Other words with Schatz are typical compound words: die Schatzkiste and Schatztruhe mean treasure chest. Kiste is a crate, case, or wooden box while Truhe is more of a chest, generally bigger and heavier than a box
Die Schatzkarte shows you where the treasure is buried, and pirates are said to have hidden their gold and silver on islands which then became a Schatzinsel. “Die Schatzinsel” is also the title of R. L. Stevenson’s book “Treasure Island”.
Another interesting word with Schatz are brandschatzen and die Brandschatzung which means, especially historically, to pillage and plunder (your treasure) under the threat of setting fire to a village (Brand, brennen). Brand is the word for fire or blaze, and is related to the verb brennen – to burn.
A word I never really thought of as being a treasure is Wortschatz. It is your treasure of words. The English equivalent most commonly used is vocabulary.
Mast- und Schotbruch!
Who should wish somebody setting sails that their mast and sheet break? The same people who wish actors to break a leg (Hals- und Beinbruch).
Theater people are notoriously superstitious from calling “Macbeth” the Scottish play, to not whistling, and to wishing each other that their leg will break. The latter is a masterpiece of reverse psychology: wishing somebody good luck might push your luck and result in bad luck. Only logical thing to do is to wish somebody something bad thereby preventing bad luck.
The same logic can be applied to Mast- und Schotbruch because what you really wish somebody sailing is to be safe and have good wind. “Fair winds and a following sea” may be the best English translation for this German expression.
A superstition surrounding sailors is the belief that a sailor dies when you light your cigarette with a candle instead of a match. Sailors who were often out of work in the winter would sell matches during that time to get by. If you don’t use a match to light your cigarette you cost a sailor money and possibly his life.
I remember that we used to say this whenever somebody lit his cigarette with the candle flame. It might be more common in the coastal areas where I am from. But I also remember that we would knock on wood (since it happened often in a bar there was always a wooden table to knock on) to ward off the bad luck for the sailor. Why that worked, or maybe I should ask if it worked, is unclear. Knocking on wood is used to keep good fortune and to block anything bad, so it makes sense to assume that we could keep away misfortune from a sailor wandering the harbor selling matches.
What German idiomatic expressions would like to know more about?
Sources (in German unless otherwise noted)
- Wikipedia - Klabautermann
- Wikipedia - Klabautermann - engl
- Klabautermann
- Klabautermann - Literatur
- Achim Reichel - Klabautermann
- Mental Floss - Mischief Makers - engl.
- Leseratte und Bücherwurm
- Schätze in Deutschland
- Wo sind Deutschlands Schätze
- Bad luck around the world - engl.
- Good luck around the world - engl.
- Superstitions - engl
- Ted-Ed Superstitions - engl
- Theater Superstition - engl.
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