Pirates -Sailors long believed that they could whistle for the wind. This was best done by sticking a knife into the mast and whistling softly so as not to offend the wind spirit and bring on a storm. To whistle in a calm would bring a wind, ancient sailors believed, but to whistle on deck when the wind was blowing would bring a gale. Spit into the wind and you were inviting disaster, no doubt, just as you were if you allowed a landlubber to whistle on deck. If a black cat frolicked on deck, a big blow was coming, for a black cat was thought to carry a gale in its tail.