"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Thursday, March 2, 2023

The Legend of the Flying Dutchman



The Legend of the Flying Dutchman,
the Ghost Ship of the Cape

November 30, 2017


Appearing in Richard Wagner’s opera as a man searching for love, as a ship manned by octopus-faced Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean, and even as a green spirit in the animation SpongeBob SquarePants, the Flying Dutchman is a popular maritime legend. But many people are not aware of how far this legend has sailed to enthral them.

Beginning in a storm

Known for its terrible storms and treacherous outcrops of rock, The Cape of Good Hope in South Africa once had a far darker name: The Cape of Storms. This rocky peninsula, which juts out into the water, was the final resting place for many ships unfortunate enough to run afoul of this beautiful yet temperamental coast.

European trading ships heading to Asia would have to pass through this dangerous route, and one of the first people to journey around the southern coast of Africa was the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias. He was followed by Vasco da Gama, who was the first person to sail directly from Europe to India and, it is said, the first person to name this rocky headland ‘The Cape of Storms’. It is from here that the legend of the Flying Dutchman set sail.

Until Doomsday

The story behind of the Flying Dutchman begins in 1641 with a captain in the employment of the Dutch East India Company. Hendrik van der Decken and his crew were returning to Holland from the Far East when they, like all trade ships, had to risk the dangerous passage around The Cape of Good Hope.

Legend has it that, as van der Decken and his crew attempted to round the Cape, a storm began. The crew begged their captain not to sail into the storm, but he was determined to face the chaotic waters and screaming winds. Van der Decken vowed that he would sail around the Cape, even if it took him ‘until Doomsday’ to accomplish it. Some say that, at one point, an angel appeared to van der Decken, and the Dutch trader shot at his otherworldly visitor. With that, the ship’s fate was sealed.

Ghostly visions and bad omens

The Flying Dutchman is said to appear as a ghostly, glowing ship. It will materialise suddenly and then, just as suddenly, vanish. Some claim the ship, doomed to sail the seas forever, will attempt to make contact with other travellers, and that seeing the Flying Dutchman is a sign of horrible misfortune to come.

Whether maritime superstition or true event, the Flying Dutchman continues to haunt the Cape and stories of the sea. Standing on the beach on South Africa’s southern coast, looking out into the swirling clouds and crashing waves, you may just catch a glimpse of a strange-looking ship desperate to get home.



* * * * * * *


The Flying Dutchman
by John Boyle O'Reilly


LONG time ago, from Amsterdam a vessel sailed away,-
As fair a ship as ever flung aside the laughing spray.
Upon the shore were tearful eyes, and scarfs were in the air,
As to her, o'er the Zuyder Zee, went fond adieu and prayer;
And brave hearts, yearning shoreward from the outwardgoing ship,
Felt lingering kisses clinging still to tear-wet cheek and lip.
She steered for some far eastern clime, and, as she skimmed the seas,
Each taper mast was bending like a rod before the breeze.

Her captain was a stalwart man,-an iron heart had he,-
From childhood's days he sailed upon the rolling Zuyder Zee:
He nothing feared upon the earth, and scarcely heaven feared,
He would have dared and done whatever mortal man had dared!
He looked aloft, where high in air the pennant cut the blue,
And every rope and spar and sail was firm and strong and true.
He turned him from the swelling sail to gaze upon the shore,-
Ah! little thought the skipper then 'twould meet his eye no more:
He dreamt not that an awful doom was hanging o'er his ship,
That Vanderdecken's name would yet make pale the speaker's lip.
The vessel bounded on her way, and spire and dome went down,-
Ere darkness fell, beneath the wave had sunk the distant town.
No more, no .more, ye hapless crew, shall Holland meet your eye.
In lingering hope and keen suspense, maid, wife, and child shall die!

Away, away the vessel speeds, till sea and sky alone
Are round her, as her course she steers across the torrid zone.
Away, until the North Star fades, the Southern Cross is high,
And myriad gems of brightest beam are sparkling In the sky.
The tropic winds are left behind; she nears the Cape of Storms,
Where awful Tempest ever sits enthroned in wild alarms;
Where Ocean in his anger shakes aloft his foamy crest,
Disdainful of the weakly toys that ride upon his breast.

Pierce swell the winds and waters round the Dutchman's gallant ship,
But, to their rage, defiance rings from Vanderdecken's lip:
Impotent they to make him swerve, their might he dares despise,
As straight he holds his onward course, and wind and wave defies.
For days and nights he struggles in the weird, unearthly fight.
His brow is bent, his eye is fierce, but looks of deep affright
Amongst the mariners go round, as hopelessly they steer:
They do not dare to murmur, but they whisper what they fear.
Their black-browed captain awes them: 'neath his darkened eye they quail,
And in a grim and sullen mood their bitter fate bewail.
As some fierce rider ruthless spurs a timid, wavering horse,
He drives his shapely vessel, and they watch the reckless course,
Till once again their skipper's laugh is flung upon the blast:
The placid ocean smiles beyond, the dreaded Cape is passed!

Away across the Indian main the vessel northward glides;
A thousand murmuring ripples break along her graceful sides:
The perfumed breezes fill her sails,-her destined port she nears,-
The captain's brow has lost its frown, the mariners their fears.
'Land ho!' at length the welcome sound the watchful sailor sings,
And soon within an Indian bay the ship at anchor swings.
Not idle then the busy crew: ere long the spacious hold
Is emptied of its western freight, and stored with silk and gold.

Again the ponderous anchor's weighed; the shore is left behind,
The snowy sails are bosomed out before the favoring wind.
Across the warm blue Indian sea the vessel southward flies,
And once again the North Star fades and Austral beacons rise.
For home she steers I she seems to know and answer to the word,
And swifter skims the burnished deep, like some fair oceanbird.
'For home! for home!' the merry crew with gladsome voices cry,
And dark-browed Vanderdecken has a mild light in his eye.

But once again the Cape draws near, and furious billows rise;
And still the daring Dutchman's laugh the hurricane defies.
But wildly shrieked the tempest ere the scornful sound had died,
A warning to the daring man to curb his impious pride.
A crested mountain struck the ship, and like a frighted bird
She trembled 'neath the awful shock. Then Vanderdecken heard
A pleading voice.-within the gale,-his better angel spoke,
But fled before his scowling look, as mast-high mountains broke
Around the trembling vessel, till the crew with terror paled;
But Vanderdecken never flinched, nor 'neath the thunders quailed.
With folded arms and stern-pressed lips, dark anger in his eye,
He answered back the threatening frown that lowered o'er the sky.
With fierce defiance in his heart, and scornful look of flame,
He spoke, and thus with impious voice blasphemed God's holy name:
'Howl on, ye winds! ye tempests, howl! your rage is spent in vain:
Despite your strength, your frowns, your hate, I'll ride upon the main.
Defiance to your idle shrieks! I'll sail upon my path:
I cringe not for thy Maker's smile,-I care not for His wrath!'

He ceased. An awful silence fell; the tempest and the sea
Were hushed in sudden stillness by the Ruler's dread decree.
The ship was riding motionless within the gathering gloom;
The Dutchman stood upon the poop and heard his dreadful doom.
The hapless crew were on the deck in swooning terror prone,-
They, too, were bound in fearful fate. In angered thunder-tone
The judgment words swept o'er the sea: 'Go, wretch, accurst, condemned!
Go sail for ever on the deep, by shrieking tempests hemmed!
No home, no port, no calm, no rest, no gentle favoring breeze,
Shall ever greet thee. Go, accurst! and battle with the seas!
Go, braggart! struggle with the storm, nor ever cease to live,
But bear a million times the pangs that death and fear can give!
Away! and hide thy guilty head, a curse to all thy kind
Who ever see thee struggling, wretch, with ocean and with wind!
Away, presumptuous worm of earth! Go teach thy fellow worms
The awful fate that waits on him who braves the King of Storms!'

'Twas o'er. A lurid lightning flash lit up the sea and sky
Around and o'er the fated ship; then rose a wailing cry
From every heart within her, of keen anguish and despair;
But mercy was for them no more,-it died away in air.

Once more the lurid light gleamed out,-the ship was still at rest,
The crew were standing at their posts; with arms across his breast
Still stood the captain on the poop, but bent and crouching now
He bowed beneath that fiat dread, and o'er his swarthy brow
Swept lines of anguish, as if he a thousand years of pain
Had lived and suffered. Then across the heaving, angry main
The tempest shrieked triumphant, and the angry waters hissed
Their vengeful hate against the toy they oftentimes bad kissed.
And ever through the midnight storm that hapless crew must speed:
They try to round the stormy Cape, but never can succeed.
And oft when gales are wildest,, and the lightning's vivid sheen
Flashes back the ocean's anger, still the Phantom Ship is seen
Ever sailing to the southward in the fierce tornado's swoop,
With her ghostly crew and canvas, and her captain on the poop,
Unrelenting, unforgiven! and 'tis said that every word
Of his blasphemous defiance still upon the gale is heard!
But Heaven help the ship near which the dismal sailor steers,-
The doom of those is sealed to whom that Phantom Ship appears:
They'll never reach their destined port,-they'll see their homes no more,-
They who see the Flying Dutchman-never, never reach the shore!


by John Boyle O'reilly



* * * * * * *



Richard Wagner - The Flying Dutchman
Romantic Opera (Bengt Rundgren, Katarina Ligendza)
Jan 29, 2020


[OPEN SEPARATELY TO FOLLOW ALONG]
Richard Wagner - The Flying Dutchman Year of manufacture: 1975 Genre: Romantic Opera Director: Vaclav Kaslik Performers: Bengt Rundgren, Katarina Ligendza, Herman Winkler, Ruth Hesse, Harald Ick, Donald McIntyre Description: the Story of a sinner who is condemned to walk the seas until the day of judgment, to die of thirst until his sin is redeemed by the selfless love of a woman. This story becomes a harsh drama in the hands of Wagner... In the Director's work, Vaclav Karlik managed to capture the atmosphere of the Opera, with shades of expressionism that cover the ship of fate with a light haze. The web of fishing nets symbolizes heroes trapped in their own position. The musical component of the production is successful. Chorus and orchestra of the Bavarian state Opera is beautiful, a great conductor's work of Wolfgang Sawallisch keeps the high voltage and the swiftness of the narrative. "The flying Dutchman" marked Wagner's acquisition of his individual style.


