On the east side of your shop, aloft,
Write Mathlai, Tarmael, and Baraborat;
Upon the north part, Rael, Velel, Thiel.
They are the names of those mercurial sprites
That do fright flies from boxes.
B. Jonson, The Alchemist, i. (1610).
Flying Dutchman (The), a phantom ship, seen in stormy weather off the Cape of Good Hope, and thought to forebode ill luck. The legend is that it was a vessel laden with precious metal, gained by murder and piracy on the high seas. In punishment, the plague broke out among the crew; no port would admit them, and the ship must sail the seas till doomsday.
Another legend is, that a Dutch captain, homeward-bound, driven back by continued storms off the Cape, swore that he would double the Cape if he sailed till the day of doom. Taken at his word, he must now sail the seas forever.—Captain Marryat, The Phantom Ship.
Richard Wagner’s opera, Der Fliegende Holländer, adds a loftier motive to the legend. The doomed captain cannot find rest until some woman consents to share his fate. Elsa, moved by pity, makes the sacrifice and saves him from perdition.
Flying Highwayman. William Harrow, who leaped his horse over turn-pike gates as if it had been furnished with wings. He was executed in 1763.