As, Storm Dennis, battered the Irish coast over the last weekend, the small fishing village of, Ballycotton, landed an unexpected catch. An unmanned, Tanzanian registered ship, the Alta, could battle the storms and the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, no longer. Starting its ghostly journey drifting south-east of Bermuda in 2018 for 20 days or so, it somehow managed to sail north all the way to Ireland.
' Phantom ships,' are in my mind the haunted houses of the sea, they have many stories to tell, and will continue to inspire storytellers and creators of all forms of art until the end of time.
The Gothic novel, 'The Phantom Ship', published in 1839 and written by Frederick Marryat, was based on the legend of the 'Flying Dutchman. The 1935 film of the same name, starring, Bela Lugosi derived from the famous mystery of the Mary Celeste, which was also found adrift in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean in 1872, the list could go on and on.
I've included today a poem by, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose mind was also stimulated by these floating enigmas.
Have a great week, readers.
THE PHANTOM SHIP
In Mather's Magnalia Christi
Of the old colonial time
May be found in prose the legend
That is here set down in rhyme
A ship sailed from New Haven
And the keen and frosty airs
That filled her sails at parting
Were heavy with good men's prayers
"O, Lord! if it be thy pleasure"
Thus prayed the old divine
"To bury our friends in the ocean,
Take them, for they are thine!"
But Master Lamberton muttered
And under his breath said he
"This ship is so crank and walty
I fear our grave she will be!"
And the ships that came from England
When the winter months were gone
Brought no tidings of this vessel
Nor of Master Lamberton.
This put the people to praying
That the Lord would let them hear
Of the old colonial time
May be found in prose the legend
That is here set down in rhyme
A ship sailed from New Haven
And the keen and frosty airs
That filled her sails at parting
Were heavy with good men's prayers
"O, Lord! if it be thy pleasure"
Thus prayed the old divine
"To bury our friends in the ocean,
Take them, for they are thine!"
But Master Lamberton muttered
And under his breath said he
"This ship is so crank and walty
I fear our grave she will be!"
And the ships that came from England
When the winter months were gone
Brought no tidings of this vessel
Nor of Master Lamberton.
This put the people to praying
That the Lord would let them hear
What in his greater wisdom
He had done with friends so dear
And at last their prayers were answered
It was in the month of June
An hour before the sunset
Of a windy afternoon
When steadily steering landward
A ship was seen below
And they knew it was Lamberton, Master
Who sailed so long ago
On she came, with a cloud of canvas
Right against the wind that blew
Until the eye could distinguish
The faces of the crew
Then fell her straining topmasts
Hanging tangled in the shrouds
And her sails were loosened and lifted
And blown away like clouds
And the masts, with all their rigging
Fell slowly, one by one
And the hulk dilated and vanished
As a sea-mist in the sun!
And the people who saw this marvel
Each said unto his friend
That this was the mould of their vessel
And thus her tragic end
And the pastor of the village
Gave thanks to God in prayer
That, to quiet their troubled spirits
He had sent this Ship of Air.
He had done with friends so dear
And at last their prayers were answered
It was in the month of June
An hour before the sunset
Of a windy afternoon
When steadily steering landward
A ship was seen below
And they knew it was Lamberton, Master
Who sailed so long ago
On she came, with a cloud of canvas
Right against the wind that blew
Until the eye could distinguish
The faces of the crew
Then fell her straining topmasts
Hanging tangled in the shrouds
And her sails were loosened and lifted
And blown away like clouds
And the masts, with all their rigging
Fell slowly, one by one
And the hulk dilated and vanished
As a sea-mist in the sun!
And the people who saw this marvel
Each said unto his friend
That this was the mould of their vessel
And thus her tragic end
And the pastor of the village
Gave thanks to God in prayer
That, to quiet their troubled spirits
He had sent this Ship of Air.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-1882
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