THE UNLUCKY “ALTISIDORA”I
WHEN first the legend of the Unlucky “Altisidora” began to take its place in the great unwritten book of the folk-lore of the sea, old shellbacks (nodding weather-beaten heads over mugs and glasses in a thousand sailortown taverns from Paradise Street to Argyle Cut) were wont to put forward a variety of theories accounting for her character, according to the particular taste, creed, or nationality of the theorizer for the time being.
Her keel was laid on a Friday.... Someone going to work on her had met a red-haired wumman, or a wumman as skenned (this if the speaker were a Northumbrian) and hadn’t turned back.... Someone had chalked “To Hell with the Pope” (this if he were a Roman Catholic) or, conversely, “To Hell with King William” (in the case of a Belfast O
