Click on “Read More” for the full transcript.
We used Temi to auto transcribe this, then Dan went through and checked it based on the show notes. He tried really hard on it, but this kind of stuff isn't his specialty. So if you notice anything confusing, please comment on this post so Dan can look at it and clarify anything.
Dan: 00:00 Welcome to Bunny Trails, a whimsical adventure of idioms and other turns of phrase. I'm Dan Pugh.
Shauna: 00:05 I'm Shauna Harrison. Each week we delve into the origin and history of an idiom or other turn of phrase and discuss how it's been used over time. This often takes us down some fun and interesting research rabbit holes. Today we are diving deep all the way to the lowest depths of the ocean. Do you know what it is?
Dan: 00:29 Big Fish in a little pond? No, no, that wouldn't make sense with ocean. A fish out of water? Nope. Wait, also drink like a fish. No. You know what? That's actually probably better off for our, uh, other podcasts. The one we do on Patreon only. Okay. The world is your oyster.
Dan: 00:53 You said ocean. So I wasn't, it was, I wasn't thinking in pirates. Yeah. I mean, I probably should have been.
Shauna: 00:58 Well, you know, I mean they always call it the sea, right? Yeah. So Davy Jones locker means the bottom of the sea or the final resting place of sailors, pirates or other sea goers. It's also occasionally used as a euphemism for death itself.
Dan: 01:13 That makes sense. Although when you said it's used as a euphemism these days, anytime something's a euphemism, I naturally think one thing. But death. Death works too.
Shauna: 01:22 Yeah. Well it's either that thing or death. Those are what euphemisms are. Davy Jones was considered to be like a ghost pirate, a devil or a saint or sometimes a god of the sea. One thing to note is that in this episode we're going to say "sea" quite a lot. And in this case it's mostly referring to the ocean, but really to any of the earth's great bodies of water. Um, so, uh, whether they're scientifically called seas oceans or perhaps ponds or even lakes
Shauna: 02:11 So if it's a body of water that's large enough or sinister enough, uh, for those traveling it by ship to be pulled to the depths and never heard from again, it's the sea.
Shauna: 02:31 Ew. That's a year making this way grosser than me. All right, so the first question is, who is Davy Jones and how did we develop this concept of Davey Jones' locker? And there's actually a lot of, of history and a lot, a lot of stories here that are really fun. Uh, there are some who claim that Davy Jones is another name for the devil or Satan himself, that he can take the guilty from waters and determine judgment without interference from God. The sea is his realm and he knows those who are laden with guilt. He drags them down to face their eternal punishment. There's another theory that dates back to the Bible and the infamous Jonah
Shauna: 03:16 Yes, Jonah brought storms and danger upon the crew of his ship for disobeying God. The crew cast him overboard and he was swallowed by a whale.
Shauna: 03:33 Well this is the story. Even if this was a true story, there was probably like some storms going on and this guy had a bad rap when he got on the ship and they were like, oh, it's his fault. So they threw him overboard and after like contemplating this for a while and then he, uh, it was floating around at sea for a bit, has some hallucinations, ends up on a shore somewhere and then tells everybody the story of, you know, being swallowed and spit back out.
Dan: 04:04 Wasn't Jonah from Ninevah though, and they were not known for their truth telling or at least not in the veggie tales version.
Shauna: 04:20 It's extensive that, that knowledge of yours. Uh, so the name Jonah is said to bring bad luck to sailors. Uh, Jones is a version of sorts of Jonah. And then someone added Davy, perhaps some twist on devil. Uh, this theory doesn't seem very likely. I know that one's fun.
Dan: 04:40 You had me all going there. You're got to say when they're not true. Right off the bat. I was, I was all ready to believe this.
Shauna: 04:46 Oh, do I need to, sorry. None of these are going to be true. Gotcha. Yeah. Uh, there isn't very good documentation of a reference following the biblical story or any transition that might indicate that Davy Jones actually came from the Jonah Story.
Shauna: 05:00 So that one's just a remote coincidence. I'm not even sure. It's a really very good, a good story. Either way. Uh, so yet another...
