People often use the bird word albatross figuratively. Something that causes worry or trouble can be called an albatross. And a colorful way of expressing the idea that one has a serious problem is to say that there is an albatross around one’s neck.
Why did the albatross, instead of some other bird, develop a reputation leading to its use in this figurative expression? How did the expression itself start? What truths, half-truths, and myths blended together to create the expression albatross around one’s neck?
The English word albatross is probably an alteration of alcatrace or alcatras (“frigate bird”), from Spanish and Portuguese alcatraz (“pelican”), which goes back to an Arabic word for a type of seabird. The change from alcatras to albatross may have been influenced by Latin albus (“white”), the frigate bird being black and the albatross being mostly white (sometimes combined with brown or black).
The albatross is any one of various large seabirds (there are over a dozen species), some with wingspans up to eleven feet. A master at gliding, the albatross can stay aloft on virtually motionless wings for many hours at a time. For that reason, seamen used to believe that the albatross had magical powers.
There was also a belief that albatrosses, hovering endlessly above the ships at sea, contained the souls of lost sailors, former comrades of the sailors below. Many sailors believed that disaster or death would haunt anyone who harmed or killed the bird.
Despite those widespread beliefs, some sailors did, in fact, kill and eat albatrosses. Captain James Cook, for example, recorded some kills during his own voyages. On December 24, 1768, he wrote, “We shot an albatross, which measured between the tips of its wings nine feet and an inch.” On January 26, 1769, he wrote, “The Albatrosses proved very good eating.”
In 1798 the great English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge made albatross mythology the basis for his famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The Ancient Mariner (that is, the “old seaman”) tells the story of how he, while on a ship at sea, killed an albatross for no apparent reason. Later the wind stopped blowing, and the ship could not reach port to get fresh water.
The crew assumed that the disastrous turn of events occurred because of the death of the albatross. Angry at the Ancient Mariner, the crew picked up the dead bird and hung it around the man’s neck as a symbol of guilt and punishment. The profound intent of the symbolism was reflected in the Ancient Mariner’s own words: “Instead of the cross, the albatross / About my neck was hung.”
Today that imagery has generalized, so that anything that causes deep, persistent anxiety can be called an albatross. And an encumbrance that hinders accomplishment is an albatross around one’s neck.
(Principal sources: Oxford English Dictionary; Darryl Lyman, Dictionary of Animal Words and Phrases, Jonathan David Publishers, www.jdbooks.com)
