The Flying Dutchman

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For other uses, see The Flying Dutchman (disambiguation).

According to folklore, the Flying Dutchman is a ghost ship that can never go home, but is doomed to sail "the seven seas" forever. The Flying Dutchman is usually spotted from afar, sometimes glowing with ghostly light. If she is hailed by another ship, her crew will often try to send messages to land, to people long since dead. The sight of this phantom ship is reckoned by seafarers to be a portent of doom.

1 Origins
2 Sighting during voyage of the future King George V
3 Cultural allusions
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Origins

Versions of the story are numerous in nautical folklore and are related to earlier medieval legends such as that of Captain Falkenburg who was cursed to ply the North sea until Judgement Day, playing at dice with the Devil for his own soul. According to some sources, the 17th century Dutch captain Bernard Fokke is the model for the captain of the ghost ship. Fokke was renowned for the uncanny speed of his trips from Holland to Java and was suspected of being in league with the devil to achieve this speed. However the first version to appear in print seems to be that which featured in Blackwood's Magazine for May 1821. This puts the scene of the action as the Cape of Good Hope:

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. [1]

This story was adapted in the English melodrama The Flying Dutchman (1826) by Edward Fitzball and the novel The Phantom Ship (1839) by Frederick Marryat. This in turn was later adapted as Het Vliegend Schip (The Flying Ship) by the Dutch clergyman A.H.C. Römer.

Richard Wagner's famous opera on the subject: The Flying Dutchman (1843) has a somewhat convoluted genesis. It appears to be adapted from an episode in Heinrich Heine's satirical novel The Memoirs of Herrn von Schnabelewopski (Aus den Memoiren des Herrn von Schnabelewopski) (1833) in which one of the characters attends a theatrical performance of The Flying Dutchman. This imaginary play appears to be a pastiche by Heine of Fitzball's play, which Heine may have seen whilst in London. However, unlike Fitzball's play, which has the traditional Cape of Good Hope location, in Heine's account of the imaginary play the action is transferred to the North Sea: off the coast of Scotland. This seems to be the reason that Wagner's play is also set in the North Sea, although this time off the Norwegian coast.

Another adaptation was The Flying Dutchman on Tappan Sea by Washington Irving (1855).

The Captain is called Van der Decken (meaning of the decks) in Marryat's version and Ramhout van Dam in Irving's version. Sources disagree on whether "Flying Dutchman" was the name of the ship, or a nickname for her captain.

According to most versions, the captain swore that he would not retreat in the face of a storm, but would continue his attempt to round the Cape of Good Hope even if it took until Judgment Day. According to other versions, some horrible crime took place on board, or the crew was infected with the plague and not allowed to sail into any port for this reason. Since then, the ship and its crew were doomed to sail forever, never putting in to shore. According to some versions, this happened in 1641, others give the date 1680 or 1729.

Many have noted the resemblance of the Flying Dutchman legend to the Christian folk tale of the Wandering Jew.

In Marryat's version Terneuzen in the Netherlands is described as the home of Captain Vanderdecken.

In Fitzball's play, the captain is allowed to go to shore once every hundred years, in order to seek a woman to share his fate. In Wagner's opera, it is once every seven years.

[edit] Sighting during voyage of the future King George V

There have been many reported sightings of the Flying Dutchman on the high seas in the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the most famous was by Prince George of Wales (later King George V of the United Kingdom). During his late adolescence, in 1880, along with his elder brother Prince Albert Victor of Wales (sons of the future King Edward VII), he was on a three-year-long voyage with their tutor Dalton aboard the 4000-tonne corvette HMS Bacchante. Off the coast of Australia, between Melbourne and Sydney, Dalton records:

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. - (from King George V, a biography by Kenneth Rose, 1988).

[edit] Cultural allusions

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The Flying Dutchman is referenced in scores of books, including novels by Brian Jacques, Carl Barks, Diana Wynne Jones, Tom Holt, Glyn Maxwell, Larry Niven, Richard Matheson, Jeffrey A. Carver, Julian May, and many others.
It is also the mascot of several schools, including Hope College, The Collegiate School, Lebanon Valley College, and formerly Hofstra University.
The Flying Dutchman is a one-design dinghy sailboat, designed for a two-person crew. It used to be an Olympic sailing class, from 1960 to 1992.
The Flying Dutchman (sometimes Frying) has been used as a name for many restaurants, most notably in the television show The Simpsons.
The Flying Dutchman is also referenced in music, by Jethro Tull, The Band, Von Thronstahl, Tori Amos, Jimmy Buffett, God Dethroned, and Six Magics.
"The Flying Dutchman" (or variations) is the nickname of several athletes and celebrities, including Dennis Bergkamp "the Non-flying Dutchman", because of his fear of flying, Honus Wagner, Remy Bonjasky, Anthony Fokker, Mark van Cuylenburg, Arie Luyendyk and Dan Gadzuric.
The Flying Dutchman has been referenced in movies and plays, such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, De Vliegende Hollander, Dutchman, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman and Villanden (or "The Wild Duck").
The Flying Dutchman has also been referenced in TV shows, such as the original Spider-Man cartoon, SpongeBob SquarePants, Babylon 5, Captain Pugwash, Land Of The Lost and Supernatural.
There are also many allusions to The Flying Dutchman in games, such as Alone in the Dark 2, The Curse of Monkey Island, Age of Empires, Pirates of the Spanish Main, Billy Bones Dead Man's Tale, and Pirate's Cove.
The Flying Dutchman is an amusement ride at the Worlds of Fun theme park in Kansas City, Missouri, as well as a now-defunct ride once featured at Six Flags Over Georgia and a water coaster ride at Efteling. It is also a type of flying roller coaster produced by Vekoma.
The Flying Dutchman is a painting by Albert Ryder in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.
"The Flying Dutchman" is a slogan written on planes of KLM and the former name of the Frequent Flyer Program of the same airline.
The Flying Dutchman plays a major part in the French comic named De cape et de crocs.
In the "Little Vampire" graphic novels by Joann Sfar, the Flying Dutchman, also known as "The Captain of the Dead," is the leader of a happy community of ghosts and monsters dwelling in a huge old haunted house.
"The Flying Dutchman" is a polka dance often performed at weddings.
"The Flying Dutchman" is the name of a no-bread burger (i.e., just meat and cheese) on the secret menu at In-N-Out Burger.
"The Flying Dutchman" has appeared in comics, including Uncle Scrooge and The Silver Surfer.