Davy Jones — Who he? And where’s his locker?
Just following up on my earlier Wagatha Christie story, I thought it might be handy to explain a little more about Davy Jones…
Let’s start with who Davy Jones is not: We’re not talking about Davy Jones, the much loved and sadly missed actor and singer probably best known for his role in the mid-1960s TV series The Monkees.
And nor are we talking about David Jones, the much loved and sadly missed rock star (and sometime movie actor) who changed his name to David Bowie (to avoid confusion with the guy in The Monkees).
Instead we are talking about this grim character:
Although many readers will be familiar with the tentacle-faced depiction of Davy Jones in the present-day Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, the earliest known reference to Davy Jones crops up in a reference in The Four Years Voyages of Captain George Roberts — a novel by Daniel Defoe (the author of Robinson Crusoe) published almost 300 years ago in 1726. The reference takes the form of a threat warning members of the ship’s crew that if they are disobedient, they will be tossed into Davy Jones’ Locker — in other words they’ll be thrown overboard into the sea.
The next account of Davy Jones appears in Tobias Smollett’s 1751 novel The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle where the author writes: ‘This same Davy Jones, according to sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is often seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes:, ship-wrecks, and other disasters to which sea-faring life is exposed, warning the devoted wretch of death and woe.’
Depictions of Davy Jones in early novels and illustrations vary from a cadaverous, almost skeletal man wearing the clothes of an 18th century pirate, usually sitting on a sailor’s sea-chest or locker, through to a demonic creature with big saucer-like eyes, three rows of teeth, horns, and a tail, with blue smoke coming from his nostrils.
Regardless of how Davy Jones is depicted, his characteristics are the same: he is sometimes glimpsed high upon a mast as a harbinger of doom before a maritime disaster strikes, while his realm is at the bottom of the sea, where all wrecked ships and drowned sailors end their days. As for Davy Jones’ locker? This is shorthand for the fact that if a ship and her crew are lost at sea, they will never be seen again — and are effectively hidden away in a locker until the end of time.
So, who or what was the inspiration for the original Davy Jones? Theories range from an unsuccessful but otherwise lost to history real-life 17th century Welsh pirate called Davy Jones, through to a mixing of Saint David of Wales and the Biblical character Jonah who was swallowed by a whale. But the simple answer us we don’t know — and never will do.
But let’s end on a cheerier note: will the fate of sailors lost at sea was to be confined to Davy Jones’ Locker, according to 19th century English maritime folklore, the afterlife was long-serving seamen who died in their beds was to go to Fiddler’s Green. This was a place where the music never stopped playing, where the booze never stopped flowing, and where the girls never tired of dancing with you. In his novella Billy Budd, Sailor the author Herman Melville describes a Fiddler’s Green as a sailors’ term for the place on land “providentially set apart for dance-houses, doxies, and tapsters”. (And if you don’t know what a doxy is, please Google it.)
Here are some of the lyrics of a 19th century sea-shanty:
At Fiddler’s Green, where seamen true
When here they’ve done their duty
The bowl of grog shall still renew
And pledge to love and beauty.
Sounds rather more attractive than most modern retirement homes.