Shauna: 05:12 I know it wouldn't. That would have been great. Uh, so another story tells us of an old pub owner named Davy Jones. He lived in the 15 hundreds and he would trap unsuspecting drunks in his cellars and then sell them into the service of ships passing through.
Shauna: 05:33 Yeah. So like imagine you're having a laugh with your pals at the pub one night and you wake up in a dark room, imprisoned and then you're sold into slavery. Um, this all sounds pretty awful.
Dan: 05:42 I don't like this version because I have been drunk in pubs before and, and fortunately never woke up in a ship or anything. Also, I don't think, I don't think I got drunk in anybody's cellar, either though. So maybe, I guess there's a little line to be drawn, but of course, you know pubs where like somebodies house basically. So...
Shauna: 06:07 Yeah. He would actually lock people into the, to the like beer or wine or whatever cellar. Like where he kept his alcohol AFTER they'd gotten drunk.
Dan: 06:17 Oh... Cause listen, I'd willingly go in there and you give a willing lock me in there. Right. There are some places that do that where it's like if you're in there and they lock the doors in, as long as you're staying there, you can stay. But if you are, like, if you were a guest, you'd have to leave. Right. If you weren't, if you weren't staying there
Dan: 06:35 But that's where this did originate from, well not in the Davy Jones thing, but like pubs, you know, originated from it being someone's private house and it's Publican.
Shauna: 06:46 Yeah. Really terrible. So legend actually shares the, the next part of this, uh, is that Davy, he lost his pub either due to bankruptcy or maybe by way of the law, not sure. And he became a sailor himself. Uh, or rather a pirate. He sabotaged and overtook other ships, often becoming captain of one ship or another before finally being lost to the sea.
Shauna: 07:11 No. Oh, he really at the time wasn't it? Well known enough for this to, to, to be the origin of Davy Jones. Also, his locker was like a beer cellar, not, not the bottom of the sea. So it just was this, hey, this is just a story that got lumped in there. Get the Davy Jones is sorta like Santa's in this regard where there's like a story, like from all over the place.
Shauna: 07:39 Well that guy really was named Davy Jones. He the pub. The publican. Yeah. He was named Davy Jones became a pirate. And was lost to the sea. So he may be there in Davy Jones Locker in the sea.
Shauna: 07:57 So there are a lot of stories with Davy Jones involved in them. Stories of like evil spirits on the sea started being told around the same time that people started traveling the waters and this pub owner and all these other stories were likely just this one little blip on the timeline of scary stories related to sailing and eventually become a legend at just because you know, they keep being told over and over again. Uh, there was an actual pirate around the 1630s who was named David Jones.
Shauna: 08:29 Yeah. Yeah. This is, this guy was just a pirate, but he wasn't very popular, so it's probably not him, either
Dan: 08:37 Okay. Like, oh, there was a man named David Jones. Two of them was common names, but I mean, who was a pirate?
Shauna: 08:45 Right. Well, the thing by the, by the 1630s, it wasn't very common for a pirate or a sailor of any kind. Okay. To be named Davy Jones or anything close to because it was, yeah. Yeah. Uh, there's also this really comedic tale of Duffer Jones. Uh, this was a near sighted sailor and he frequently found himself overboard because cause he didn't have very good depth perception. And so
Dan: 09:10 It seems unlikely because I cannot believe that after the third time, anybody would even bother to save him.
Shauna: 09:16 No, no. Uh, well he did the, actually, they just brought him back on board over and over again. Uh, but, but not a very good representative of the devil, uh, at the sea or anything. But I could see where his shipmates would've have called him Davy Jones, maybe out of, uh, you know, just, just as a nickname comedy there.
Shauna: 09:43 Yes... Um, there was a stubborn captain who was warned of storms, but he was determined to sail anyway and, uh, he is said to have claimed that he would fight devil or God and was willing to die in the pursuit. Uh, this captain and his crew attempted to sail around the Cape of Good Hope from Holland and they were never heard from again. So they went out this this night and nobody ever saw them again. The Dutchman, uh, became a ghost ship with a ghost captain and a ghost crew doomed to sail the stormy seas forever. They are never able to make port, never able to rest.