"The Flying Dutchman": Full Documentary
September 28, 2017



Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)
REMASTERED TRAILER [HD 1080p]

The original trailer in high definition of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman directed by Albert Lewin and starring James Mason, Ava Gardner, Nigel Patrick, Sheila Sim and Harold Warrender.








ALL Authored Titles: The Flying Dutchman
Plus Make Your Own Dutchman



* * * * * * *


READ THE BOOK


READ THE BOOK



* * * * * * *


related addenda

- sea stories of the Dutchman

- wikipedia info on the legend


* * * * * * *


The Flying Dutchman

legends of Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 777*

edited by

D. L. Ashliman

© 2013-2021


More Sea Stories:

Seamen implicitly believe in omens, mermaids, the Flying Dutchman, evil spirits, the appearance of the ghosts of the departed, and the pranks of malicious spirits and goblins -- Naval Sketch-Book (1826), p. 106.


Contents

  1. The Sailors Said They Saw the Flying Dutchman (John MacDonald, 1790).

  2. The Story of the Flying Dutchman (A Voyage to New South Wales, 1795).

  3. A Common Superstition of Mariners (Scotland, 1803).

  4. Written on Passing Dead-Man's Island (Thomas Moore, 1804).

  5. The Dæmon-Frigate (Sir Walter Scott, 1813).

  6. Vanderdecken's Message Home (Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1821).

  7. The Flying Dutchman (The voyage of H.M.S. Leven, 1823).

  8. The Fable of the Flying Dutchman (Heinrich Heine, The Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopski, 1833).

  9. The Flying Dutchman of the Tappan Sea (Washington Irving Wolfert's Roost, 1855).

  10. The Rotterdam (Scotland, 1859).

  11. The Spectre Ship of Porthcurno (Cornwall, England, 1865).

  12. We Meet the Flying Dutchman (The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship "Bacchante," 1881).

  13. The Phantom Ship (James William Buehl, 1891).

  14. Links to additional texts.

  15. Links to related sites.


Return to D. L. Ashliman's folktexts, a library of folktales, folklore, fairy tales, and mythology.

The Sailors Said They Saw the Flying Dutchman

John MacDonald, 1790

The weather was so stormy, that the sailors said they saw the flying Dutchman. The common story is, that this Dutchman came to the Cape in distress of weather, and wanted to get into the harbour, but could not get a pilot to conduct her, and was lost; and that ever since, in very bad weather, her vision appears. The sailors fancy that if you would hail her, she would answer like another vessel.




The Story of the Flying Dutchman

A Voyage to New South Wales (1795)

I had often heard of the superstition of sailors respecting apparitions, but had never given much credit to the report; it seems that some years since a Dutch man-of-war was lost off the Cape of Good Hope, and every soul on board perished; her consort weathered the gale, and arrived soon after at the Cape. Having refitted, and returning to Europe, they were assailed by a violent tempest nearly in the same latitude. In the night watch some of the people saw, or imagined they saw, a vessel standing for them under a press of sail, as though she would run them down; one in particular affirmed it was the ship that had foundered in the former gale, and that it must certainly be her, or the apparition of her; but on its clearing up, the object (a dark thick cloud) disappeared.

Nothing could do away the idea of this phenomenon on the minds of the sailors; and, on their relating the circumstances when they arrived in port, the story spread like wildfire, and the supposed phantom was called the Flying Dutchman. From the Dutch the English seamen got the infatuation, and there are very few Indiamen, but what has someone on board, who pretends to have seen the apparition.

About two in the morning I was waked by a violent shake by the shoulder, when, starting up in my hammock, I saw the boatswain, with evident signs of terror and dismay in his countenance, standing by me.

"For God's sake, messmate," said he, "hand us the key of the case, for by the Lord I'm damnably scarified; for, d'ye see, I was just looking over the weather bow, what should I see but the Flying Dutchman coming right down upon us, with everything set -- I know 'twas she -- I cou'd see all her lower-deck ports up, and the lights fore and aft, as if cleared for action. Now as how, d'ye see, I am sure no mortal ship could bear her lower-deck ports up and pot founder in this here weather. Why, the sea runs mountains high. It must certainly be the ghost of that there Dutchman, that foundered in this latitude, and which, I have heard say, always appears in this here quarter, in hard gales of wind."

After taking a good pull or two at the Holland's [a bottle], he grew a little composed, when I jokingly asked him if he was afraid of ghosts?

"Why, as to that, d'ye see," said he, "I think as how I'm as good as another man; but I'd always a terrible antipathy to those things. Even when I was a boy, I never could find it in my heart to cross a churchyard in the dark without whistling and hallooing, to make them believe I had company with me, for I've heard say they appear but to one at a time; for now, when I called to Joe Jackson, who was at the helm, to look over the weather bow, he saw nothing; tho', ask how, I saw it as plain as this here bottle," taking another swig at the Geneva.

Having some curiosity to see if I could make out anything that could take such an appearance, I turned out, and accompanied him upon deck; but it had cleared up, the moon shining very bright, and not a cloud to be seen; though, by what I could learn from the rest of the people who were on deck, it had been very cloudy about half an hour before, of course I easily divined what kind of phantom had so alarmed my messmate.




A Common Superstition of Mariners

Scotland, 1803

It is a common superstition of mariners, that, in the high southern latitudes on the coast of Africa, hurricanes are frequently ushered in by the appearance of a specter-ship, denominated the Flying Dutchman. At dead of night, the luminous form of a ship slides rapidly, with topsails flying, and sailing straight in "the wind's eye." The crew of this vessel are supposed to have been guilty of some dreadful crime in the infancy of navigation, and to have been stricken with the pestilence. They were hence refused admittance into every port, and are ordained still to traverse the ocean on which they perished, till the period of their penance expire.




Written on Passing Dead-Man's Island*
In the Gulf of St Lawrence, Late in the Evening, Sept. 1804.

Thomas Moore, 1804

See you, beneath yon cloud so dark,
Fast gliding along, a gloomy bark?
Her sails are full, though the wind is still,
And there blows not a breath her sails to fill!

Oh! what doth that vessel of darkness bear?
The silent calm of the grave is there,
Save now and again a death-knell rung,
And the flap of the sails, with night-fog hung!

There lieth a wreck on the dismal shore
Of cold and pitiless Labrador;
Where, under the moon, upon mounts of frost,
Full many a mariner's bones are tost!

Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck,
And the dim blue fire, that lights her deck,
Doth play on as pale and livid a crew,
As ever yet drank the church-yard dew!

To Dead-Man's Isle, in the eye of the blast,
To Dead-Man's Isle, she speeds her fast;
By skeleton shapes her sails are furl'd,
And the hand that steers is not of this world!

Oh! hurry thee on -- oh! hurry thee on,
Thou terrible bark! ere the night be gone,
Nor let morning look on so foul a sight
As would blanch for ever her rosy light!


*This is one of the Magdalen Islands, and, singularly enough, is the property of Sir Isaac Coffin. The above lines were suggested by a superstition very common among sailors, who call this ghost ship, I think, "The Flying Dutchman."


The Dæmon-Frigate

Sir Walter Scott, 1813

This is an allusion to a well-known nautical superstition concerning a fantastic vessel, called by sailors the Flying Dutchman, and supposed to be seen about the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope. She is distinguished from earthly vessels by bearing a press of sail when all others are unable, from stress of weather, to show an inch of canvass.

The cause of her wandering is not altogether certain; but the general account is, that she was originally a vessel loaded with great wealth, on board of which some horrid act of murder and piracy had been committed; that the plague broke out among the wicked crew who had perpetrated the crime, and that they sailed in vain from port to port, offering, as the price of shelter, the whole of their ill-gotten wealth; that they were excluded from every harbour, for fear of the contagion which was devouring them, and that, as a punishment of their crimes, the apparition of the ship still continues to haunt those seas in which the catastrophe took place, and is considered by the mariners as the worst of all possible omens.




Vanderdecken's Message Home

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1821)

Our ship, after touching at the Cape, went out again, and soon losing sight of the Table Mountain, began to be assailed by the impetuous attacks of the sea, which is well known to be more formidable there than in most parts of the known ocean. The day had grown dull and hazy, and the breeze, which had formerly blown fresh, now sometimes subsided almost entirely, and then recovering its strength, for a short time, and changing its direction, blew with temporary violence, and died away again, as if exercising a melancholy caprice. A heavy swell began to come from the southeast. Our sails flapped against the masts, and the ship rolled from side to side, as heavily as if she had been water-logged. There was so little wind that she would not steer.

At two p.m. we had a squall, accompanied by thunder and rain. The seamen, growing restless, looked anxiously ahead. They said we would have a dirty night of it, and that it would not be worth while to turn into their hammocks. As the second mate was describing a gale he had encountered off Cape Race, Newfoundland, we were suddenly taken all aback, and the blast came upon us furiously. We continued to scud under a double reefed mainsail and foretopsail till dusk; but, as the sea ran high, the captain thought it safest to bring her to. The watch on deck consisted of four men, one of whom was appointed to keep a lookout ahead, for the weather was so hazy, that we could not see two cables' length from the bows. This man, whose name was Tom Willis, went frequently to the bows, as if to observe something; and when the others called to him, inquiring what he was looking at, he would give no definite answer. They therefore went also to the bows, and appeared startled, and at first said nothing.

But presently one of them cried, "William, go call the watch."

The seamen, having been asleep in their hammocks, murmured at this unseasonable summons, and called to know how it looked upon deck. To which Tom Willis replied, "Come up and see. What we are minding is not on deck, but ahead."

On hearing this, they ran up without putting on their jackets, and when they came to the bows there was a whispering.

One of them asked, "Where is she? I do not see her."

To which another replied, "The last flash of lightning showed there was not a reef in one of her sails; but we, who know her history, know that all her canvass will never carry her into port."

By this time, the talking of the seamen had brought some of the passengers on deck. They could see nothing, however, for the ship was surrounded by thick darkness, and by the noise of the dashing waters, and the seamen evaded the questions that were put to them.

At this juncture the chaplain came on deck. He was a man of grave and modest demeanor, and was much liked among the seamen, who called him Gentle George.

He overheard one of the men asking another, if he had ever seen the Flying Dutchman before, and if he knew the story about her. To which the other replied, "I have heard of her beating about in these seas. What is the reason she never reaches port?"

