by Bob Curran
Celtic Beliefs
There may also be a Celtic connection with the figure of Davy Jones. Celtic mariners believed in an entity known as the Fir (or Far) Liath. The name simply means “the Grey Man,” and was considered to be a euphemism for a thick fog, sometimes known as “the Grey Man’s Breath.” Sometimes more deadly than a storm, a deep and clinging fog could ensure that a ship ran aground or onto rocks, and all of its crew drowned. The malign intelligence behind this was the Grey Man, a gigantic, cloudy being (sometimes described as being blind) whose ultimate purpose was the destruction of seafarers. So feared was this entity that sometimes boats in both Scotland and the North of Ireland had holy medals built into their prows to protect them and their crews from harm and malign attentions of the Fir Liath. In fact, even today, boats from Tory Island, off the coast of Donegal, still carry a small jar of soil blessed by the king of the Island (the Kingship of Tory was established by St. Columcille and has remained unbroken to this day) in their prows in order to protect them from beings such as the Fir Liath. And near the town of Ballycastle, there was a rock ledge known as the Grey Man’s Path (photographed in the early 1900s by the photographer Robert Welch) along which this entity was supposed to travel when it came ashore. The name of this entity could not be uttered on board a vessel for fear of attracting it; so could the name Davy Jones be used instead?
Welsh Beliefs
Attractive though this theory is, there have also been a number of other suggestions as to the origin of Davy Jones’s Locker. The name David (or Davy) Jones sounds rather Welsh, and attempts have been made to link it with St. David, who is the patron saint of Wales. According to some traditions, David, alone among British national saints, struck a bargain with God that each Welshman would know the time and manner of his death, and that the Welsh would be spared the judgement of the Almighty until the actual Judgement Day. Thus, “David Jones” (a combination of the saint’s name and a common Welsh name) appears to Welsh mariners as a warning or harbinger of approaching doom or death by drowning, and his “Locker” becomes some place akin to Purgatory where the souls of the Welsh are held until they can be judged and receive their final reward or punishment. Gradually, this concept extended to all sailors, and “Davy Jones” became synonymous with drowning and destruction.
Other traditions, however, suggest that the name and place may have nothing to do with Welshmen, saints, or Christianity. They assert that it has more to do with the West Indies and Caribbean areas than any part of Christian Europe. The name is not “Davy” but “duppy,” a Creole word for a ghost, phantom, or dark and malignant spirit. The name “Jones” was simply added by English pirates who prowled through the Caribbean in the late 17th and 18th centuries. “Davy Jones,” then, becomes a Creole ghost that often appears during storms and hurricanes, and is closely associated with Caribbean witchcraft and Black Magic. The “Locker” becomes either a remote island in the ocean or an undersea cave where the ghost stores the spirits of its victims and feeds upon them. It preys on boats and ships traveling through the Indies, carrying away the souls of mariners and leaving only destruction in its wake. Somewhere around the 16th and 17th centuries, the Caribbean tradition found its way into more Westernized folklore and took on symbolism and nuances more suited to European maritime ideas. “Duppy” became “Davy” and the surname “Jones” seems to have been added at some later date.
“Captain” Davy Jones and Other Monikers
These are some of the interpretations of the idea, but the name Davy Jones is suggestive of an actual person. So was there ever an actual historical figure who could have given his name to the tradition? According to some sources, there was apparently an actual pirate captain (perhaps a Welshman) named David Jones who operated in the Caribbean during the 1630s. Other accounts place him slightly later, around the 1660s, saying that he operated out of Port Royal, Jamaica, and his main targets were Spanish and Portuguese trading ships bound for the New World. However, he was not a pirate of any great note, and his career was so short that it is unlikely he achieved sufficient status to give him this sort of global notoriety; there is no mention of the infamous Locker.
It has also been suggested that the name Davy Jones is derived from an old English sea chanty (shanty) or work song, sung by sailors on board ships as they performed monotonous duties. The song in question dates from around 1594 and is titled “When Jones’s Ale Is Newe.” It is said to refer to a pub landlord named Jones who kept a locker full of extremely fine ale, specifically for the refreshment of parched sailors, which he liberally dispensed when they were in port. The thought of this fine ale, immortalized in song, kept the sailors working as their tasks crept into other aspects of their lives—such as a superstitious dread of the turbulent seas. However, this is questionable, as the original song “Jones’s Ale” seems to have been a land-based work song (also known as “The Jolly Tinker”) that may or may not have transferred to the sea. Certainly in the initial renditions, the occupations referred to are land-based trades.
There were four jovial fellowes,
Came o’er the hills together,
Came o’er the hill together,
To join our jovial crew,
And they ordered their pints of beer,
And bottles of good sherry,
To carry them o’er the hills so merry,
When Jones’s ale is new.
When Jones’s ale is new me lads…
The four trades referred to among “the jovial fellowes” are tinker, mason, dyer, and soldier (“with a flintlock on his shoulder”). Notice that there is not a sailor among them; this suggests that this was probably a land-based country song in its original form. It is further suggested that the name is not in fact “Jones’s Ale,” but “Joan’s Ale,” and that this referred to a brewery run by a woman on the south coast of England.