Shauna: 10:31 Well, so when the ship is spotted, some believe it can carry messages to the dead or to the past while others believe it to be a warning of storms or even a death omen.
Dan: 10:40 Yeah. If I see a ghost ship, uh, flying at me, then yes, I'm pretty certain that's a death omen.
Shauna: 10:58 So for centuries, those traveling the seas have, uh, seen apparitions ghostly ships that appeared to sail the sky, uh, these sightings are likely the cause of a Fata Morg.... of a Fata Morgana, uh, which is a type of superior Mirage that appears close to the horizon in calm weather, a layer of significantly warmer air may rest on top of colder dense air. And this forms what's called an atmospheric duct. I'm doing some science today.
Shauna: 11:32 Yeah, sorry. Okay. So the duct acts like a refracting lens and it produces a series of both erect and inverted images.
Shauna: 11:42 I even tried to figure out a way to take that word out. I was like, it's accurate. This is what the, all right, so a Fata Morgana is an Italian term and named after the Aurthurian sorceress, Morgan La Fey.
Shauna: 12:02 It does. And this is from a belief that the Mirage is, I'm often seen in the street of the Siena where fairy castles...
Shauna: 12:45 Okay. So people thought that there were these fairy castles in the air or that there was false land that was created by Morgan La Fey to lure sailors to their deaths.
Dan: 12:54 I see. I would say the old people are weird, but there are still people today that believe that there are fairies living in this guy.
Shauna: 13:00 So very true. Very true. So this type of Mirage though is super crazy cause it actually does
Shauna: 13:05 produce the Mirage in the sky, in the clouds. And so that's why people see. So sometimes the flying Dutchman, they're seeing a ship that's actually looks like it's sailing in the clouds, which is, I would problem that might creep me out too.
Shauna: 13:23 And you're like seeing this misty like distorted ship, just sail through. Many historians believe that this Davy Jones legend is one that's passed down through the generations by word of mouth, from sailor to sailor pirate to pirate, a legend that grew basically kind of in an organic way through the experiences of those living such a harsh life and witnessing that this overwhelming power of the sea. Um, and at the time that was common to place that in the hands of some sort of greater power, the name Davy Jones was perhaps not the origin of the myth, but rather a name that became attached to the already existing legend,
Dan: 14:02 Which seems to make sense if there are, if it's like, you know, Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, you know, Saint Nicholas, all of these things, if it's, if it's that style of story where there's a similar story in most cultures of some sort. And then as we became slightly more globalized with the white people asserting themselves all over the planet, um, but as that happened, and I could see where an Anglicized name could be attached to all of this.
Shauna: 14:32 Yeah. And it was in, um, around the 15 hundreds, uh, that they, that these historians believe the name and the idiom sort of started to virally spread amongst sailors and pirates. So that would fall in line with that kind of movement out into the world. Uh, so, you know, they tell each other these tales I'm over as they're sailing. So it's kind of like kids telling scary stories by a fire.
Dan: 14:56 Gotcha. So this, this likely has been around since, well obviously it's potentially had been around since the 15 hundreds but we can only go back so far because you know, middle English started to shift around a 15, 1600 so when do we see this start entering into our, our, our lexicon of English as we know it today. And I guess really what does it, what does it mean now still? I mean, what does it mean in English?