The first speaker replied, "They give different reasons for it, but my story is this: She was an Amsterdam vessel, and sailed from that port seventy years ago. Her master's name was Vanderdecken. He was a staunch seaman, and would have his own way, in spite of the devil. For all that, never a sailor under him had reason to complain; though how it is on board with them now, nobody knows. The story is this, that in doubling the Cape, they were a long day trying to weather the Table Bay, which we saw this morning. However, the wind headed them, and went against them more and more, and Vanderdecken walked the deck, swearing at the wind. Just after sunset, a vessel spoke him, asking if he did not mean to go into the Bay that night. Vanderdecken replied, 'May I be eternally d__d if I do, though I should beat about here till the day of judgment!' And to be sure, Vanderdecken never did go into that bay; for it is believed that he continues to beat about in these seas still, and will do so long enough. This vessel is never seen but with foul weather along with her."

To which another replied, "We must keep clear of her. They say that her captain mans his jolly boat, when a vessel comes in sight, and tries hard to get alongside, to put letters on board, but no good comes to them who have communication with him."

Tom Willis said, "There is such a sea between us at present, as should keep us safe from such visits."

To which the other answered, "We cannot trust to that, if Vanderdeckcn sends out his men."

Some of this conversation having been overheard by the passengers, there was a commotion among them. In the meantime, the noise of the waves against the vessel, could scarcely be distinguished from the sounds of the distant thunder. The wind had extinguished the light in the binnacle, where the compass was, and no one could tell which way the ship's head lay.

The passengers were afraid to ask questions, lest they should augment the secret sensation of fear which chilled every heart, or learn any more than they already knew. For while they attributed their agitation of mind to the state of the weather, it was sufficiently perceptible that their alarms also arose from a cause which they did not acknowledge.

The lamp at the binnacle being re-lighted, they perceived that the ship lay closer to the wind than she had hitherto done, and the spirits of the passengers were somewhat revived.

Nevertheless, neither the tempestuous state of the atmosphere, nor the thunder had ceased; and soon a vivid flash of lightning showed the waves tumbling around us, and, in the distance, the Flying Dutchman scudding furiously before the wind, under a press of canvass. The sight was but momentary , but it was sufficient to remove doubt from the minds of the passengers.

One of the men cried aloud, "There she goes, top-gallants and all."

The chaplain had brought up his prayer book, in order that he might draw from thence something to fortify and tranquillize the minds of the rest. Therefore, taking his seat near the binnacle, so that the light shone upon the white leaves of the book, he, in a solemn tone, read out the service for those distressed at sea. The sailors stood round with folded arms, and looked as if they thought it would be of little use. But this served to occupy the attention of those on deck for a while.

In the meantime, the flashes of lightning becoming less vivid, showed nothing else, far or near, but the billows weltering round the vessel. The sailors seemed to think that they had not yet seen the worst, but confined their remarks and prognostications to their own circle.

At this time, the captain, who had hitherto remained in his birth, came on deck, and, with a gay and unconcerned air, inquired what was the cause of the general dread. He said he thought they had already seen the worst of the weather, and wondered that his men had raised such a hubbub about a capful of wind. Mention being made of the Flying Dutchman, the captain laughed. He said he would like very much to see any vessel carrying top-gallant-sails in such a night, for it would be a sight worth looking at.

The chaplain, taking him by one of the buttons of his coat, drew him aside, and appeared to enter into serious conversation with him. While they were talking together the captain was heard to say, "Let us look to our own ship, and not mind such things," and accordingly, he sent a man aloft, to see if all was right about the foretop-sail yard, which was chafing the mast wit a loud noise.

It was Tom Willis who went up; and when he came down, he said that all was tight, and that he hoped it would soon get clearer; and that they would see no more of what they were most afraid of.

The captain and first mate were heard laughing loudly together, while the chaplain observed, that it would be better to repress such unseasonable gaiety. The second mate, a native of Scotland, whose name was Duncan Saunderson, having attended one of the university classes at Aberdeen, thought himself too wise to believe all that the sailors said, and took part with the captain. He jestingly told Tom Willis, to borrow his grandam's spectacles the next time he was sent to keep a lookout ahead.

Tom walked sulkily away, muttering, that he would nevertheless trust to his own eyes till morning, and accordingly took his station at the bow, and appeared to watch as attentively as before.

The sound of talking soon ceased, for many returned to their births, and we heard nothing but the clanking of the ropes upon the masts, and the bursting of the billows ahead, as the vessel successively took the seas.

But after a considerable interval of darkness, gleams of lightning began to reappear. Tom Willis suddenly called out, "Vanderdecken, again! Vanderdecken, again! I see, them letting down a boat."

All who were on deck ran to the bows. The next flash of lightning shone far and wide over the raging sea, and showed us not only the Flying Dutchman at a distance, but also a boat coming from her with four men. The boat was within two cables' length of our ship's side. The man who first saw her, ran to the captain, and asked whether they should hail her or not. The captain, walking about in great agitation, made no reply.

The first mate cried, "Who's going to heave a rope to that boat?"

The men looked at each other without offering to do anything. The boat had come very near the chains, when Tom Willis called out, "What do you want, or what devil has blown you here in such weather?"

A piercing voice from the boat replied in English, "We want to speak with your captain."

The captain took no notice of this, and Vanderdecken's boot having come close alongside, one of the men came upon deck, and appeared like a fatigued and weather-beaten seaman, holding some letters in his hand.

Our sailors all drew back. The chaplain, however, looking steadfastly upon him, went forward a few steps, and asked, "What is the purpose of this visit?"

The stranger replied, "We have long been kept here by foul weather, and Vanderdecken wishes to send these letters to his friends in Europe."

Our captain now came forward, and said as firmly as he could, "I wish Vanderdecken would put his letters on board of any other vessel rather than mine."

The stranger replied, "We have tried many a ship, but most of them refuse our letters."

Upon which, Tom Willis muttered, "It will be best for us if we do the same, for they say, there is sometimes a sinking weight in your paper."

The stranger took no notice of this, but asked where we were from. On being told that we were from Portsmouth, he said, as if with strong feeling, "Would that you had rather been from Amsterdam. Oh that we saw it again! -- We must see our friends again."

When he uttered these words, the men who were in the boat below, wrung their hands, and cried in a piercing tone, in Dutch, "Oh that we saw it again! We have been long here beating about; but we must see our friends again."

The chaplain asked the stranger, "How long have you been at sea?"

He replied, "We have lost our count; for our almanac was blown overboard. Our ship, you see, is there still; so why should you ask how long we have been at sea? for Vanderdecken only wishes to write home and comfort his friends."

To which the chaplain replied, "Your letters, I fear, would be of no use in Amsterdam, even if they were delivered, for the persons to whom they are addressed are probably no longer to be found there, except under very ancient green turf in the churchyard."

The unwelcome stranger then wrung his hands, and appeared to weep; and replied, "It is impossible. We cannot believe you. We have been long driving about here, but country nor relations cannot be so easily forgotten. There is not a raindrop in the air but feels itself kindred to all the rest, and they fall back into the sea to meet with each other again. How then, can kindred blood be made to forget where it came from? Even our bodies are part of the ground of Holland; and Vanderdecken says, if he once were come to Amsterdam, he would rather be changed into a stone post, well fixed into the ground, than leave it again; if that were to die elsewhere. But in the meantime, we only ask you to take these letters."

The chaplain, looking at him with astonishment, said, "This is the insanity of natural affection, which rebels against all measures of time and distance."

The stranger continued, "Here is a letter from our second mate, to his dear and only remaining friend, his uncle, the merchant who lives in the second house on Stuncken Yacht Quay."

He held forth the letter, but no one would approach to take it. Tom Willis raised his voice, and said, "One of our men here says that he was in Amsterdam last summer, and he knows for certain, that the street called Stuncken Yacht Quay, was pulled down sixty years ago, and now there is only a large church at that place."

The man from the Flying Dutchman, said, "It is impossible; we cannot believe you. Here is another letter from myself, in which I have sent a banknote to my dear sister, to buy some gallant lace, to make her a high headdress."

Tom Willis hearing this, said, "It is most likely that her head now lies under a tombstone, which will outlast all the changes of the fashion. But on what house is your banknote?"

The stranger replied, "On the house of Vanderbrucker and Company."

The man, of whom Tom Willis had spoken, said, "I guess there will now be some discount upon it, for that banking house was gone to destruction forty years ago; and Vanderbrucker was afterwards a-missing. -- But to remember these things is like raking up the bottom of an old canal."

The stranger called out passionately, "It is impossible. We cannot believe it! It is cruel to say such things to people in our condition. There is a letter from our captain himself, to his much-beloved and faithful wife, whom he left at a pleasant summer dwelling, on the border of the Haarlemer Mer. She promised to have the house beautifully painted and gilded before he came back, and to get a new set of looking-glasses for the principal chamber, that she might see as many images of Vanderdecken, as if she had six husbands at once."

The man replied, "There has been time enough for her to have had six husbands since then; but were she alive still, there is no fear that Vanderdecken would ever get home to disturb her."

On hearing this the stranger again shed tears, and said, if they would not take the letters, he would leave them; and looking around he offered the parcel to the captain, chaplain, and to the rest of the crew successively, but each drew back as it was offered, and put his hands behind his back. He then laid the letters upon the deck, and placed upon them a piece of iron, which was lying near, to prevent them from being blown away. Having done this, he swung himself over the gangway, and went into the boat.

We heard the others speak to him, but the rise of a sudden squall prevented us from distinguishing his reply. The boat was seen to quit the ship's side, and, in a few moments, there were no more traces of her than if she had never been there. The sailors rubbed their eyes, as if doubting what they had witnessed, but the parcel still lay upon deck, and proved the reality of all that had passed.

Duncan Saunderson, the Scotch mate, asked the captain if he should take them up, and put them in the letter bag. Receiving no reply, he would have lifted them if it had not been for Tom Willis, who pulled him back, saying that nobody should touch them.

In the meantime the captain went down to the cabin, and the chaplain having followed him, found him at his bottle-case, pouring out a large dram of brandy. The captain, although somewhat disconcerted, immediately offered the glass to him, saying, "Here, Charters, is what is good in a cold night."

The chaplain declined drinking anything, and the captain having swallowed the bumper, they both returned to the deck, where they found the seamen giving their opinions concerning what should be done with the letters. Tom Willis proposed to pick them up on a harpoon and throw it overboard.

Another speaker said, "I have always heard it asserted that it is neither safe to accept them voluntarily, nor when they are left to throw them out of the ship."

