wiki-illiam q8!

[dubdobdee]

8. Which pirate:
i: inspired Sir Walter Scott?
ii: had a terminal encounter with a crocodile?
iii: masqueraded as Sir Charles Ewan, Governor of St Kitts?
iv: was terminated off Ramsey when the Marine Offence Act became law?
v: together with her colleague Mary, pleaded pregnancy and escaped the gallows?
vi: had a high, old, tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken in the capstan bars?
vii: was placed in his apprenticeship through a mishearing of the word pilot?
viii: was hacked to pieces and roasted limb by limb in the Gulf of Darien?
ix: tended his geraniums in his window box in Bridgewater?
x: hated man too much to feel remorse?

the rules as they have evolved:
a: give nice full answers and anecdotes where possible!
b: say if googled or not, and leave a bit of a while for people to answer non-googlingly
c: you're obviously allowed to look ahead at future questions as (first) this was published in a national newspaper and i can't stop you and (second) i can't stop ME either, and have done exactly this
d: let other fora in same game be (unpoliceably) Out of Bounds till next set is up -- even tho obv they are all wronghead feebs compared to us

v is ann bonney; for other actual real pirate names see my essays --
1, 2 and 3 -- on treasure island on FT!! (ie i haf forgot em all except blackbe4rd, who surely has to be one of the above)

ps success on previous q was a bit fugitive so far :(

Comments

Re: postgoogle anecdote

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

'The Pirate' is set at the end of the seventeenth century, a few decades earlier than the real-life events (the exploits of John Gow), on which they are based. Pursued by the authorities and running low on supplies, Gow had returned home to Orkney to lie low for a period. There he had assumed the part of 'Mr Smith', a respectable, prosperous trader, and in that capacity courted a Miss Gordon. Eventually, however, Gow was recognised by the captain of a visiting merchant vessel, and the alarm was raised. His cover blown, Gow attacked the house of a local landowner, carrying off valuables, and abducting two maidservants. An unsuccessful attack on a second Orkney mansion led to Gow's arrest and subsequent execution.

Many elements of Gow's story appear, transformed, in The Pirate. But by moving events further into the past, Scott was able to portray tension between the native Norse stock of the Northern Isles and the incoming Scots lairds (who had thoroughly imposed their language and customs by the days of John Gow). He is thus able to portray the old order succumbing to the new both locally and nationally.