Travel & the Road

The Sailor's Caul and Other Charms Against Drowning

Also called Caul charm, Pig and rooster tattoo, Mariner's luck

Before cars, the dangerous road was the sea. Sailors bought a baby's caul to carry against drowning and later tattooed a pig and a rooster on their feet for the same reason. This is the mariner's version of the travel charm.

TraditionBritish and American seafaring folk belief

RegionBritain and the United States

Era17th to 20th century

Moon◐ Any moon

DayAny

ElementWater

Difficulty●○○ Simple

Time30 minutes

Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.

The working

Choose a keepsake that came through hard times with someone you love. Sailors valued cauls that had already been to sea and come home.
Wrap it in the cloth and stitch the square closed on three sides, then the fourth.
Sew the little packet into the lining of a jacket or bag you always travel with, the way sailors sewed cauls into their trousers.
As you make the last stitch, say who you are, where you travel, and that you will come home.
Leave it sewn in. Old sailors believed a caul worked only while it stayed with its owner, so do not show it off or lend it.
When you give up the jacket, unpick the charm and move it to the next one.

Take care: Do not seek or buy human tissue; use a keepsake instead. Get tattoos only from a licensed artist with sterile equipment. A charm is no substitute for a life jacket or a seat belt.

Versions across time and place

Cauls sold by newspaper advertisement

British port towns · 18th to early 20th century

A caul is the membrane sometimes covering a newborn's face. Its owner was believed safe from drowning, and the protection passed to whoever bought it. British papers advertised cauls to 'gentlemen of the Navy', and in 1873 the Liverpool Mercury listed three priced from 30 shillings to four guineas, a large sum for a seaman. Dickens satirized the trade at the opening of David Copperfield (1850).

Uses: Dried caul, Canvas pocket

Recorded in: The Conversation, 'The 19th-century maritime superstitions that were believed to protect men at sea' (2025); Hektoen International, 'Born with a caul: fact and fiction' (2025)

Pig and rooster on the feet

United States Navy and merchant seamen · Late 19th to 20th century

Sailors tattooed a pig on one foot and a rooster on the other so they would not drown. Livestock rode in wooden crates that floated when a ship sank, so pigs and chickens were often the only survivors. A Second World War yeoman, Cecil S. King, credited the tattoos with getting him through three sinkings.

Uses: Tattoo

Recorded in: U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 'Asked and Answered' (May 2024); Dartmouth Folklore Archive

iii

Sir Thomas Browne on the lucky caul

English learned writing · 1646

Browne, the Norwich physician, noted that children born with a caul were held to be lucky, though he doubted the belief. Seventeenth-century wills describe cauls kept in gold and jeweled settings and handed down as family heirlooms, so the charm guarded a household's fortune as well as its sailors.

Recorded in: Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646), as cited by Hektoen International

History

For most of history the sea was the most dangerous journey ordinary people took, and few sailors could swim. Charms against drowning were common in British and American ports, and the caul was the most prized. Cauls were dried, sometimes framed or set in silver, and passed from midwives to families to seamen. Historians note that newspaper advertisements for cauls ran in Britain until at least the First World War, with prices rising in wartime when the risk was greater.

Tattooing spread among sailors after Pacific voyages of the late 18th century and became a full language of luck by the 20th: a pig and rooster against drowning, an anchor, a swallow for coming home. The Conversation's 2025 survey of maritime superstition places these charms beside other habits like refusing to sail on Fridays. They are the direct ancestors of the medal on the dashboard and the garland on the mirror.

Sources

The 19th-century maritime superstitions that were believed to protect men at sea · The Conversation, 2025
Born with a caul: fact and fiction · Hektoen International, 2025
Asked and Answered · U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 2024

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