WEIRD TALES OF THE SEA

Evening Star, Issue 17154, 22 September 1919, Page 6

WEIRD TALES OF THE SEA

On a February morning ncarl - / 3tO yems ago the wild fisher-folk living on the rockbound coast of Kerry beheld a ship, mastless and deserted, thrown by the mighty waves of the storm on to the rocks. Tins was, indeed, a welcome eight for these rough folk. Eagerly they launched their boats and' rowed off to the wrecked vessel. They found her ladened with much rich spoil, ana quickly filled their boats. As they were preparing to pull back, a mighty wave rolled up from the ocean’s depths, and the watchers on the shore —mothers, wives, and sweethearts—-saw their kinsfolk engulfed and swallowed up. On every anniversary q. this day, it is said, this grim calamity i» re-enaotecl. With hunureds of vessels at the present time lying beneath the green waters of many an ocean through the deadly work ( ot torpedo or mine, it is highly probable that efforts will be made to raise and salve some (says * writer in the Glasgow ‘Herald’). A common belief, however, among sailors is that a ship which has been sunk and raised again is haunted by the ghosts of those who wore drowned in her. About the year 1337 a fine emigrant ship was loot in negotiating a narrow but intricate passage,, and 500 passengers were drowned. Some time afterwards the ship was raised, taken to a homo port, and refitted; but after the first voyage the owners found it impossible to get a crow. The sailors declared that every night tho ship resounded with the cries and groans of the poor emigrants who had been drowned. Eventually the vessel was gold to the shipbreakers. Perhaps the best known ot all sea ghosts is the Flying Dutchman. The tradition goes that a Dutch aoc captain, Cornelius Vandordeken, was homeward bound from Batavia. In endeavoring to round the Cape of Good Hope he met with such baffling head winds that after nine long, weary weeks he hardly shifted his position. In a fit of passion Vv.ndcirdtikeii cursed God, aud vowed by Heaven and Hell ha would round tho Gape if it look him till the Day of Judgment. For his impiety ho was doomed to beat to and fro for all time, and the phantom ship has been reported many times, certain misfortune being expected on any vessel that aiffhts her. When our present King was crossing in the Bacchante the following curious entry wa-s made iu the log:—“Tho Flying Dutchman crossed our bows. A strange red light, as of a phantom ship, all aglow, in the midst of which light the masts, nails, and spars of a brig 200 yds distant stood up iu strong relief. "Thirteen persons ■altogether saw her, but whether it was Van Diemen or the Flying Dutchman must remain unknown.’’ i-i twinge, however, to relate, six hours later the able seaman wbo was the first to sight the phantom ship fell from a mast and was killed. A motor boat which during the war had to patrol a certain stretch of water in tho Bristol Channel reported, only a few month.! ago, that the apparition of the type used to convey fruit from the West Indies to Avomnouth had been encountered noi far from Lundy. The ghostly vessel appeared lo rise up from tho sea and stand out iu misty, white relief, right m the track of the motor boat, which, unable to stop, drove right through the spectral ship, to be immediately shrouded in mist. When tms bad disappeared the phantom was nowhere to be seen. On stormy nights the Gulf of St. Lawrence is haunted by the flagship of a fleet sent by Queen Anne ‘against the French. No sooner had the vessels reached a dangerous part of the gulf than a grout storm arose and drove them on the rocks, where they w«ro smashed jo pieces. The flagship met her doom on the rocks near Cape d’Espair, and hero, it is said, on the anniversary of the wreck, when tho storm waves rush up the gulf and the winds howl from the Atlantic, the great warship reappears, her decks thronged with red-coated soldiers, and her wide ports ablaze with light. Suddenly the vessel gives « violent lurch and drives on the rocks. Great waves break over her, and the shrieks and cries of those about to perish are plainly heard.

The ghost ship Palatine haunts the -waters about Long Island Sound on the American coast, and fishermen recognise in her -iu> pearance a warning of coming storms. The Palatine was s trader which, in 1752, war. lured ashore by wreckers. They plundered her of all the goods one carried, then imprisoned her crew under hatches, and tether on fire. In the oldsu days Devon and Cornwall were notorious for their wreckers, who triohv.J many a gallant vessel ashore uii the rock-euoircled coast by false lights. Iu many places the spectres of ships wrecked in this manner -are said to reappear. At Priest Govs, hi Cornwall, the ghost of a* notorious wrecker who was sent to lure ships ashore by moving lights in lanterns, which ho hung round the neck of a hi mo horse, is said to ■appear on etoimy nights clinging to the fragments of a wreck, which is dashed violently on to the rocks, eventually disappearing with the wrecker iu a cloud of foam. That shallow, dreary, yet romantic stretch of waters, the Solway Firth, lids many a legend of ghost ships connected with it. _ A hundred years ago, on rhe eve before phnstmas, -a merry bridal parly set out iu one of the-small craft peculiar to the -Solway to be ferried across to the Scottish side* nil went well until midstream, when a sail ins vessel came beating down the Firth find crashed into -r-ho boat, throwing the party into the water. Despite their cries for help, the vessel continued its course, _ and the* bride and bridegroom with their friends snot a watery ijravs, It is ! £fnd t-he sailing vessel was manned by it oi the bndesroom, who so revenged h;niscU’. A-ty* how, the apparition of the boat is *?aid io appear at tunes manned by the fteskless ghost of th« murderer.