Show WHY of superstitions by H IRVINO KINQ HAIR AND STORMS came into new tori a nor steamer several days over aue of heavy weather during the arst halt of her voyage she en countered pales and tremendous tiemen dous seas which threatened to engulf her then when things were at their worst the captain mustered all hands and had liala cut the storm leased and the ship had pond weather for the rest of the trip the captain said he had ordered the hair cutting because he bad heard that his ances tors had performed the same rite ID similar straits here Is a most interesting case of reversion to type it was true his norse ancestors had done that same thin in the das when odin gloried and drank deep in V among the ancients the hair being considered as a peculiarly intimate part of a man sometimes as the beat of strength was frequently cut and offered up as a sacrifice to the gods juvenal says that the hair should only be cut at sea in times of danger and as a final offering to the gods as it would offend them to cut it at other times in the norse sagas odin Is represented as the great storm god the vikings appeased his wrath by the propitiatory offering of thet hair even as did their descendants recently on the storm tossed norwegian steam er A shorn crew at a brooklyn pier who have just sacrificed to odin makes the persistence of the live something more than a theory by mcclure syndicate 0 |