Shauna: 15:22 The Oxford English dictionary gives us the definition that this is, that this exists in nautical slang. "Davy Jones is the spirit of the sea, the sailors, devil, Davy Jones locker or Davy's locker refers to the ocean or the deep, especially as the grave of those who perished at sea". And the first time we see the phrase in print is in 1726 and this is in the Four Years Voyages of Captain George Roberts and it says "heaving the rest into David Jones' locker." And this entry uses the name David, but it's still likely that David and Davy were used sort of interchangeably for some time, um, as this was common, uh, for that name in general. And as is typical with things that start primarily as folklore in urban legend, uh, the specifics may vary, but the crux of the story sort of remains true in 1751 Tobias Smollets The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle supports that theory of a devil who rules over the darker parts of the sea
Shauna: 16:27 Isn't it great? "This same Davy Jones, according to the mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep." So in this book, it was actually giving kind of a, an information to the reader about who Davy Jones was. Later in 1803, The Naval Chronicle, uh, this was a British periodical that was published monthly between 1799 and 1818. So in the 1803 edition, "the seamen would have met a watery grave or to use a seamans phrase, gone to Davy Jones Locker,". Frederick Marriott in 1839, wrote, this was a naval officer and a novelist, a wrote a book titled Phantom Ship in which we see the quote. "I thought you had gone to Davy's Locker". And this illustrates that the phrase was still in regularly use in the 18 hundreds. During the 18 hundreds, Davy Jones in his locker show up in various fiction novels with naval and adventure tales. Uh, examples include Washington Irving's Adventures Of The Black Fishermen, which was published in 1824 and Edgar Allen Poe's 1835 novel King Pest.
Dan: 17:54 He is very whiny and morose and not the kind of thing that I needed more of in my teenage life. So no thanks. I got it.
Shauna: 18:14 That's true. I was published in 1851. And Charles Dickens' Bleak House, uh, which was published sometime around 1852 or 1853. Um, let's see. Robert Louis Stevenson's work Treasure Island from 1883. Those are all other works that mention Davy Jones
Dan: 18:41 Oh, I definitely disagree with you on that front, but it was my first introduction to Davy Jones.
Shauna: 18:48 Um, so even in the following centuries, despite the truth behind Davy Jones in his locker being disputed, various literary works have depicted similar characters and made several mentions of the legends so that the legend kind of has this same basis. Even though um historians have been searching for this truth, um, for a while. The 1891 book Slang And Its Analogs Past And Present: A Dictionary contains an entire page dedicated to Davy Jones.
Shauna: 19:17 Yes. Um, it gives the definition of "The ocean, specifically the grave of them that perish at sea" and then follows with a discussion on the possible origins of the phrase. So I thought that was really cool.
Shauna: 19:32 Yeah. It was really neat to see that their ideas were similar to ours and some of them, uh, yeah, just kind of interesting. Oh one. So one of my favorite things in this entry was "Davy Jones Natural Children", uh, included "smugglers sealovers and pirates".
Dan: 19:51 Oh, so like that's a slang term. So if you said you were Davy Jones, his natural child, then you were a pirate or something
Shauna: 19:57 Yeah, it's like a reference to some sort of, uh, somebody's having some, some not great behavior.
Dan: 20:04 So interesting. Well, today's show is sponsored by our patrons on Patreon. Special thanks to lagomorphology interns, Charlie Moore and Pat Rowe for sponsoring this episode.
Dan: 20:15 Patreon.com is a subscription service that allows you to support the content creators you love. It's free to sign up and follow along. If you're in a financial situation that allows for monetary support, you can get additional perks for as little as $1 a month. Features like early access to episodes, behind the scenes content, bonus episodes, and more are all available at www.patreon.com/bunnytrailspod
Shauna: 20:39 So Davy Jones is still super popular today and uh, there've been so many movies and books, uh, based on, on this, uh, Davy Jones Locker was a movie released in 1995. This heartwarming musical combines the charm of marionettes with the wizardry of today's most innovative film making,
Shauna: 21:03 Full of original songs, this dazzling masterpiece transports you to a world of magic and wonder.
Dan: 21:09 I've never been in a world of wonder with marionettes ever. I don't know why, but I just find them obnoxious.
Shauna: 21:14 Join Joey as he falls into his own dream and adventure on the high seas. Meet Pirates, a beautiful mermaid, magical dancing books and a legendary undersea Pirate King himself, Davy Jones.
Dan: 21:33 Yes, but I do need to take something back because I just said there's nothing interesting about marionettes. I saw recently a thing on Reddit, as many of you listeners probably have as well with this guy that has a dog that's a marionette dog and he like runs it around and he's like, it is super talented. Like it is amazing. Like dogs will come up to them. ..
Dan: 22:07 It's not taxidermists talented. It's like he's a whatever you call a marionette person... A marionnette-er.
