Editing Flying Dutchman (section)

==Origins==
[[File:Aernout Smit Table Bay, 1683 William Fehr Collection Cape Town.jpg|thumb|200px|View of [[Table Bay]] (overlooked by [[History of Cape Town|Kaapstad]], [[Dutch Cape Colony]]) with ships of the [[Dutch East India Company]], c. 1683.]]
[[File:Anonymous The Noord-Nieuwland in Table Bay, 1762.jpg|thumb|200px|An 18th-century painting of a [[Dutch East Indies Company|VOC]] ship with [[Table Mountain]] in the background, used by navigators as the landmark to sail around [[Cape of Good Hope|southern tip of Africa]]]]
[[File:Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie spiegelretourschip Amsterdam replica.jpg|thumb|upright|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 known 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:

{{blockquote|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 of Good Hope|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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=MacDonald|first1=John|title=Travels in various part of Europe, Asia and Africa during a series of thirty years and upward|editor=Forbes, London|date=1790|page=276|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jCBhAAAAcAAJ&q=%22flying+dutchman%22&pg=PA276}}</ref>}}

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):{{refn|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.|group=nb}}

{{blockquote|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.<ref>{{Harvnb|Barrington|2004|p=30}}</ref>}}

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

{{blockquote|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''&nbsp;... 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&nbsp;... and are ordained still to traverse the ocean on which they perished, till the period of their penance expire.{{refn|Leyden says that Chaucer, echoing Dante's account of the Second Circle of Hell in his ''[[Inferno (Dante)|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."|group=nb}}}}

[[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'':<ref>Published in ''Epistles, Odes, and other poems'' (London, 1806)</ref> "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'."

[[Walter Scott|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 (poem)|Rokeby]]'' (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 (nautical)|captain]] [[Bernard Fokke]] is the model for the captain of the ghost ship.<ref>Eyers, Jonathan (2011). ''Don't Shoot the Albatross!: Nautical Myths and Superstitions''. A&C Black, London. {{ISBN|978-1-4081-3131-2}}.</ref> Fokke was renowned for the speed of his trips from the [[Netherlands]] to [[Java (island)|Java]] and was suspected of being [[Deal with the Devil|in league with the Devil]]. The first version of the legend as a story was printed in ''[[Blackwood's Magazine|Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine]]'' for May 1821,<ref>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).</ref> which puts the scene as the Cape of Good Hope. This story names the ''Dutchman''’s captain as Hendrick van der Decken and introduces 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.

{{blockquote|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.<ref name="Music with Ease ">{{cite web |url=http://www.musicwithease.com/flying-dutchman-source.html |title=Source of the Legend of The Flying Dutchman |access-date=2008-02-23 |publisher=Music with Ease |year=2008}}</ref>}}