As we grow, we hear epic tails of money, debauchery, and all around fun that comes with sailing the high seas. With tails of Captain Hook and Blackbeard we catch glimpses of what it was like during that time. Though what happens when it comes time to separate fact from fiction? Through “Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates” by David Cordingly, it becomes clear that life on the high seas wasn’t a magical as we were lead to believe. There are so many ideas that Hollywood and book publishers want us to believe when it comes to pirates1 that it can be murky to sift through what is fact and what is fiction. Cordingly takes the time to explain how while there was peg legged pirates to there were in fact female pirates who became just as infamous as their male counterparts. Or how famous pirates like Blackbeard or Francis Drake are actual
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Such as how one would gain the infamous peg leg “The carpenter was the most suitable man to tackle the job. The carpenter produced the largest saw from his tool chest and went to work”2. After the leg had been cut off one would need to seal the leg “To cauterize the wound, the carpenter heated his broad axe, but proved less skilled with the tool and burned more of the flesh than necessary”3. This seems terrifying yet makes you interested on how advanced pirates really were.
Buried treasure is another staple that has been distorted through time. Some would have you believe in a giant X in the middle of an island, we discover that this is false. Cordingly tells that “Although buried treasure has been a favorite theme in the pirate stories of fiction, there are very few documented examples of real pirates burying their loot”4. While it is true that there isn’t some island with a bunch of gold buried waiting to be dug up. It is and will always be associated with the pirate
Such as how one would gain the infamous peg leg “The carpenter was the most suitable man to tackle the job. The carpenter produced the largest saw from his tool chest and went to work”2. After the leg had been cut off one would need to seal the leg “To cauterize the wound, the carpenter heated his broad axe, but proved less skilled with the tool and burned more of the flesh than necessary”3. This seems terrifying yet makes you interested on how advanced pirates really were.
Buried treasure is another staple that has been distorted through time. Some would have you believe in a giant X in the middle of an island, we discover that this is false. Cordingly tells that “Although buried treasure has been a favorite theme in the pirate stories of fiction, there are very few documented examples of real pirates burying their loot”4. While it is true that there isn’t some island with a bunch of gold buried waiting to be dug up. It is and will always be associated with the pirate