Profiling the Flying Dutchman

Over at her site, Kithra delves into the intriguing story of the Flying Dutchman and begins like this...

"The legend of the Flying Dutchman has always intrigued me, and so here I'm going to take a quick look at it. By which, I mean the legend itself and not Richard Wagner's opera. As most of my readers will probably know the Flying Dutchman is a ghost ship that is doomed to endlessly sail the world's oceans without ever being able to come into any port.

"In its correct interpretation, the name the Flying Dutchman relates not to the ship but to the captain. And, at the start of the legend the expression Flying Dutchman was only a common description of the ship. A Dutchman was a certain type of trading ship belonging to the Dutch East India Company, which sailed between the Netherlands and Indonesia via the Cape of Good Hope where the Flying Dutchman is generally supposed to be seen. The ship has a ghostly crew of tortured and damned sailors trying to sail the ship through the adjacent waters without ever succeeding in circumnavigating the headland."

And here's the complete article...