Saturday, 5 March 2011

Portland Pirates!

Writing about pirates for Book 3... Looking at the history of piracy, it fascinates me to find just how much the pirate legend owes to fiction. Even some 18th century pirates took up the profession after reading a romanticised account of the pirate lifestyle! (Rather like Heat magazine today.)Blackbeard played to his own legend, lighting tapers in his beard. Writing about pirates is referencing a whole literary genre, from the mysterious Captain Charles Johnson who wrote about Pyrates in 1724 to Treasure Island onwards. Even the movie of Peter Pan has influenced how we perceive pirates, with the invention of 'walking the plank'. Not to mention Pirates of the Caribbean! It's a challenge to come up with something different enough to be worth reading! Though of course these will be Portland Pirates which sets them apart anyway...
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4 comments:

  1. Dark Dorset5 March 2011 at 15:58

    How about this strange fortean event mentioned in our book Dark Dorset: Tales of Mystery, Wonder and Terror.

    "An incident recorded in the Prodigies in Somerset and Dorset, 1661-2 reprinted in The Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, 1895, On the 23rd April 1661, a distinguished man was out riding on a high hill between Faychurch and Lyme Regis, when at three o'clock in the afternoon, he witnessed a large dark bellowing thunder cloud drifting above the Isle of Portland. The cloud suddenly took the distinct form of a sailing ship - complete with masts, sails, rigging, bowspit and stern - which he said was ‘high built’. Within the ship, he saw its occupants with their upper torsos showing. And at the head of the ship, he also saw - with great clarity - many men with pikes on their shoulders. Within fifteen minutes, it started to rain hard with thunder and lightning. The man stood amazed and dumb-struck, as the cloud ship sailed through the air, until it eventually disappeared out of view."

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  2. K M Kelly6 March 2011 at 10:16

    I'm sure I spotted a pirate ship in the bay just the other day....

    :-)

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  3. Andy J Straw12 March 2011 at 04:45

    Arr, they be a plenty vessels a wandrin the bay, waitin for their moment to be ravagin again! They do say...About half seven in the eve, there be an old man slowly trudgin down Wakeham dressed in flannels and goin in through the door of number 37!
    (Q: A Ghost?)
    A: Noooo, it's old Tom Bollow, comin ome' from work! A ;-)

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  4. Carol Hunt12 March 2011 at 13:45

    What great comments! Fantastic account from Dark Dorset! How intriguing and mysterious....There's often a distinct cloud lurking over Portland.. I'll nip down to Wakeham later to see the ghost there... I like the way Andy tells a good ghost story!

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