"Let no one touch them," said the carpenter. "The way to do with the letters from the Flying Dutchman is to case them upon deck, by nailing boards over them, so that if he sends back for them, they are still there to give him."

The carpenter went to fetch his tools. During his absence, the ship gave so violent a pitch, that the piece of iron slid off the letters, and they were whirled overboard by the wind, like birds of evil omen whirring through the air. There was a cry of joy among the sailors, and they ascribed the favorable change which soon took place in the weather, to our having got quit of Vanderdecken. We soon got underway again. The night watch being set, the rest of the crew retired to their births.




The Flying Dutchman

South Africa

I am reminded of that singular phenomenon which has been seen off the Cape, and usually termed the "Flying Dutchman," which few sailors who have navigated the Cape, disbelieve, and which most people are very sceptical respecting.

The supposed origin of the "Flying Dutchman" is that a vessel from Batavia was on the point of entering Table Bay in stress of weather during the Dutch occupation os the Cape, when in the winter season, no vessel was allowed to enter the bay: the batteries fired on the distressed ship, and compelled it to put to sea, where it was lost, and as the sailors say has continued ever since beating about, and will continue to do so till the day of judgment.

The "Dutchman" is said to appear generally to ships in a heavy gale, with all sail set -- and when the eastern navigator is in a calm, the Dutchman appears to be scudding under bare poles. As many persons think such an apparition the creation of fancy, I give the following statement which was noted down in the logbook of his Majesty's ship Leven, when employed with the Barracouta, &c, in surveying East Africa, and in the dangers and disaster of which squadron I participated.

His Majesty's ship Leven, Capt. W. F. W. Owen, on the 6th April, 1823, when off Point Danger, on her voyage from Algoa to Simon's Bay, saw her consort the Barracouta about two miles to leeward; this was considered extraordinary as her sailing orders would have placed her in a different direction; but her peculiar rig left no doubt as to her identity, and at last many well known faces were distinctly visible looking towards the Leven.

Capt. Owen attempted to close with her to speak, but was surprised that she not only made no effort to join the Leven, on the contrary stood away: being near the destined port, Capt. Owen did not follow her, and continued on his course to the Cape, but at sunset she was observed to heave to and lower a boat, apparently for the purpose of picking up a man overboard; during the night there was no light nor any symptoms of her locality.

The next morning, the Leven anchored in Simon's Bay where for a whole week the Barracouta was anxiously expected. On her arrival (the 14th) it was seen by her log, that she was 300 miles from the Leven, when the latter thought she saw her, and had not lowered any boat that evening; it should also be remarked that no other vessel of the same class was ever seen about the Cape.

On another occasion a similar phenomenon was witnessed by the Leven, and a boat was apparently lowered as is generally the case when the phantom seeks to lure his victim. The veteran sailor was not however, to be caught,* and the Leven after many perils, reached England in safety.

*It is said that any vessel which the "Dutchman" can get his letters on board of is certain to be lost.

Thrice as a passenger in a merchant ship, I saw a vessel in nearly similar circumstances: on one occasion we hoisted lights over the gang-way to speak with the stranger; the third time was my recent return from India. We had been in "dirty weather," as the sailors say, for several days, and to beguile the afternoon I commenced after dinner narrating to the French officers and passengers (who were strangers to the Eastern seas), the stories current about the "Flying Dutchman."

The wind, which had been freshening during the evening, now blew a stiff gale, and we proceeded on deck to see the crew make our bark all snug for the night. The clouds, dark and heavy, coursed with rapidity across the moon, whose lustre is peculiar in the S. hemisphere, and we could see a distance of from eight to ten miles on the horizon.

Suddenly the second officer, a fine Marseilles sailor, who had been among the foremost in the cabin in laughing at and ridiculing the story of the "Flying Dutchman," ascended the weather rigging, exclaiming, "Voila le volant Hollandais!"

The captain sent for his night glass, and soon observed, "It is very strange, but there is a ship bearing down upon us with all sail set, while we dare scarcely show a pocket-handkerchief to the breeze."

In a few minutes the stranger was visible to all on deck; her rig plainly discernible, and people on her poop; she seemed to near us with the rapidity of lightning, and apparently wished to pass under our quarter, as if for the purpose of speaking.

The captain, a resolute Bordeaux mariner, said it was quite incomprehensible, and sent for the trumpet to hail or answer, when in an instant, and while we were all standing on the qui vive, the stranger totally disappeared, and was no more seen.

I give this, coupled with Capt. Owen's statement as regards H. M. S. Leven, without remark, and, but that it would seem frivolous, could relate several other instances. The reader will, I hope, excuse this digression, which could not well be avoided in treating of the Cape of Good Hope, whose name is almost associated with that of the "Flying Dutchman."




The Fable of the Flying Dutchman

Heinrich Heine, The Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopski, 1833

You certainly know the fable of the Flying Dutchman. It is the story of an enchanted ship which can never arrive in port, and which since time immemorial has been sailing about at sea. When it meets a vessel, some of the unearthly sailors come in a boat and beg the others to take a packet of letters home for them. These letters must be nailed to the mast, else some misfortune will happen to the ship -- above all if no Bible be on board, and no horseshoe nailed to the foremast. The letters are always addressed to people whom no one knows, and who have long been dead, so that some late descendant gets a letter addressed to a far away great-great-grandmother, who has slept for centuries in her grave.

That wooden ghost, that spook-ship, is so called from the captain, a Dutchman, who once swore by all the devils that he would get round a certain mountain -- its name has escaped me -- in spite of a fearful storm, even if he would have to sail until Judgment Day.

The devil took him at his word, therefore he must sail forever, until set free by a woman's loyalty. The devil, in his stupidity, has no faith in female loyalty, and allowed the enchanted captain to land once in seven years and get married, and thus find opportunities to save his soul.

The poor Dutchman! He often has been only too glad to escape from his marriage and his wife-savior, and get on board again.

The play which I saw in Amsterdam [in the year 1827] was based on this fable. Another seven years have passed; the poor Dutchman is more weary than ever of his endless wandering; he comes ashore, befriends a Scottish nobleman, to whom he sells diamonds at an unbelievably low price, and when he hears that his customer has a beautiful daughter, he asks for her hand in marriage. This bargain is agreed to as well.

Next we see the Scotsman's home; with an anxious heart the maiden awaits the bridegroom. With melancholy she often looks up at a large, time-worn picture which hangs in the hall, and depicts a handsome man in Spanish-Dutch clothing. It is an old heirloom, and according to her grandmother, it is a true portrait of the Flying Dutchman as he was seen in Scotland a hundred years earlier, in the time of William of Orange. A warning connected to this portrait has been passed down as well: that the women of the family must beware of the person depicted in the painting.

This warning has naturally enough had the result of deeply impressing the features of the dangerous man in the picture in the girl's mind, from her childhood onward. Therefore, when the authentic Flying Dutchman makes his appearance, she is startled, but not from fear.

He too is moved when he sees the portrait. But when he is told who it represents, he tactfully turns aside all suspicion, makes fun of the superstition, and ridicules the Flying Dutchman, the Wandering Jew of the Ocean.

Nevertheless, now in a melancholy mood, he relates how the gentleman must be suffering horribly out there on the endless waves, how his body is nothing other than a coffin of flesh in which is soul in imprisoned, how life and death alike reject him, like an empty cask scornfully cast ashore by the sea, then contemptuously again set adrift. He further muses that the poor Dutchman's agony must be as deep as the sea on which he sails -- cast between life and death, his ship without anchor, and his heart without hope.

I believe that these were, more or less, the words with which the bridegroom ends. The bride looks at him earnestly, now and then casting glances at his portrait.

It seems seems that she has guessed his secret; and when he afterwards asks, "Katherine, will you be true to me?" she answers with resolve, "True to death."

............

[Following the intermission] I returned to my seat in the theater just in time to see the play's last scene. The Flying Dutchman's wife is standing on a high cliff above the sea wringing her hands in despair, while her unhappy husband is seen on the deck of his unearthly ship, tossing on the waves. He loves her, and will leave her lest she be lost with him. He confesses to her his dreadful destiny, and the cruel curse which hangs above his head.

She cries aloud, "I was true to you to this hour, and I know how to be true unto death!

Saying this she throws herself into the waves, and the enchantment is ended. The Flying Dutchman is redeemed, and we see the ghostly ship slowly sink into the depths of the sea.


  • Source: The Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopski, ch. 7, The Works of Heinrich Heine, translated from the german by Charles Godfrey Leland (Hans Breitmann), vol. 1 (London: William Heinemann, 1903), pp. 130-36.

  • Translation corrected and revised by D. L. Ashliman. © 2013.

  • Link to the German-language original: Die Fabel von dem fliegenden Holländer.

  • The play that Heine ostensibly saw in Amsterdam has not been identified.

  • This short sketch by Heinrich Heine served as the impetus for Richard Wagner's opera Der fliegende Holländer (first performed in 1843).

  • Return to the table of contents.



The Flying Dutchman of the Tappan Sea

Washington Irving

The Tappan Sea ... was said to be haunted. Often in the still twilight of a summer evening, when the sea would be as glass, and the opposite hills would throw their purple shadows half across it, a low sound would be heard as of the steady, vigorous pull of oars, though not a boat was to be descried.

Some might have supposed that a boat was rowed along unseen under the deep shadows of the opposite shores; but the ancient traditionists of the neighborhood knew better. Some said it was one of the whale-boats of the old Water Guard, sunk by the British ships during the war, but now permitted to haunt its old cruising-grounds; but the prevalent opinion connected it with the awful fate of Rambout van Dam of graceless memory.

He was a roistering Dutchman of Spiting Devil, who in times long past had navigated his boat alone one Saturday the whole length of the Tappan Sea, to attend a quilting frolic at Kakiat, on the western shore. Here he had danced and drunk until midnight, when he entered his boat to return home. He was warned that he was on the verge of Sunday morning; but he pulled off nevertheless, swearing he would not land until he reached Spiting Devil, if it took him a month of Sundays.

He was never seen afterwards; but may be heard plying his oars, as above mentioned, -- being the Flying Dutchman of the Tappan Sea, doomed to ply between Kakiat and Spiting Devil until the day of judgment.




The Rotterdam

Scotland

Once upon a time a wicked sea captain built a ship in which he sailed the high seas, and hoped to conquer the world. When she was launched and manned he called her "the Rotterdam," and he said, "I now fear nor God nor man."

