Note 207 — 24 BONNIE ANNIE
Reading edition
A singular episode in the life of Saint Mary Magdalen in the Golden Legend, Grässe, c. xcvi, 2, p. 409 ff, indicates a belief that even a dead body might prejudice the safety of a ship. The princess of Marseilles, in the course of a storm, has given birth to a boy and expired. The sailors demand that the body shall be thrown into the sea (and apparently the boy, too), for, they say, as long as it shall be with us, this thumping will not cease. They presently see a hill, and think it better to put off the corpse, and the boy, there, than that these should be devoured by sea-monsters. Fear will fasten upon anything in such a case.
The Digby Mystery of Mary Magdalene has this scene, at p. 122 of the New Shakspere Society edition, ed. Furnivall.