A fictionalised account of the departure of the legions from Britain is given in the ‘The Count of the Saxon Shore by Alfred John Church’, set in the early fifth century. An interesting snippet from this, the time was mid-October:
But I must say, saving your presence, that it is against all rules of a sailor’s craft as I have known it, man and boy, for nigh upon threescore years, to be at sea near about a month after the autumn equinox.
’Never let your keel be wet,
When the Pleiades have set;
Never let your keel be dry,
When the Crown is in the sky.’
That is what my father used to say, and his fathers before him, for I do not know how many generations, for we have always followed the sea.”
Obviously, this applies to the Mediterranean. The Crown must be Corona Borealis.
Image Credits and Sources
- The Count of the Saxon Shore: The Count of the Saxon Shore by Alfred John Church