The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-03-24
SPECIFIES OF TIHE SEA,
GHosTLY TRAVELLERS ON THE
MIGHTY DEEP.
The Story of tho Flying Dutchman-Th
speotre-Ship Which Carried Off a
Maiden-Gsrman Legends
OF Dsath-shlps.

This is how the story OF the civ
Ing Dutchman" is told. An TN beliey-
ing Dutch captain had vainly tried to
round Cape Horn (not Good Hopel
against a head-gale. He swore he
would do it; and when the storm in
creased laughed at the fears of his
crew, smoked his pipe and drank his
beer; even throwing overheard some
OF the mon who tried to make him put
the ship about. The Holy Ghost dc.
cended on. the deck; but he fired a.
pistol at it. ~whereupon his arm be-
came paralyzed. Then he cursed
God; and was Immediately condemned
by n apparltion to navigate always
Without putting into port. always on
the watch, and with nothing but gall
to drink and red-hot iron to ear.
lie was. to be the evil genius of the
sea. to torment Inc punish sailors,
and to carry warning of ILL fortune to
the luckless mariner. It is he who
sends the white squalls and sudden
tempests. If he visits a ship all the
wine and beer turns sour and all the
food becomes beans, which sailors
hate.
Nothing must be taken from his hand
for the person who touches anything
he has touched is lost. His ship is
manned by all the old sinners of the
sea- thieves, murderers. pirates and
towards. who %eternally toll and suffer
n nave little to eat or drink. Thus
the relationship is the purgatory of
the wicked mariner.
"A relationship is known to Baltic
sailors as the ''Carmilhan." and the
captain of her is called Klabotermann.
Ihls ship. also is always trying with
out success to double the CAPE: and
when sailors see her, with Kiaboter-
mann sitting on the bowsprit, dressed
in yellow, wearing a night cap and
smoking a short pipe, they. know that
their vessel is doomed.
1t is curious that almost all the
spectral heroes OF these legends-at
least OF the most popular Of them
are Drtchmen. But the fact seems TO
be that the legend is German in it's
origin, says the Saturday Evening
Post. and has become attached in
sallor-yarns to Dutchmen either be-
to Jack, a Dutchman and a
Deutscher are the same thing. or be-
cause the Dutch were the most famous
and daring of navigators.
The German story is given by differ
ent authorities with variations: but.
briefly, it is this. A baron called
Falkenburg murdered his brother and
his bride in a fit of passionate jea]-
ousy, and went forth from his home
with the curse laundering in his ears,
that he should for evermore wander
towards the North. At the sea-shore
he found a boat awaiting him, with
man in 1t, who simply said, eek
pectamus to-" Falkenburg entered
the boat, and was conveyed to a Spec
trail bark lying in the harbor. He
boarded her: and she sailed away with
him against the wind.
On board that ship he still ploughs
the Northern SEAS, for ever PLAYING
dice with the spectral crew for his
soul. The ship is painted gray. has
colored sails, a white flag and flames
issue from her masthead at night-so
that she is easily identified by any
vessel that may happen to speak
her! For six hundred years this spec
trail bark has roamed the German
ocean. and is still, it is said in the
German story. to be seer always head
ing northward. without helm or helms
man.
There is strong probability that the
EaprOr 1ornr1 hol Co..l-
origin. for the old Vikings seem to
have founded most of our s%ea-lore,
and favored all our sea superstitions.
There is a saga of one StOte, who stole
a ring from the gods; and when thew
sought him to take vengeance, he was
found clothed in a sheet of fire, seated
on the mainmast of a black spectral
bark.
The story of the ring again a
pears in a curious way in an old We
netian legend. Once, during a storm
in the Adriatic, a fisherman was
called upon to row three men out to
sea. A huge spectral galley bore
down upon them, with frightful de-
mons on board; but the fisherman's
bark a it down; and the boatman
was then presented by his three pas
sengers with a ring BY that token
he knew them to be st. Nicholas
the medieval patron saint Of sailors
! and fshermen-St. Mark and St.
George; and it was because the city
was thus ~miraculously saved from de-
struction that the Doges of Venice
went annually through the ceremony
of wedding the Adriatic with a ring.
An English version of the phantom
ship concerns a man of war. The
crew had mutinied. and rugged her out
to resemble the spectre ship of which
they had often heard and repeated
yarns. Their object was to terrify
the vessels they pursued, Tor they
meant to be regular sea rovers. IN
fortunately they encountered the real
spectre ship, and were so terrified that
they put into port and gave themselves