Klabautermann
The Klabautermann is a water-kobold and ship spirit in Frisian, German, and Dutch maritime folklore — a small, pipe-smoking sailor-specter who resides aboard seagoing vessels from their very construction until their sinking. He is an ambiguous figure, simultaneously a guardian spirit who protects the crew and an omen of doom whose visible appearance foretells certain shipwreck. According to tradition, the Klabautermann enters a ship through its timber: if a stillborn or unbaptized child was buried under a tree later used for shipbuilding, its soul becomes the Klabautermann. By night he works s