My thanks to Lucy Johnson for this fascinating email and permission to share:
Dear Tristan,
Have you read Victor Hugo Toilers of the Sea? It’s a little hard to find in English, but there’s lots on sailing, and the main incident of the book occurs because a character ignores the natural signs in the passage attached.
In the second snippet the captain sets out because the morning is fair, and notes that the advisor was “evidently in his dotage,” ie, that the “portents” were reliable but that the advisor had lost the ability to correctly interpret. A heavy fog later descends leading to disaster.
“ON the Friday morning, the day after the departure of the Tamaulipas, the Durande started again for Guernsey.
She left St. Malo at nine o’clock. The weather was fine; no haze. Old Captain Gertrais-Gaboureau was evidently in his dotage.”
The book is available on Project Gutenberg in English, and is presumably more readily available in French. The two snippets attached are from the end of Book V Part IX and Book VI Part II.
Thank you so much for your books, articles and podcasts, they have given me so much pleasure, including the works cited in them, which have also been uniformly excellent.
Best wishes,
Lucy
“If it was my case, I shouldn’t, Captain Clubin. The hair of the dog’s coat feels damp. For two nights past, the seabirds have been flying wildly round the lantern of the lighthouse. A bad sign. I have a storm-glass, too, which gives me a warning. The moon is at her second quarter; it is the maximum of humidity. I noticed today some pimpernels with their leaves shut, and a field of clover with its stalks all stiff. The worms come out of the ground today; the flies sting; the bees keep close to their hives; the sparrows chatter together. You can hear the sound of bells from far off. I heard tonight the Angelus at St. Lunaire. And then the sun set angry. There will be a good fog tomorrow, mark my words. I don’t advise you to put to sea. I dread the fog a good deal more than a hurricane. It’s a nasty neighbour that.”
You might also enjoy:
Fish Frenzy at Surface – A Predator Sign
The Secret World of Weather – The Book