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 must 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.

1 Origins
2 Details changed
3 Cultural allusions
4 See also
5 External links

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Origins

Versions of the story are legion. According to some, the story is originally Dutch, while others claim it is based on the English play The Flying Dutchman (1826) by Edward Fitzball and the novel The Phantom Ship (1837) by Frederick Marryat, later adapted into the Dutch story Het Vliegend Schip (The Flying Ship) by the Dutch clergyman A.H.C. Römer. Other versions include the opera by Richard Wagner (1841) and The Flying Dutchman on Tappan Sea by Washington Irving (1855).

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. According to some sources, the captain is called Falkenburg in the Dutch versions of the story. He is called Vanderdecken (meaning on deck) 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.

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Details changed

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.

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Cultural allusions

Two books by Brian Jacques: Castaways of the Flying Dutchman and its sequel The Angel's Command. In this adaptation, The captain blames the lord God for the Dutchman's failures, and an angel descends to pass judgement upon them.
A song by Jethro Tull on the Stormwatch album
A song by The Band (Rockin' Chair)
A painting by Albert Ryder in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.
A song by German group Von Thronstahl
A restaurant in the TV show The Simpsons is named "The Frying Dutchman".
A graphic novel by Carl Barks
A coffee shop in Amsterdam's red light district
The Homeward Bounders, a book by Diana Wynne Jones
Flying Dutch, a parody based on the Wagner opera by Tom Holt
A play called Dutchman by Amiri Baraka
A song by Tori Amos
A now-defunct ride once featured at Six Flags Over Georgia.
Dutch footballer Dennis Bergkamp suffers from severe aviophobia, and is endearingly named "The Non-Flying Dutchman".
Hall-of-Fame shortstop Honus Wagner was known in the press as "The Flying Dutchman."
In the video game Alone in the Dark 2, the Flying Dutchman is the ship of One Eye Jack and his fellow ghost pirates.
The legend is portrayed in the movie Pandora and the Flying Dutchman featuring Ava Gardner and James Mason.
Richard Voorhees, a character in Julian May's sci-fi series Saga of Pliocene Exile, chooses the Flying Dutchman as his persona in exile, and ends by living out the part.
Time's Fool, a novel in verse by Glyn Maxwell, which recasts the legend on a twentieth-century night train.
"The Flying Dutchman" is a slogan written on planes of KLM.
Davey Jones of Locker fame pilots the Dutchman in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
The Flying Dutchman is the name of the ghost pirate appearing in many episodes of SpongeBob Squarepants
The Flying Dutchman is the mascot of Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
The Flying Dutchman is the mascot of Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania.
The Flying Dutchman was the mascot of Hofstra University until it was changed to the "Pride."
The British children's book and film series Captain Pugwash features a ship named the "Flying Dustman".
A blue-level ski run on the front peak of Keystone Resort is named Flying Dutchman.
The Flying Dutchman plays a major part in the French comic named De cape et de crocs.
Larry Niven's novel Protector features a spacecraft named the Flying Dutchman, owned by an individual who used the alias Vandervecken.
"The Frying Dutchman" is a Fast-Food Shop in Castletownbere/Ireland
In The Curse of Monkey Island, Guybrush Threepwood is forced to enlist the ferrying services of a cursed soul known as The Flying Welshman and his equally cursed dingy.
Is a song from the Dutch Black/Death metal band God Dethroned called "Soul Capture 1562"
The Flying Dutchman in Spongebob Squarepants. Name of Green Ghost that is seen in some episodes.
The Flying Dutchman is the name of a seafood restaurant in Morro Bay, a small town on the Central Coast of California.