Dan: 22:14 Well I don't know they're marionettes not puppets now aren't they? So I don't know. I would've, that's why I said marionette-ear, I don't know
Shauna: 22:37 Probably.. Okay, so there, there was a book released in 2011 by Robert Downie, titled The Way Of The Pirate: Who's Who In Davy Jones' Locker. "Piracy did not end when Blackbeard's head was severed it or I can never say this, right. Oh, Ocracoke Inlet in 1717. Year by year, the number of reported pirate attacks on shipping increases. This Book Supersedes Phillip Goss's excellent. Who's who of pirates, which was published in 1924 and has been the standard work on the subject, a serious study and an entertaining read. This book will be a value to all who study maritime history, the colonial era or the Caribbean. It will be of interest to many who dwell near or visit the eastern United States or the Caribbean islands. Genealogists will find it a most useful source." Okay. Listen, I love pirates. Okay. And I read this and I was like I pirates or something less and less interesting. The longer I read this description.
Dan: 23:39 Yeah, no, that's fair. I would at first like you or I was already in when you said Robert Downie and then it only occurred to me afterwards. That's not Robert Downey jr that's a completely new, it's not even the same spelling. Uh, and then I was like, okay, well this book still sounds interesting. Uh, you know, it starts with Blackbeard's head being severed. Like he hooked me in and the first thing I was in, and by the last sentence I was just like, I'm... So ...sleepy already I'm done. There's no way
Shauna: 24:04 can I say "genealogists we'll find it a most useful source". That is NOT a selling point.
Dan: 24:09 No, I do genealogy for my family and that is still not a selling point to me at all for any reason.
Shauna: 24:17 But still, you know what, it might be really interesting. So I don't want to take that away. Like, you know, maybe
Dan: 24:22 I'm going to, I'm going to give him a 10 of 10 for his opening hook and three of 10 for his closing argument.
Shauna: 24:30 All right, in 2017 a compilation book was released titled Davy Jones Locker An Ultimate Pirate Collection with the subtitle 80 Plus Novels and Adventure Stories in One Edition.
Dan: 24:44 They should just call it the Davy Jones Bible. That's all the Bible is right? Lots of books instead of book.
Shauna: 24:49 Right? That's kind of what this is a it. This was the one I saw was an ebook. I don't even know if it's available in print.
Shauna: 24:58 Yeah, well it basically it is a collection, so the collection includes stories like treasure island, sea hawk, pieces of eight Peter Pan and Wendy, the count of Monte Cristo, Robinson Crusoe,
Dan: 25:09 I'm not a big fan of the count of Monte Cristo because the sandwich has like powdered sugar on it and that's kind of ruined it for me.
Dan: 25:27 I did, but then sometimes I get it confused with The Man in the Iron Mask even though they're two completely different stories. But there's just enough crossover that I'm like, wait, which one was this? Oh wait. Which the man in the iron mask was like the followup to the three musketeers. So, all right, I got it. Okay.
Shauna: 25:47 All right. So probably probably the most well known reference to Davy Jones locker currently is going to be Pirates of the Caribbean and the series of movies. So I saved this one for last. This is a, you know, unique situation. Anyway, you got a legend that they turned into a ride at a theme park, which turned into a story which became a series of movies that have uh, you know, sold tons and tons and tons
Shauna: 26:13 It is. So curse of the Black Pearl was released in 2003. And then the most recent dead men tell no tales came out in 2017.
Dan: 26:25 No, I don't know. I'm just saying, I didn't realize there was, I only knew of the first three. They're more after that?
Shauna: 26:42 There's lots of piratey jargon in all of the films. Uh, the second one, dead man's chest and the third at worlds end provide an alternate version of the Davy Jones myth.
Dan: 26:53 Those were the three I knew about the curse of the black pearl, dead mans chest, At World's End. I didn't know there was anything after at world's end cause it had the words "world's end" in the title. Well maybe they meant the flat earther's World end.
Dan: 27:11 Pirates were smarter than some people alive today. Pirates knew the world wasn't flat. True.