His ship was so large that on her deck there was a garden of fruits and flowers, besides sheep, and milch kine, and provisions of all sorts. He was ignorant of the navigation of the Dernoch Firth, but he tried to enter it, in the hopes of some northwest passage. He ran his ship on the quicksands of the Gizzen Brigs, and there where she sank the fisherman can still see her topgallant, and her bargee, flying and fluttering in the waves.

Her crew and her captain must be still alive, for in calm weather they may be heard praying and singing psalms to avert the judgment of the Last Day, when the master of the Rotterdam will be punished.

This recalls the account of Vanderdecken's attempt to double the Cape, and the legend of the "Flying Dutchman."


  • Source (books.google.com): Miss Dempster, "The Folk-Lore of Sutherlandshire," The Folk-Lore Journal, vol. 6, part 3 (July to September 1888), pp. 154-55.

  • Source (Internet Archive): Miss Dempster, "The Folk-Lore of Sutherlandshire," The Folk-Lore Journal, vol. 6, part 3 (July to September 1888), pp. 154-55.

  • Dempster's source: "I gathered these tales and sayings from the mouths of the folk in the summer of 1859."

  • Return to the table of contents.



The Spectre Ship of Porthcurno

England

Porthcurno Cove is situated a little to the west of the Logan Stone. There, as in nearly all the coves around the coast, once existed a small chapel or oratory, which appears to have been dedicated to St. Leven. There exists now a little square enclosure about the size of a (bougie) sheep's house, which is all that remains of this little holy place. Looking up the valley, (Bottom,) you may see a few trees, with the chimney-tops and part of the roof of an old-fashioned house.

That place is Raftra, where they say St. Leven Church was to have been built; but as fast as the stones were taken there by day, they were removed by night to the place of the present church. (These performances are usually the act of the devil, but I have no information as to the saint or sinner who did this work.) Raftra House, at the time it was built, was the largest mansion west of Penzance. It is said to have been erected by the Tresillians, and, ere it was finished, they appear to have been obliged to sell house and lands for less than it had cost them to build the house.

This valley is in every respect a melancholy spot, and during a period of storms, or at night, it is exactly the place which might well be haunted by demon revellers. In the days of the saint from whom the parish has its name -- St. Leven -- he lived a long way up from the cove, at a place called Bodelan, and his influence made that, which is now so dreary, a garden. By his pure holiness he made the wilderness a garden of flowers, and spread gladness where now is desolation.

Few persons cared to cross that valley after nightfall; and it is not more than thirty years since that I had a narrative from an inhabitant of Penberth, that he himself had seen the spectre ship sailing over the land.

This strange apparition is said to have been observed frequently, coming in from sea about nightfall, when the mists were rising from the marshy ground in the Bottoms.

Onward came the ill-omened craft. It passed steadily through the breakers on the shore, glided up over the sands, and steadily pursued its course over the dry land, as if it had been water. She is described to have been a black, square-rigged, single-masted affair, usually, but not always, followed by a boat. No crew was ever seen. It is supposed they were below, and that the hatches were battened down. On it went to Bodelan, where St. Leven formerly dwelt. It would then steer its course to Chygwiden, and there vanish like smoke.

Many of the old people have seen this ship, and no one ever saw it, upon whom some bad luck was not sure to fall. This ship is somehow connected with a strange man who returned from sea, and went to live at Chygwiden. It may be five hundred years since -- it may be but fifty.

He was accompanied by a servant of foreign and forbidding aspect, who continued to be his only attendant; and this servant was never known to speak to any one save his master. It is said by some they were pirates; others make them more familiar, by calling them privateers; while some insist upon it they were American bucaneers.

Whatever they may have been, there was but little seen of them by any of their neighbours. They kept a boat at Porthcurno Cove, and at daylight they would start for sea, never returning until night, and not unfrequently remaining out the whole of the night, especially if the weather was tempestuous. This kind of sea-life was varied by hunting. It mattered not to them whether it was day or night; when the storm was loudest, there was this strange man, accompanied either by his servant or by the devil, and the midnight cry of his dogs would disturb the country.

This mysterious being died, and then the servant sought the aid of a few of the peasantry to bear his coffin to the churchyard. The corpse was laid in the grave, around which the dogs were gathered, with the foreigner in their midst. As soon as the earth was thrown on the coffin, man and dogs disappeared, and, strange to say, the boat disappeared at the same moment from the cove. It has never since been seen; and from that day to this no one has been able to keep a boat in Porthcurno Cove.




We Meet the Flying Dutchman

The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship "Bacchante," 1881

July 11th, [1881] -- At 4:00 a.m. the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows. A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the masts, spars, and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief as she came up on the port bow. The lookout man on the forecastle reported her as close on the port bow, where also the officer of the watch from the bridge clearly saw her, as did also the quarterdeck midshipman, who was sent forward at once to the forecastle; but on arriving there no vestige nor any sign whatever of any material ship was to be seen either near or right away to the horizon, the night being clear and the sea calm. Thirteen persons altogether saw her, but whether it was Van Diemen or the Flying Dutchman or who else must remain unknown.

............

The Tourmaline and Cleopatra, who were sailing on our starboard bow, flashed to ask whether we had seen the strange red light. At 6:15 a.m. observed land (Mount Diana) to the northeast. At 10:45 a.m. the ordinary seaman who had this morning reported the Flying Dutchman fell from the foretopmast crosstrees on to the topgallant forecastle and was smashed to atoms. At 4:15 p.m. after quarters we hove to with the head-yards aback, and he was buried in the sea. He was a smart royal yardman, and one of the most promising young hands in the ship, and every one feels quite sad at his loss. (At the next port we came to the Admiral also was smitten down).




The Phantom Ship

James William Buel

The Phantom Ship

The tale of the Phantom Vessel is the best known and most poetical of all the nautical legends. Novelists have used it, poets have embellished it, dramatists have put it on the boards with all the accessories of magnificent scenery, composers have made it familiar to the lovers of music in more than one famous opera.

The story is told with variations by the sailors of every land, but a striking similarity exists in the main point of all the legends, -- in each the vessel is condemned to wander forever on account of a great crime committed by the captain.

The commonly accepted version of the story is that given by [Augustin] Jal:

An unbelieving Dutch captain, endeavoring to double Cape Horn against the force of a head wind, profanely swore that he would persist in his course in spite of the decrees of Providence. Undeterred by the remonstrances of his crew, he laughed at their fears, made some of them, who threatened mutiny, walk the plank from the deck into the sea, and flogged others at the mast. Cries from suffering victims rose to heaven, and holy spirits swooped down before him and made merciful appeals to the enraged wretch, but at some he threw dishwater, at others he fired a pistol, and finally a voice from above proclaimed that on account of his blasphemy he should be condemned forever to sail the sea, the evil genius of sailors.

Thus the appearance of the Flying Dutchman is ever dreaded as the forerunner of disaster.

O'Reilly sings:

Heaven help the ship near which the demon sailor steers,
The doom of those is fixed to whom the Phantom Ship appears;
They'll never reach their destined port, they'll see their homes no more;
They who see the Flying Dutchman never, never reach the shore.

In Pursuit of the Spectral Ship

The Phantom Ship brings sudden squalls and howling tempests. She leads those who follow in her wake on to shoals, quicksands and reefs. She is the Purgatory of wicked sailors; her skeleton crew is composed of the souls of thieves, murderers, pirates who are condemned to everlasting toil, with no rest, no play, and very little food.

The Phantom Ship is never seen twice under the same circumstances. By one she is beheld in the midst of the storm, with all sails set, placidly plowing her way through the wildest billows; by another, she is beheld on a calm night, with sails closely reefed, pitching and tumbling as though in a terrible storm.

All the main features of the legend are detailed by [Frederick] Marryatt in his story of The Phantom Ship. In this remarkable sea-tale the incidents are told by her captain, who narrates his adventures from the time when, on account of impiety, he was condemned to wander, until, by the restoration of a relic, his aimless voyages came to an end. The dramatic feature of the tale lies in the fact that the captain's son undertakes his redemption, and filled with a filial purpose follows the Phantom Ship to and fro over the watery waste.

He sees her first in a cloud, just at sunset, and his ship approaches so close to the spirit vessel that the whistles of the boatswain, the orders given on the decks, the rattling of the cordage are plainly heard.

Again he beholds her in a good breeze, her hull enveloped in mist. A gun is fired from her bow; voices are heard and the trampling of the crew as they man the ropes, and she passes out of sight.

Again he sees her as she decoys other vessels into dangerous waters, herself passing over the reef without altering her course, and at last she rises slowly out of the water, a demon ship, and awaits the coming of the boat sent by her pursuers.

Ghostly Ships of Extraordinary Proportions

The Flying Dutchman is not the only phantom vessel; the sailors of the olden time had many, some of gigantic size. The Frisians believed in a Phantom Ship so large that the captain rode about on horseback giving his orders; the sailors, who, as boys, started aloft to execute an order, came down as old men; in the rigging were dining-halls; the cabin was larger than all England.

But even this mighty craft was a toy boat compared to the Chasse Foudre, "The Lightning Chaser," of old French mariners, which was so large that seven years were required to tack or change her course; when she rolled, whales were stranded on the shore; thirty thousand men were thirty years in digging the iron to make her hull. Her cables were as thick as the diameter of St. Peter's dome and so long that they could seven times encircle the globe; her lower masts were so tall that a boy grew white-headed before reaching the first yard; her smallest sail was larger than all Europe; twenty-five thousand soldiers could maneuvre on the cap which covered the top of the main-mast; in her forecastle was a garden larger than the whole of France; in every block of the rigging there was a tavern; every quid of tobacco used by one of her sailors would supply a frigate's crew for three years; a dram of grog was composed of seventeen hogsheads of rum, to say nothing of the water.

These were stories of the olden times, when the Phantom Ship was in her prime; but within the last three centuries she gradually diminished in size, until sixty years ago she was no larger than an ordinary vessel. She still remained, however, a place of punishment for wicked sailors, and some who beheld her saw death-heads grinning from her ports, a skeleton captain walking her bridge, the corpse of a seaman on the lookout, and a ghost taking his trick at the wheel.

She is sometimes inhabited by demons, who chastise the spirits of evil seamen with whips of scorpions; dogs are set to guard the prisoners and inflict ten thousand tortures on the hapless wretches; in her forecastle, cabin and hold, serpents, cats, hobgoblins, creeping things, all kinds of horrors abound.

