To most, a pirate is a walking stereotype: a grizzled figure with a peg leg, screaming “Avast!” and clutching a pistol in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other. That vision owes…
Read more →In the chilling legends of Norse mythology, among gods and heroes, a darker figure lurks beyond mortal ken: the draugr. Far from a mere ghost, the draugr is an undead warrior infused with malevolent power…
Read more →Long before France had a unified national police, its kings relied on maréchaussée (literally a “marshalcy” or marshal’s men) to keep order. Originating in the turbulence of the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), the Maréchaussée began…
Read more →Steel and lead shaped the lives of pirates in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. A pirate’s arsenal blended the blunt practicality of cutlasses and boarding axes with the deadly hiss of blackpowder arms.…
Read more →At twilight in an old forest, a faint emerald glow edges out of the dark: the ghostly lantern of a mushroom. It’s the centuries-old phenomenon called foxfire or fairy fire, a dim, bluish-green light emanating…
Read more →On an April dawn in 1964 a Danish laborer discovered an unnerving scene at Copenhagen’s harbor: the city’s beloved 100-year-old Little Mermaid statue lay headless, her neck expertly sawed through. Tourists and Danes alike stood…
Read more →Pirate life was no swashbuckling adventure holiday. In fact, sometimes it barely felt alive at all. The cornerstone of the legend is the treasure, the chests of gold, the exotic loot. Yet when divers in…
Read more →Pirates of the so-called Golden Age (roughly 1650-1720) were hardly the romantic rogues of legend. At best they ran their vessels like rough-and-ready democracies. A captain’s power was limited: outside battle he often “had no…
Read more →Few search results for women pirates or female pirates paint a complete picture. Most point to Anne Bonny and Mary Read—the notorious ragged beauties of Calico Jack’s crew—and a smattering of legendary names, real or…
Read more →On the horizon, the silhouette of a three-masted brigantine cuts through the flaming orange of sunset, its rigging like a spider’s web against the sky. In the Golden Age of Piracy (roughly 1690–1730), ships like…
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