There is no doubt, however, that some of these songs and ballads would later become sea chantys, and were used to regulate work and boost morale on long and monotonous voyages. It may well have been that “Joan’s Ale” became “Jones’s Ale,” and was used as a “capstan song” (a capstan being a manually operated winch) or a “short drag chanty” used when “hauling a bowline” (pulling on a rope to extend a heavy sail). But it may not have been used on many ships (the favorite short drag chanty of the 18th and early 19th centuries being “Haul Away Joe,” a specific seafaring song) and its association with Davy Jones and his Locker is unclear.
The most common suggestion is that the name referred to a notorious pub landlord in Cornwall who worked closely with the Impressment Parties, or Press Gangs. During the 18th and part of the 19th centuries, when England and France were at war and both navies were often short of men, ship captains were entitled to “impress” any able-bodied man they could find in any port into service. This was done in England by offering the “King’s Shilling” to young men whom the captain encountered in any English port. The recipient would then go willingly into naval service; however, the reality was far different. When a ship needing crew docked at a port, the captains often sent an Impressment Party, or Press Gang, ashore. This group visited most pubs and alehouses in the area. There they would engage young men in conversation, buy them strong drink until they passed out, slip the shilling in their pocket—a token of their agreement to service—and carry them back on board ship. By the time the young men sobered up, the ship was under sail and bound for some far destination. Many of these unfortunates were destined never to see their wives, sweethearts, or families again. If the young men were able to hold their drink, the bosun usually carried a “belaying pin,” a stout cudgel with which he would knock the unfortunate victims unconscious and carry them away. Some of these Press Gangs had arrangements with certain coastal pub landlords who supplied them with likely young men in exchange for payment. David Jones seems to have been one of these unscrupulous tavern-keepers. According to the legend, he had a large ale locker, a vast chamber in which he kept his kegs of liquor. He also used
this to imprison young men whom he got drunk on his premises and shut them in the chamber in order to sell them to the Press Gangs. By these means, he made himself a substantial fortune and was able to retire a wealthy man; however, his name was reviled by sailors everywhere who knew about his dastardly schemes. It soon became associated with doom and misfortune and was ultimately linked to that of the Devil. In time, David (Davy) Jones became a foul spirit and an agent of the Devil in his own right.
Locating the Locker
But where was this Locker located? Many sources simply state that it is “in the deepest part of the sea”; other traditions, however, link it with another persistent legend of the sea—that of the ghost ship the Flying Dutchman. This was reputedly a phantom vessel that sailed the seas for all Eternity, its captain cursed by God and refused by the Devil. In the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, the Flying Dutchman is the home of Davy Jones, and a vessel crewed by the damned—those souls consigned to eternal torment. However, this is to misunderstand the context because, although long associated with a ghostly vessel, the Flying Dutchman may not be a ship at all, but a person.
The Real Flying Dutchman
Bernard Fokke was apparently born near the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands sometime around the mid-17th century. Later in life, he would become a sea captain in the service of the Dutch East India Company, commanding a number of ships on their behalf. Fokke became something of a legend because of the speed of his voyages between Holland and the island of Java on the other side of the world. In fact, he could usually make the trip much faster than any other captain. Not only this, but he appeared to be able to successfully navigate the particularly turbulent seas around the Cape of Good Hope, which had wrecked many other vessels. There were whispers among his rivals that he had conspired with the Devil to achieve such record speeds. He was nicknamed, however, De Vliegende (Fleigende) Hollander—the Flying Dutchman—and though no name is ever given for his vessel, it was said that as long as Fokke was commanding, it was the fastest vessel on the East Indies route. It is unclear as to exactly when Fokke’s nickname transferred to his vessel or as to when it became equated with a ghost ship. This phantom was, allegedly, always trying to clear the seas around the Cape of Good Hope, the route that Fokke himself had traveled many times. In early seafaring tales there is no connection between the Dutchman and Davy Jones’s Locker.
The popularization of the Dutchman legend seems to have arisen from a story in Blackwoods Magazine in 1821, which made general reference to it as “lore of the sea,” and refers to a ghostly ship that had originated in the port of Amsterdam in Holland. It was then used as a central theme in Captain Fredrick Marryatt’s The Phantom Ship (published in 1839), which describes her Master as Captain Philip Vanderdecken (meaning “of the decks”). This was amended later to Hendrick Van der Decker, possibly to make him sound more Dutch. Perhaps the most famous rendition of the legend is in the opera “Der Fleigende Hollander” by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1843, which seems to have set the motif of a doomed ship commanded by an undead captain in the public mind.