A Monk Who Visited the Islands of the Damned and the Blessed

The Phantom Ship takes long voyages; visits strange countries. The lost continent of Atlantis is its frequent destination, although sometimes it lets fall its anchor at the Isles of the Blessed. According to tradition, these were located to the west of Ireland, but judiciously shifted their position as the sea became better known.

They were, however, sometimes visited even by the living. St. Brandan, an Irish monk, started to explore them in a phantom boat, and after sailing twenty-four days and nights, came to an island of fiends and volcanoes, where whole fleets of phantom ships were at anchor in the harbor, and spectral sailors wandering to and fro on the shore. Such a spectacle as a monk had never before been seen on the island. He was attacked by the demons, and was only saved by the intercession of a saint more powerful than himself, who conducted him through the island, showed him all the torments in progress, and gave him material for a narrative closely resembling the story of Dante.

Leaving this horrid island, after twentyfour days and nights he arrived at the Islands of the Blessed, which were filled with delights of every kind. No night was there, nor heat of the sun; pleasant prospects charmed the eye; soft music from unseen sources fascinated the ear; every flower was fragrant, every taste a pleasure. In this paradisaical place the good monk probably spent the remainder of his days, for we do not hear more of his adventures.

Origin of the Ghostly Ship

Since the ocean has been thoroughly explored and its lands located, the Islands of the Cursed and of the Blessed have alike disappeared, but not so the spectral ship; and it is a curious fact that science has supported the old sailor in his superstition by often presenting to the most skeptical a view of the phantom vessel. The mirage is more common on the water than on land, and it often happens that a vessel or fleet many miles distant is plainly in view of men on shore, or of mariners at sea. Too many instances are recorded to doubt the fact, and the observers are too cautious to be deceived.

During Owen's travels he visited Port Danger, of the South Africa coast, and there he and all with him beheld in the offing the British man-of-war Barracouta. So plainly visible was the vessel that she was recognized by all on shore; even the figures on her deck were plainly to be seen. Some days after she arrived, when it was proven that she was three hundred miles away at the time her spectral counterpart sailed into the harbor and vanished.

At Oporto, Lisbon, Marseilles, and other ports of Southern Europe, the phantoms of vessels are often seen during the summer season a day or two before their arrival; in the North Sea, the spectre of a ship upside down is a certain forerunner of bad weather. The Fata Morgana, a daily phenomenon in the Straits of Messina, shows the phantoms of vessels in all sorts of positions and with all kinds of distortion. Sometimes the ship is in the air; sometimes a double reflection is presented in the water; occasionally there are three images of the same vessel, two in the water and one in the air.

The tropical seas are full of optical wonders. The Arctic Region abounds with reflected images; of icebergs, of mountains, of continents, of vessels. All these things have become familiar to the modern scientist, and for all a natural explanation has been found.

The Flying Dutchman is not an optical delusion, but an optical reality, so the old sailor was right in one particular, the basis of the story; and, given a starting point, the rest was easy. A derelict bark, seen under circumstances of danger, perhaps gave rise to the supernatural appearance of the phantom; a vessel whose crew were all dead of the plague -- a slaver laden with fetid corpses -- gave the idea of the wandering ship haunted by the souls of the dead. The presence of electrical lights at the mast-heads, the brilliancy of the Aurora Borealis, the appearance of peculiar mists, the resonance of the air at certain times, did the rest and embellished the tale with all its fanciful and grotesquely horrible additions.

A Real Flying Dutchman

There was even a good reason why the wandering vessel should be a Dutchman. At the time the legend was crystallizing the Dutch were the best sailors in the world; cool, impassive, little prone to excitement, their remark able skill was naturally attributed to sorcery.

It is even asserted that the Flying Dutchman was a real person, by name Bernard Fokke, of the seventeenth century. He was a reckless, daring seaman who, that he might carry the more sail in a high wind, cased his masts with iron. One voyage to India he made in ninety days, then an unprecedented rate of speed, and so rapidly did he traverse the water-world that even in his own time he was be lieved to be in league with Satan. But Bernard took one risk too many, and setting sail from Amsterdam with the expressed determination to beat his own record to India, was never afterwards heard of, and of course Satan took him and the ship and set them to travelling up and down the world to the be wilderment of better men.

Dying Superstition

The steamship dissipated the legend by taking away its most attractive feature, for the steam vessel, as easily as the phantom, can move against wind and tide. The use of better lights on board ship banished the ghosts, for it is well known that no ghost can stand the glare of an electric lamp.

The old sailor himself will soon be as rare as his spectres, for with improved navigation come increased confidence and decreased credulity. The sailor no longer feels his way across the sea, but calculates exactly where he is, knows how far he has travelled, how far he has still to go. Every rock in the ocean is laid down on the maps, and the seaman knows exactly what course to take to secure the safety of his vessel. He has confidence in his ship, and in his ship's captain; the voyages of the present day are short in comparison to those of former years; appliances for the sailor's safety are more efficient than ever before; the hiss of escaping steam, the crashing of the propellers are a wonderful relief from the dead silence which once reigned over the deep.

The sailor knows that on every headland in civilized countries around the globe a lamp blazes, warning him of danger; he hears the steam siren singing from every light-ship, but her voice is significant of peril, not an enticement to destruction. Fear, on eagle pinions, follows banished danger, and with whistle sounding and lights flashing from foretop and sides, with captain and first officer on the bridge, with second and third officers pacing the deck, with double lookout at the bow, the sailor plunges into the fog, forgetful of his phantoms.




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Revised February 22, 2021.


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Flying Dutchman Article

Flying Dutchman
A small tattered sailing vessel on misty broiling seas with occupants looking up at a huge ghostly ship bearing down on them
The Flying Dutchman by Albert Pinkham Ryder c. 1887 (Smithsonian American Art Museum)
CaptainWillem van der Decken

The Flying Dutchman (DutchDe Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship, allegedly never able to make port, but doomed to sail the seven seas forever. The myths and ghost stories were likely to have originated from the 17th-century Golden Age of the Dutch East India Company (VOC)[1][need quotation to verify][2][3][4] and of Dutch maritime power.[5][6][7] The oldest known extant version of the legend dates from the late 18th century. According to the legend, if hailed by another ship, the crew of the Flying Dutchman might try to send messages to land, or to people long dead. Reported sightings in the 19th and 20th centuries claimed that the ship glowed with a ghostly light. In ocean lore, the sight of this phantom ship functions as a portent of doom. It was commonly believed that the Flying Dutchman was a fluyt.

Origins

View of Table Bay (overlooked by KaapstadDutch Cape Colony) with ships of the Dutch East India Company, c. 1683. In the 17th century, the size of the Dutch merchant fleet probably exceeded the combined fleets of England, France, Spain, Portugal, and the German states.[8][9][10]
An 18th-century painting of a VOC ship with Table Mountain in the background, used by navigators as the landmark to sail around southern tip of Africa.
In the Age of Sail, the Brouwer Route, devised by the Dutch navigator Hendrik Brouwer in 1611, greatly reduced the voyage between Cape of Good Hope (Dutch Cape Colony) to Java (Dutch East Indies) from almost 12 months to about 6 months, compared to the previous Arab and Portuguese monsoon route.
Replica of an East Indiaman of the Dutch East India Company/United East Indies Company (VOC). The legend of the Flying Dutchman is likely to have originated from the 17th-century golden age of the VOC.

The first print reference to the ship appears in Travels in various part of Europe, Asia and Africa during a series of thirty years and upward (1790) by John MacDonald:

The weather was so stormy that the sailors said they saw the Flying Dutchman. The common story is that this Dutchman came to the Cape in distress of weather and wanted to get into harbour but could not get a pilot to conduct her and was lost and that ever since in very bad weather her vision appears.[11]

The next literary reference appears in Chapter VI of A Voyage to Botany Bay (1795) (also known as A Voyage to New South Wales), attributed to George Barrington (1755–1804):[nb 1]

I had often heard of the superstition of sailors respecting apparitions and doom, but had never given much credit to the report; it seems that some years since a Dutch man-of-war was lost off the Cape of Good Hope, and every soul on board perished; her consort weathered the gale, and arrived soon after at the Cape. Having refitted, and returning to Europe, they were assailed by a violent tempest nearly in the same latitude. In the night watch some of the people saw, or imagined they saw, a vessel standing for them under a press of sail, as though she would run them down: one in particular affirmed it was the ship that had foundered in the former gale, and that it must certainly be her, or the apparition of her; but on its clearing up, the object, a dark thick cloud, disappeared. Nothing could do away the idea of this phenomenon on the minds of the sailors; and, on their relating the circumstances when they arrived in port, the story spread like wild-fire, and the supposed phantom was called the Flying Dutchman. From the Dutch the English seamen got the infatuation, and there are very few Indiamen, but what has some one on board, who pretends to have seen the apparition.[12]

The next literary reference introduces the motif of punishment for a crime, in Scenes of Infancy (Edinburgh, 1803) by John Leyden (1775–1811):

It is a common superstition of mariners, that, in the high southern latitudes on the coast of Africa, hurricanes are frequently ushered in by the appearance of a spectre-ship, denominated the Flying Dutchman ... The crew of this vessel are supposed to have been guilty of some dreadful crime, in the infancy of navigation; and to have been stricken with pestilence ... and are ordained still to traverse the ocean on which they perished, till the period of their penance expire.[nb 2]

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) places the vessel in the north Atlantic in his poem Written on passing Dead-man's Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Late in the evening, September 1804:[13] "Fast gliding along, a gloomy bark / Her sails are full, though the wind is still, / And there blows not a breath her sails to fill." A footnote adds: "The above lines were suggested by a superstition very common among sailors, who call this ghost-ship, I think, 'the flying Dutch-man'."

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), a friend of John Leyden's, was the first to refer to the vessel as a pirate ship, writing in the notes to Rokeby; a poem (first published December 1812) that the ship was "originally a vessel loaded with great wealth, on board of which some horrid act of murder and piracy had been committed" and that the apparition of the ship "is considered by the mariners as the worst of all possible omens".

According to some sources, 17th-century Dutch captain Bernard Fokke is the model for the captain of the ghost ship.[14] Fokke was renowned for the speed of his trips from the Netherlands to Java and was suspected of being in league with the Devil. The first version of the legend as a story was printed in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for May 1821,[15] which puts the scene as the Cape of Good Hope. This story introduces the name Captain Hendrick Van der Decken for the captain and the motifs (elaborated by later writers) of letters addressed to people long dead being offered to other ships for delivery, but if accepted will bring misfortune; and the captain having sworn to round the Cape of Good Hope though it should take until the day of judgment.

