Guide southern sailor following sound of albatross? (8)
I believe the answer is:
lodestar
'guide' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'southern sailor following sound of albatross?' is the wordplay.
'southern' becomes 's' (abbreviation).
'sailor' becomes 'tar' (tar can mean a sailor).
'following' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'sound of albatross?' becomes 'lode' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
's'+'tar'='star'
'star' put after 'lode' is 'LODESTAR'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lodestar that I've seen before include "In navigation, celestial reference point" , "Guiding light in sky" , "Guiding principle" , "Guiding light; leotards (anag.)" , "Heavenly guide" .)