The Edge of the World: A Cultural History of the North Sea and the Transformation of Europe

by Michael Pye

The fleet came into Bergen each spring with the newcomers. Their first challenge was the ‘games’. The boys had to be men, and they had to be initiated. They were keel-hauled, tied up with rope and pulled right under a ship; they were held over barrels of burning, stinking stuff; they were hoisted up smoking chimneys to be cross-examined on nothing in particular while they choked. They were thrown three times into deep water and had to get back into the boat to stay alive while a congregation of older merchants beat them. They were given drink until they were drunk, stripped naked and blindfolded, and then whipped until they bled, with drums more or less covering their screams; after which they had to sing a comic song. They had their mouths and noses stuffed with dogshit and catshit, they were subject to ‘unclean shaves’; they went ‘eel treading’ and ‘pig scalding’. They learned to say nothing, never to complain, never to cry.