She was an Amsterdam vessel and sailed from port seventy years ago. Her master's name was Van der Decken. He was a staunch seaman, and would have his own way in spite of the devil. For all that, never a sailor under him had reason to complain; though how it is on board with them nobody knows. The story is this: that in doubling the Cape they were a long day trying to weather the Table Bay. However, the wind headed them, and went against them more and more, and Van der Decken walked the deck, swearing at the wind. Just after sunset a vessel spoke him, asking him if he did not mean to go into the bay that night. Van der Decken replied: "May I be eternally damned if I do, though I should beat about here till the day of judgment." And to be sure, he never did go into that bay, for it is believed that he continues to beat about in these seas still, and will do so long enough. This vessel is never seen but with foul weather along with her.[16]

Reported sightings

There have been many reported or alleged sightings in the 19th and 20th centuries. A well-known sighting was by Prince George of Wales, the future King George V. He was on a three-year voyage during his late adolescence in 1880 with his elder brother Prince Albert Victor of Wales and their tutor John Neill Dalton. They temporarily shipped into HMS Inconstant after the damaged rudder was repaired in their original ship, the 4,000-tonne corvette Bacchante. The princes' log (indeterminate as to which prince, due to later editing before publication) records the following for the pre-dawn hours of 11 July 1881, off the coast of Australia:

July 11th. At 4 a.m. the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows. A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the masts, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief as she came up on the port bow, where also the officer of the watch from the bridge clearly saw her, as did the quarterdeck midshipman, who was sent forward at once to the forecastle; but on arriving there was no vestige nor any sign whatever of any material ship was to be seen either near or right away to the horizon, the night being clear and the sea calm. Thirteen persons altogether saw her ... At 10.45 a.m. the ordinary seaman who had this morning reported the Flying Dutchman fell from the foretopmast crosstrees on to the topgallant forecastle and was smashed to atoms.[17]

Nicholas Monsarrat, the novelist who wrote The Cruel Sea, described the phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean in his unfinished final book "Master Mariner", which was partly inspired by this tale (he lived and worked in South Africa after the war) and the story of the Wandering Jew.

Explanations as an optical illusion

Probably the most credible explanation is a superior mirage or Fata Morgana seen at sea.

Book illustration showing superior mirages of two boats

The news soon spread through the vessel that a phantom-ship with a ghostly crew was sailing in the air over a phantom-ocean, and that it was a bad omen, and meant that not one of them should ever see land again. The captain was told the wonderful tale, and coming on deck, he explained to the sailors that this strange appearance was caused by the reflection of some ship that was sailing on the water below this image, but at such a distance they could not see it. There were certain conditions of the atmosphere, he said, when the sun's rays could form a perfect picture in the air of objects on the earth, like the images one sees in glass or water, but they were not generally upright, as in the case of this ship, but reversed—turned bottom upwards. This appearance in the air is called a mirage. He told a sailor to go up to the foretop and look beyond the phantom-ship. The man obeyed, and reported that he could see on the water, below the ship in the air, one precisely like it. Just then another ship was seen in the air, only this one was a steamship, and was bottom-upwards, as the captain had said these mirages generally appeared. Soon after, the steamship itself came in sight. The sailors were now convinced, and never afterwards believed in phantom-ships.[18]

Another optical effect known as looming occurs when rays of light are bent across different refractive indices. This could make a ship just off the horizon appear hoisted in the air.[19]

Adaptations

In literature

The 1797–98 poem by Samuel Taylor ColeridgeThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner, contains a similar account of a ghost ship, which may have been influenced by the tale of the Flying Dutchman.[20][21]

One of the first Flying Dutchman short stories was titled "Vanderdecken's Message Home; or, the Tenacity of Natural Affection" and was published in Blackwood's during 1821.[22]

Dutch poet J. Slauerhoff published a number of related poems, particularly in his 1928 volume Eldorado.[23][24]

John Boyle O'Reilly wrote a poem titled The Flying Dutchman (1867). It was first published in The Wild Goose, a handwritten newspaper produced by Fenian convicts being transported to Western Australia.[25]

British author Brian Jacques wrote a trilogy of fantasy/young adult novels concerning two reluctant members of the Dutchman's crew, a young boy and his dog, whom an angel charges to help those in need. The first novel was titled Castaways of the Flying Dutchman (2001); the second was titled The Angel's Command (2003), and the third was titled Voyage of Slaves (2006).

The comic fantasy Flying Dutch by Tom Holt is a version of the Flying Dutchman story. In this version, the Dutchman is not a ghost ship but crewed by immortals who can only visit land once every seven years when the unbearable smell that is a side-effect of the elixir of life wears off.

Ward Moore's 1951 story "Flying Dutchman" used the myth as a metaphor for an automated bomber which continues to fly over an Earth where humanity long since totally destroyed itself and all life in a nuclear war.[26]

In opera and theatre

The story was adapted into the English melodrama The Flying Dutchman; or the Phantom Ship: a Nautical Drama, in three acts (1826) by Edward Fitzball, with music by George Rodwell.[27] The 48-page text, published c.1829, acknowledges the Blackwood's story as the source.

Richard Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman (1843) is adapted from an episode in Heinrich Heine's satirical novel The Memoirs of Mister von Schnabelewopski (Aus den Memoiren des Herrn von Schnabelewopski) (1833), in which a character attends a theatrical performance of The Flying Dutchman in Amsterdam. Heine had first used the legend in his Reisebilder: Die Nordsee (Pictures of Travel: the North Sea) (1826), which simply repeats from Blackwood's Magazine the features of the vessel being seen in a storm and sending letters addressed to persons long since dead. In his 1833 elaboration, Heine introduced the chance of salvation through a woman's devotion and the opportunity to set foot on land every seven years to seek a faithful wife. It was once thought that Heine may have based the episode on Fitzball's play, which was playing at the Adelphi Theatre in London, but the run had ended on 7 April 1827 and Heine did not arrive in London until the 14th; it was not published until its revival in 1829.[28] Unlike Fitzball's play, which is set off the Cape of Good Hope, Heine's account is set in the North Sea off Scotland. Wagner's opera was similarly planned to take place off the coast of Scotland, although during the final rehearsals he transferred the action to another part of the North Sea, off Norway.

Pierre-Louis Dietsch composed an opera Le vaisseau fantôme, ou Le maudit des mers (The Phantom Ship, or The Accursed of the Sea), which was first performed on 9 November 1842 at the Paris Opera. The libretto by Paul Foucher and H. Révoil was based on Walter Scott's The Pirate as well as Frederick Marryat's novel The Phantom Ship and other sources, although Wagner thought it was based on the scenario of his own opera, which he had just sold to the Opera. The similarity of Dietsch's opera to Wagner's is slight, although Wagner's assertion is often repeated. Berlioz thought Le vaisseau fantôme too solemn, but other reviewers were more favourable.[29][30]

Dutchman (1964), a short play by Amiri Baraka, uses the legend as a symbol of entrapment.

In art and design

The Flying Dutchman has been captured in paintings by Albert Ryder, now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum,[31] and by Howard Pyle, whose painting of the Flying Dutchman is on exhibit at the Delaware Art Museum.[32]

In television

In "The Buccaneers" 1956, episode 22 of Season 1 features a ghost ship known as "The Dutchman", ultimately, it is found that a crew of pirates had taken the ship after thr previous captain was hanged, and used it in lucrative business, drawing other ships in, stealing their cargo, then scuttling them, all while haunting the crews. This is ultimately thwarted by Dan Tempest and crew, when they attempt to take the ship to harbor.

In "Judgment Night", a 1959 episode of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, the U-boat captain who sank an Allied passenger ship in World War II finds himself doomed to forever relive the experience as a "Flying Dutchman" passenger of the torpedoed ship. Two other Twilight Zone episodes, "The Arrival" and "Death Ship" also refer to the legend. The Flying Dutchman was also featured in "Cave of the Dead", a 1967 episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

In the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon "Return of the Flying Dutchman", the ship appears as an illusion created by Mysterio.

In the 1976 Land of the Lost episode "Flying Dutchman", the ship appears captained by Ruben Van de Meer, who attempts to take Holly with him to give him company on his endless voyage.

In the kids' show SpongeBob SquarePants, the Flying Dutchman appears as a ghostly sailor (rather than the ship of the same name) and an enemy of SpongeBob.

In the anime/manga series One Piece, the Flying Dutchman appears captained by Van der Decken and is recognized as a ghost ship.

In comics

Carl Barks wrote and drew a 1959 comic book story where Uncle ScroogeDonald Duck and Huey, Dewey, and Louie meet the "Flying Dutchman".[33] Barks ultimately explains the "flying" ship as an optical illusion.

In film

Disney's Flying Dutchman prop used in Pirates of the Caribbean moored at Castaway Cay cruise ship terminal

The story was dramatised in the 1951 film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, starring James Mason and Ava Gardner. In this version, the Flying Dutchman is a man, not a ship, and the main action takes place on the Mediterranean coast of Spain during the summer of 1930. Centuries earlier the Dutchman had killed his wife, wrongly believing her to be unfaithful. At his trial he was unrepentant and cursed God. Providence condemned him to roam the seas until he found the true meaning of love. In the only plot point taken from earlier versions of the story, once every seven years the Dutchman is allowed ashore for six months to search for a woman who will love him enough to die for him, releasing him from his curse, and he finds her in Pandora, played by Gardner.

The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise features a ship named the Flying Dutchman. It first made appearances in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), captained by Davy Jones until his heart was stabbed by Will Turner, who became the new captain of the Dutchman. In a story partly inspired by Richard Wagner's opera, he can step on land once every ten years, and that at any time, if he finds a love that is true then his attachment to the ship is broken. Although it was believed Will's curse was lifted 10 years after the events of At World's End, Will was still cursed aboard the Dutchman in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017). The Flying Dutchman also made appearances in the video games Disney InfinityKingdom Hearts III, and Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life.

In video game

In Sea of Thieves In the "A Pirate's Life" tall tale, the player has to fight with the Flying Dutchman to progress. In the "Dark Brethren" tall tale the player has to defend the vessel against non-player enemies. In this section the player is free to wander inside the ship and can play the iconic Organ pipe.