Future Dan: 27:20 Dan from in the future here, Shauna is about to spoiler, all three of the first movies of pirates of the Caribbean. So if you haven't heard them yet, you're going to skip forward. You know, like, I dunno, a minute or something. Thanks.
Shauna: 27:31 Uh, in these movies, Davy Jones is a ghost pirate and he's captain of the Flying Dutchman. He had fallen in love with Calypso. Sorry, spoiler alert. FYI.
Shauna: 27:49 Ah, okay. Good. Calypso is the daughter of the god Atlas. Calypso also falls in love with Davy Jones and she assigns him the task of collecting and ferrying souls to the world's end. Uh, he agrees to come on shore every 10 years and if her love is real, a new captain will be found for the ship and for the task of ferrying souls and then he'll be relieved of that chore. Um, so of course Calypso's never there and he ends up trapped in his role and forsaken and love desperate, sad story. He plots to trick her, uh, you know, hundreds of years later or whatever. And once successful, guilt overtakes him. Uh, so he rips out his own, still beating heart and locks it away.
Shauna: 28:37 He becomes bitter and enraged and engages in all manner of brutality, striking fear into all who sail.
Dan: 28:43 I do remember now when they've got that chest and or the jar of dirt or whatever. Yeah, he hides the heart in there. And I do distinctly remember thinking What's in the box when I, in my head I think is a nod to seven a little bit.
Shauna: 28:57 What might be the most quoted movie line for me is "I've got a jar of dirt". Like, you know, like nobody understands the significance of what I'm saying, but I do, that's how important it is.
Shauna: 29:12 I really loved the Romanticized version of pirates that I grew up with. Um, the way their stories are told in books and in now in movies is really, it's just so fantastical. And, um, being a pirate sounded like this exciting life of freedom, adventure and excess. And I still love the stories of living on the high seas, the myths of Davy Jones Locker. They, oh, it only serves to continue this romanticizing of pirate life and death and pirates don't die quietly like they, the plummet to the depths of the sea and, and begin their journey in the afterlife by entering Davy Jones Locker.
Dan: 29:52 I mean, that sounds, I'm pretty sure, like at some point as they are sinking, they just get crushed in the pressures
Dan: 30:02 They may, they make *gurgling sounds* as they're going down. But at some point you're going to get quiet.
Dan: 30:08 That doesn't, it doesn't really, it doesn't really meet with your, a romanticized version of pirates even though we still have modern day pirates, Shauna!
Shauna: 30:15 Well, yeah, reality doesn't always live up to our childhood imagination. Uh, and I've since learned that the pirate life is probably not for me.
Shauna: 30:27 Um, however, the various true stories behind this myth, um, are, is fascinating I think as the myth itself. And I find myself content to simply enjoy these wild tales. Ah, so I love that this phrases, origins are a mystery that we, we can conjecture all we want. And the reality is that this likely happens the way the best urban legends do, which is word of mouth. And the story, it just caught like wildfire somewhere. And it happened at a time when people were more likely to believe in the fantastic and the strange when the fear of nature was inextricable from religion and myth and people created an entire mythology through stories shared by like the dim light of the moon.
Shauna: 31:14 Well that about wraps us up for today. I'd like to say a big thank you to those who've posted reviews for our show. It's the easiest way to support your favorite podcast. Best of all, it's free. If you have a suggestion for an idiom or other turn of phrase or if you just want to chat, you can catch us on Twitter and Instagram and occasionally even on Facebook, all @bunnytrailspod.
Dan: 31:35 So this week we want you to take one simple step. We would like for you to be one of those people that go onto your location, your podcatcher as they call them, as no one frankly calls them except for people in the industry. Uh, and even most of them don't call it that. The point is go to wherever, iTunes, whatever RadioPublic, whatever you're using and leave us a review that would really help us continue to grow the show. It helps other people know whether or not our show is the kind of thing that they might like. So if you have not done that yet, do us a favor and go on and leave a review for the show. Wherever it is you get your podcast. Thanks again for joining us. We'll talk to you again next week. And until then, remember, words belong to their users.
No comments:
Post a Comment