The Flying Dutchman (Dutch: De Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship, allegedly never able to make port, but doomed to sail the seven seas forever. The myth is likely to have originated from the 17th-century Golden Age of the Dutch East India Company and of Dutch maritime power. The oldest known extant version of the legend dates from the late 18th century. According to the legend, if hailed by another ship, the crew of the Flying Dutchman might try to send messages to land, or to people long dead. Reported sightings in the 19th and 20th centuries claimed that the ship glowed with a ghostly light. In ocean lore, the sight of this phantom ship functions as a portent of doom. A well-known sighting was by Prince George of Wales, the future King George V. He was on a three-year voyage during his late adolescence in 1880. The princes’ log records the following for the pre-dawn hours of 11 July 1881, off the coast of Australia: “July 11th. At 4 a.m. the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows. A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the masts, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief as she came up on the port bow, where also the officer of the watch from the bridge clearly saw her, as did the quarterdeck midshipman, who was sent forward at once to the forecastle; but on arriving there was no vestige nor any sign whatever of any material ship was to be seen either near or right away to the horizon, the night being clear and the sea calm. Thirteen persons altogether saw her … At 10.45 a.m. the ordinary seaman who had this morning reported the Flying Dutchman fell from the foretopmast crosstrees on to the topgallant forecastle and was smashed to atoms.”
First Appearance Travels in various part of Europe, Asia and Africa during a series of thirty years and upward (1790)
First Publisher ○
Appearance List Literature: Travels in various part of Europe, Asia and Africa during a series of thirty years and upward (1790), A Voyage to Botany Bay (1795), Scenes of Infancy (1803), “Written on passing Dead-man’s Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Late in the evening, September 1804” in Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems by Thomas Moore (1806), Rokeby; a poem by Sir Walter Scott (1812), Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1797–98), Richard Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman (1843), “Flying Dutchman” by Ward Moore (short story, 1951). Television: “Judgment Night” episode of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone (1959). Film: Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951).
Sample Read The Flying Dutchman (Der Fliegende Hollaender): Romantic Opera in Three Acts by Richard Wagner [PG]
Description The Flying Dutchman (Dutch: De Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship, allegedly never able to make port, but doomed to sail the seven seas forever. The myth is likely to have originated from the 17th-century Golden Age of the Dutch East India Company and of Dutch maritime power. The oldest known extant version of the legend dates from the late 18th century. According to the legend, if hailed by another ship, the crew of the Flying Dutchman might try to send messages to land, or to people long dead. Reported sightings in the 19th and 20th centuries claimed that the ship glowed with a ghostly light. In ocean lore, the sight of this phantom ship functions as a portent of doom. A well-known sighting was by Prince George of Wales, the future King George V. He was on a three-year voyage during his late adolescence in 1880. The princes’ log records the following for the pre-dawn hours of 11 July 1881, off the coast of Australia: “July 11th. At 4 a.m. the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows. A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the masts, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief as she came up on the port bow, where also the officer of the watch from the bridge clearly saw her, as did the quarterdeck midshipman, who was sent forward at once to the forecastle; but on arriving there was no vestige nor any sign whatever of any material ship was to be seen either near or right away to the horizon, the night being clear and the sea calm. Thirteen persons altogether saw her … At 10.45 a.m. the ordinary seaman who had this morning reported the Flying Dutchman fell from the foretopmast crosstrees on to the topgallant forecastle and was smashed to atoms.”