In his 1855 tale The Flying Dutchman on the Tappan Sea, the American writer Washington Irving switches the name of the captain yet again. This time his name is given as Ramhout Van Dam, supposedly a native of Amsterdam. Other names include Captain Falkenbrug, and one tradition even makes him a German (though this may have been amended by the British and Allies during World War I). The story is a simple one: the captain of the Dutchman finds it difficult to round the Cape of Good Hope because of a fearful tempest, and he threatens God that he will attempt the task “should it take from now until the Day of Judgement.” God accepts the challenge and the captain is doomed forever to sail the often stormy seas around the Cape. Later, the location was extended to “all the Seven Seas,” and many claim to have seen the phantom vessel in many parts of the world—even the future King George V of England claimed to have seen it! Yet at no time was the ghostly ship linked with Davy Jones or given as a location of his Locker—so perhaps the Pirates of the Caribbean filmmakers have got it wrong!
One last point needs to be made: Davy Jones is not always seen as a malignant spirit. During a ceremony known as “crossing the line” (when a vessel crosses the Equator), which is performed on some ships, a figure appears on deck representing Neptune, the Roman god of the sea. Davy Jones sometimes accompanies him as Neptune’s son and Lord of the Sea Creatures. This is not strictly true, as Neptune’s son was called Triton, and had the power to shift his shape when he chose. Nevertheless, the ceremony serves to underline the importance of Davy Jones.
So do Davy Jones and his famous Locker actually exist? Or are they just extensions of human imagination concerning death and drowning at sea? Similar to many aspects of the Otherworld, such ideas can serve to create a wonderful, speculative world for us—a world in which all things are possible, and which can inspire great literature and film. It is a world that lies just beyond the borders of our perceptions, and which is as timeless and limitless as the ocean itself.
Section III: Vanished Realms and Cities
Vanished Realms and Cities
Travel, they say, broadens the mind, but in the early and medieval worlds, it also fed the imagination. In these eras, much of the globe was unknown and considered dangerous; consequently, the majority of people did not travel very far. Most had not ventured far beyond their own communities and even when they did travel, it was in limited and prespecified parameters. By comparison, for ancient Greeks or for medieval Europeans, traveling to distant countries and lands would be the equivalent of journeying to other planets within the solar system in the present day. The world beyond the known sphere was both mysterious and hostile. Even lands such as Ireland were incredibly strange and bizarre to the English—even right up until the 18th century. Following a book on Ireland written in 1187 by Geraldus Cembrensius (who had briefly visited the country in 1185), it was widely believed that all Irishmen had axes growing out of their hands with which they attacked their neighbors, that all Irish women had the ability to change themselves into hares or stoats, and that fish with golden teeth swam in several of the lakes and rivers of the country. These may seem strange and impossible now, but for those who had never been to Ireland, they appeared to be true. Even as late as the mid-1600s, pamphlets were circulating in London describing the Irish as cannibals, dressed in skins and living in mud-huts; while these were produced for political purposes (to justify an English military presence in Ireland), such allegations about the country were taken to be true by an English populace who had never been there.
Those who had actually traveled to unknown regions were often regarded with awe by their peers. They had seen things that nobody else had, and they had knowledge denied to everybody else. In many cases, it was believed, they had faced dangers that could barely be imagined by most people. This, of course, gave them an increased status within the communities in which they lived, and it was in their own interests to expand and exaggerate upon what they had seen in order to impress those around them; the limits of these lands corresponded only with the limits of the storyteller’s imagination. Thus, fabulous cities began to emerge in far-away lands; fabulous beasts, the like of which were never seen before, started to roam distant forests; bizarre peoples, with even stranger ways and customs, came to inhabit lands in some other part of the world. And in an era when there was little widespread travel, who was there to disprove or challenge such tales? They became widely accepted—a vision of the world that was taken to be a reality rather than a fancy.
Many of these stories were extremely tall. In Greek and Roman times, the unknown oceans that lay beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar) at the edge of the familiar Mediterranean were filled with monsters and demons that waited to lure sailors into their clutches. And the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean were not the only ones to view the distant areas of their world with suspicion and trepidation. Medieval and early modern Europe, l
ooking toward the Americas, Africa, and Asia, also absorbed tales of monstrous beings, strange civilizations, and bizarre lands across the globe. Far-off cities, it was said, were made of gold; on certain islands in the Pacific, some natives’ ears were so long that they could sleep on one while using the other as a blanket; in other towns, the inhabitants hopped about on only one leg. Such places owed either more to the fancies of the traveler, or were crude interpretations of what they actually had seen. Those who did travel to foreign lands—particularly to places such as the Pacific and the Far East—undoubtedly saw strange and unfamiliar things, which they tried to understand themselves and convey to those in their own communities. In order to do this, perhaps, a little bit of imagination or hyperbole was added. Thus, say, an Indian fakir who stood for a long period on one leg might be described by a traveler as a “one-legged man from a race of one-legged men”; African tribesmen with elongated earlobes might be described as men (and women) with exceptionally long ears on which they might be able to sleep on or use for a blanket. Amazing and imaginative stories concerning distant lands became treated as fact and as part of the geography and interpretation of the developing world.
