The story of the ghost ship
The story of the ghost ship is a story by Wilhelm Hauff , which was first published in 1825 in his fairy tale almanac for the year 1826 . In his story, Hauff transposes the legendary motif of the Flying Dutchman into an oriental - Islamic context.
action
In the framework story Die Karawane , the narrator Achmet reports the encounter with the cursed ship as a separate experience. On a trade voyage, Achmet's ship encounters a ghostly ship floating through the waves in a storm, at the sight of which the crew is seized with despair, since the sighting of this ship heralds approaching doom. That’s what happens.
Achmet and his servant Ibrahim are the only survivors who can save themselves from the shipwreck on this ship, whose crew consists of corpses that cannot be moved. The captain's corpse is attached to the “middle mast boom ” with a nail through his head (meaning a ship's mast , see also the illustration). The following night the rescued fell into a paralyzing sleep in which they thought they heard the noises of kicks and the clash of weapons, and when the servant awoke for a moment, he saw the captain and the helmsman sitting in the cabin , singing and drinking. The following night they manage to stay awake by praying verses from the Koran and reciting a saying that Ibrahim knew from his grandfather:
If you come down from the air,
if you
rise from the deep sea , if you slept in a dark tomb , if you come
from fire:
Allah is your Lord and Master
. All spirits are obedient to him.
This helps. From a side chamber they watch the captain and helmsman arguing in a foreign language, followed by the sounds of fighting on deck. The next day everything is back to how it was. In addition, the team seems to sail back the route sailed during the day overnight. To prevent this, at night they wrap the drawn-in sails with verses from the Koran and the magic spell on parchment and during the day they sail in the direction in which they suspect land. On the sixth day they reach the Indian coast and go ashore near a town. In town they are looking for a wise man named Muley. He advises them to bring the dead ashore, which is also achieved by sawing them and the planks below them from the deck. When brought ashore, they immediately turn to dust. In the end, only the captain is on board, as the nail cannot be loosened from the mast in any way.
But as soon as the wise Muley has sprinkled some earth on his head and mumbled a spell, the captain opens his eyes and reports what the curse brought on him, his ship and his crew: They had been pirates and the outrageous murder on a pious dervish had brought his curse on them, not being able to live and die until they lay their head on the earth. After the murder, a mutiny broke out in which everyone died, but:
- […] The next night, at the same hour that we threw the dervish into the sea, I and all my comrades woke up, life had returned, but we could do nothing and speak other than what we said and done that night had. We have been sailing like this for fifty years, cannot live, cannot die; because how could we reach the land? We always sailed with full sails into the storm with great joy, because we hoped to finally crash on a cliff and lay our tired heads to rest on the bottom of the sea. We didn't succeed. But now I'm going to die. Once again my thanks, unknown savior, if treasures can be worthwhile, then take my ship as a token of my gratitude.
After these words the captain dies and also turns to dust. Achmet, however, takes the ship's treasures, gives some to his servant and the wise old man, and returns to Balsora twice as rich as before .
background
Hauff was probably familiar with the Dutch saga from the German translation of Vanderdecke's Message Home , which appeared in the Stuttgarter Morgenblatt for educated estates in 1821 , and was to be edited by Hauff in 1827. According to Johannes Barth, however, another source was closer to Hauff, namely Rokeby by Walter Scott , where an episode from the story of the pirate Blackbeard appears, which describes the pirates and especially the argument between the captain and the helmsman in the cabin, the observed by Akhmet and Ibrahim on the second night, may have been the source.
Gero von Wilpert thinks he recognizes features of Biedermeier in the story , which he attaches to three points:
- the branding of restless greed and ruinous mutiny,
- the agony of restless sailing around as a negative counter-image to romantic wanderlust and
- the happy and financially rewarding end and Achmet's return to a prosperous existence.
expenditure
- First edition: fairy tale almanac for the year 1826. Metzler, Stuttgart 1826. Unchanged reprint: Metzler , Stuttgart 1991
- Wilhelm Hauff: All works in three volumes. Volume 2, Munich 1970, pp. 25-35, online at Zeno.org
literature
- Johannes Barth: News about the Flying Dutchman. The hitherto unknown first message of the legend in German and Wilhelm Hauff's "History of the Ghost Ship". In: Fabula , Vol. 35 (1994), Issue 3/4, pp. 310-315
- Hans Christian Hagedorn: The Spanish translations of Wilhelm Hauff's "History of the Ghost Ship". A partly eerie piece of reception history. In: Estudios filológicos alemanes Vol. 13 (2007), pp. 393-400
- Gero von Wilpert : The German ghost story. Motif, form, development (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 406). Kröner, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-520-40601-2 , pp. 288-290.
Web links
- The story of the ghost ship on Zeno.org
- The story of the ghost ship as an audio book at vorleser.net
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm Hauff: Complete works in three volumes. Volume 2, Munich 1970, p. 34f, online at Zeno.org
- ↑ "Vanderdecken's message to the home, or the violence of love for relatives." In: Morgenblatt für educated estates, No. 165–167 (July 1821)
- ↑ https://archive.org/stream/rokebypoem00sco#page/348/mode/2up