In music

In 1949 RCA Victor, inventors of the single 45 RPM format, released as one of their first singles a recording of the legend in song in bandleader Hugo Winterhalter's "The Flying Dutchman", sung as a sea shanty.

Dutch symphonic black metal band Carach Angren wrote a concept album about the Flying Dutchman entitled Death Came Through a Phantom Ship.

Tin Machine, fronted by David Bowie, mentions it in their song 'Amlapura' on the Tin Machine II (1991) album.[34]

"The Flying Dutchman" is a song by the pirate themed music group The Jolly Rogers. Its lyrics narrate the encounter of a ship crew with the titular ghost ship.[35][36]

"Flying Dutchman" is a B-side from Tori Amos's 1992 debut album Little Earthquakes.

"Flying Dutchman" is a track on Jethro Tull's 1979 twelfth studio album Stormwatch.


In radio drama

The story was adapted by Judith French into a play, The Dutch Mariner, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 13 April 2003.[37]

In leisure

Flying Dutchman rollercoaster at Efteling amusement park

The Efteling amusement park in the Netherlands has a roller coaster called De Vliegende Hollander ("The Flying Dutchman" in English), which features a captain named Willem van der Decken (nl).

In aviation

KLM using the slogan

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines references the endless traveling aspect of the story by having The Flying Dutchman painted on the rear sides of all its aircraft with regular livery.

In sailing

There is a design of 20-foot one-design high-performance two-person racing dinghy named the Flying Dutchman. It made its Olympic debut at the 1960 Summer Games competitions in the Gulf of Naples and is still one of the fastest racing dinghies in the world.[38]

People

Several people have been nicknamed the "Flying Dutchman", including Anthony Fokker. Dutch football player Dennis Bergkamp was nicknamed "the Non-Flying Dutchman", because of his fear of flying. American baseball player Johannes Peter "Honus" Wagner was nicknamed the Flying Dutchman because of his speed and German heritage. Famous Dutch football player Robin van Persie also got the nickname "the Flying Dutchman" after his goal against Spain in the 2014 World Cup because of the way he scored with the header. In the 1970s, the British and American press often dubbed the Dutch rock band Golden Earring "The Flying Dutchmen" because of their exuberant stage act, which included drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk leaping over his drum kit and guitarist George Kooymans performing high jumps.

Horse racing

The 13th Earl of Eglinton owned a racehorse named The Flying Dutchman.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ George Barrington (originally Waldron) was tried at the Old Bailey in London in September 1790 for picking pockets and sentenced to transportation for seven years. He embarked on the convict transport Active which sailed from Portsmouth on 27 March 1791 and arrived at Port Jackson (Sydney), just to the north of Botany Bay, on 26 September, having anchored briefly at Table Bay in very late June. The various accounts of his voyage and activities in New South Wales appear to be literary forgeries by publishers capitalizing both on his notoriety and in public interest for the new colony, combining turns of phrase from his trial speeches with plagiarized genuine accounts of other writers concerning Botany Bay. See George Barrington's Voyage to Botany Bay edited by Suzanne Rickard (Leicester University Press, 2001). A Voyage to Botany Bay and A Voyage to New South Wales, both issued in 1795, were revamped versions of An Impartial and Circumstantial Narrative of the Present State of Botany Bay, which had appeared in 1793–94, but which did not include the Flying Dutchman reference.
  2. ^ Leyden says that Chaucer, echoing Dante's account of the Second Circle of Hell in his Inferno, alludes to a punishment of a similar kind in his poem The Parlement of Foules: "And breakers of the laws, sooth to sain, / And lecherous folk, after that they been dead, / Shall whirl about the world alway in pain, / Till many a world be passed out of dread."

References

  1. ^ Brook, TimothyVermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. (Bloomsbury Press, 2008, pp. 288, ISBN 978-1596915992), url = https://books.google.com/books?id=RQgjb3kvDLEC
  2. ^ Sayle, Murray (5 April 2001). "Japan goes Dutch"London Review of Books. Vol. 23, no. 7. The Netherlands United East Indies Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC), founded in 1602, was the world's first multinational, joint-stock, limited liability corporation – as well as its first government-backed trading cartel. Our own East India Company, founded in 1600, remained a coffee-house clique until 1657, when it, too, began selling shares, not in individual voyages, but in the Company itself, by which time its Dutch rival was by far the biggest commercial enterprise the world had known.
  3. ^ Hagel, John; Brown, John Seely (12 March 2013). "Institutional Innovation: Creating Smarter Organizations"Deloitte Insights[...] In 1602, the Dutch East India Company was formed. It was a new type of institution: the first multinational company, and the first to issue public stock. These innovations allowed a single company to mobilize financial resources from a large number of investors and create ventures at a scale that had previously only been possible for monarchs.
  4. ^ Taylor, Bryan (6 November 2013). "The Rise and Fall of the Largest Corporation in History"BusinessInsider.com. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
  5. ^ Glete, Jan (2001), 'The Dutch Navy, Dutch State Formation and the Rise of Dutch Maritime Supremacy'. (Paper for the Anglo-American Conference for Historians: The Sea, 4–6 July 2001, University of London, Institute of Historical Research). In Swedish historian Jan Glete's words, "From the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth century... Dutch maritime activities are normally described as superior to those of other nations and proofs of the Dutch society's ability to combine technology, entrepreneurship and low transaction costs. The Dutch was in this period the naval enemy or ally of Spain, Portugal, England, France, Denmark-Norway and Sweden. In the naval histories of these countries, the Dutch navy is treated with respect, admiration or envy. In 1639, it won one of the most decisive victories ever achieved in a major fleet contest against Spain-Portugal in the Channel, and in 1658–59 it saved Denmark from possible extinction as an independent state by Sweden. In 1667, it attacked the English fleet in its bases, in 1672–73 it waged a very successful defensive campaign against the combined fleets of Russia and sweden [the two battles of Schooneveld and Texel], and in 1688 it achieved an invasion of England in an excellently administrated surprise mobilisation of a major fleet. In a European perspective, the Dutch navy is a strong candidate for the position as the most successful naval organisation of the seventeenth century."
  6. ^ Chua, AmyDay of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance – and Why They Fall. (New York: Anchor Books, 2009)
  7. ^ Schultz, Isaac (24 October 2019). "The World's Most Famous Ghost Ship Is an Enduring Symbol of Empire"Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  8. ^ Wallerstein, Immanuel (2011). The Modern World-System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600–1750. (New York: Academic Press, 1980), p. 43–44. As Immanuel Wallerstein (1980) remarked, the Dutch shipbuilding industry was "of modern dimensions, inclining strongly toward standardised, repetitive methods. It was highly mechanized and used many labor-saving devices – wind-powered sawmills, powered feeders for saw, block and tackles, great cranes to move heavy timbers – all of which increased productivity."
  9. ^ Lunsford, Virginia W.: Piracy and Privateering in the Golden Age Netherlands. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 69. "By seventeenth century standards," as Richard Unger affirms, Dutch shipbuilding "was a massive industry and larger than any shipbuilding industry which had preceded it."
  10. ^ Moore, Jason W. (2010). "'Amsterdam is Standing on Norway' Part II: The Global North Atlantic in the Ecological Revolution of the Long Seventeenth Century," Journal of Agrarian Change, 10, 2, p. 188–227
  11. ^ MacDonald, John (1790). Forbes, London (ed.). Travels in various part of Europe, Asia and Africa during a series of thirty years and upward. p. 276.
  12. ^ Barrington 2004, p. 30
  13. ^ Published in Epistles, Odes, and other poems (London, 1806)
  14. ^ Eyers, Jonathan (2011). Don't Shoot the Albatross!: Nautical Myths and Superstitions. A&C Black, London, UK. ISBN 978-1-4081-3131-2.
  15. ^ The author has been identified as John Howison (fl. 1821–1859) of the East India Company. See Alan Lang Strout, A Bibliography of Articles in Blackwood's Magazine 1817–1825 (1959, p. 78).
  16. ^ "Source of the Legend of The Flying Dutchman". Music with Ease. 2008. Retrieved 23 February 2008.
  17. ^ Rose, Kenneth (1988) King George V
  18. ^ Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy by Frank R. Stockton
  19. ^ Meyer-Arendt 1995, p. 431
  20. ^ Fulmer, O. Bryan (October 1969). "The Ancient Mariner and the Wandering Jew". Studies in Philology66 (5): 797–815. JSTOR 4173656.
  21. ^ John Clute; John Grant, eds. (1999). The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. Macmillan. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-312-19869-5. Excerpt available at Google Books.
  22. ^ Barger, Andrew (2011). The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849. USA: Bottletree Books LLC. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-933747-33-0. Excerpt available at Google Books.
  23. ^ Miedema, H.T.J. (1951–1952). "De vliegende Hollander als antilegende" [The flying Dutchman as anti-legend]. Roeping. Vol. 28. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  24. ^ Uri, S. P. "De Vliegende Hollander in de nieuwere Nederlandse poezie" [The Flying Dutchman in the newer Dutch poetry]. De Nieuwe Taalgids (in Dutch). 48: 241–51. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  25. ^ O'Reilly, John Boyle (1867). The Flying Dutchman (O'Reilly) . p. 10 (Christmas Number)  – via Wikisource. [scan Wikisource link]
  26. ^ David Seed (31 October 2013). American Science Fiction and the Cold War: Literature and Film. Routledge. p. 126. ISBN 978-1-135-95382-9.
  27. ^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1897). "Rodwell, George Herbert Buonaparte" Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 49. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  28. ^ Musical Times. March 1986. {{cite journal}}Missing or empty |title= (help)
  29. ^ Cooper & Millington 1992.
  30. ^ Cooper & Millington 2001.
  31. ^ "Flying Dutchman"americanart.si.edu. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  32. ^ "The Flying Dutchman"Delaware Art Museum. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  33. ^ Carl Barks (March 1959). "Uncle Scrooge – The Flying Dutchman". Retrieved 23 December 2014.
  34. ^ O'Leary, Chris (2019). Ashes to Ashes: The Songs of David Bowie, 1976-2016.
  35. ^ "The Flying Dutchman, by The Jolly Rogers"The Jolly Rogers. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  36. ^ "The Flying Dutchman - The Jolly Rogers"SongLyrics.com. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  37. ^ The Dutch Mariner, radiolistings.co.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2015.
  38. ^ Portsmouth tables Archived 16 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine

Bibliography

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