Back From A Booty Call
Late last week I got word from a mate from the neck of the ocean where they've yet to get phones, let alone e-mail. But they've got b-mail (B as in bird). A seagull landed on my windowsill with a scrolled-up message in the leather satchel strapped around his orange bird leg. It was news of a brig nearly sinking from all the fine piratable items aboard. Pirating pays better than blogging. So I had to split. Am just now getting back into port. I mention I've been away--at risk of getting the authorities on my poop deck--so that all the vixens who've been sending me love entreaties won't be broken-hearted to not have heard back yet. I'll be on that right quick now, okay honeys?

As for the rest of you lopers, I'll detail the booty call over the weekend if my drinking calendar permits. Also, thanks for sending in all your pirate-related yarns. Speaking of drinking, today I'll now post an interesting fact send in by the fair Trillian, along with her scrimshaw by our harpooner Flarq:



DRUNKEN FACT by Trillian

Following Myrtle's example, I'll share an interesting pirate fact. Most people have heard the ballad "What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?" (Who knew there was another kind of sailor?)

Most don't realize that the words have been corrupted over time. In one verse, they sing "Throw him in bed with the Captain's daughter," which doesn't really seem like much of a punishment. The original verse was "Give him a taste of the Captain's daughter." "Captain's daughter" was slang for the cat-o-nine tails, a particularly gruesome form of punishment, consisting of nine knotted whips embedded with bits of bone and steel.

As the song spread to people who didn't know the slang, the words were changed to what made sense to them, even if it may have seemed more of a reason to get drunk than to avoid it.



Thanks, Trillian. Here's a scrimshaw of you by Flarq the harpooner. By the way, I saw the photo he scrimshawed it from and as I result I am a much bigger fan now of whoever invented the camera.

P.S. Here again are the Send-In-A-Pirate Yarn/Win-A-Scrimshaw-of-Yourself rules: If you've got a decent pirate-related yarn, experience, joke or whatever, write it down (in 500 words or less, as these will be read by your fellow pirates, not literature scholars) and e-mail it the heck in to: [email protected]. If you don't know how to write, find someone who can and threaten to stab them if they don't do it for you. Me and my friends'll pick the best ones and post them. And if yours is chosen, Flarq will do your scrimshaw from a photo of yourself you send in.

P.P.S. I'm supposed to plug our book every entry, as if posting stuff other folks write isn't enough damn work. For info on the book, click: PiratesOfPensacola.com.