Sad to be a pirate on the beach.
With no ship to call home, no berth of me own.
No horizon to beckon the eyes.
I sailed with the best:
Stede Bonnet, John Rackham, and the worst of all, Edward Teach, known to you as Blackbeard.
My luck ran out. When I lost a leg I took the King’s Pardon.
Better to be a crippled former pirate remembering the days that were than a one-legged corpse floating on the tide.
Now I sit in the sand and drink to stay drunk.
When I’m drunk I remember the glory. I remember the thrill of the chase, the blue sea and the blue sky. I remember the willing wenches in the taverns of Port Royal, and the gold… I remember the gold.
When I’m sober I see only the one shoe before me in the sand.
So I sip grog from this gourd to stay on that smooth edge of drunk. The smooth edge where the one lonely shoe fades into the blue sea and the glitter of gold coins.
The gourd is about 8 1/4” high, 6 ½” wide, and holds ½ gallon.
Due to the weight of ½ gallon of liquid, this would best serve as a tabletop drink server.
The inside of the gourd is finished with brewer’s pitch, a waterproofing and sealing agent in use for a very long time in drinking and storage vessels of various materials.
The pyrographed design on the gourd shows the flags of the pirates Bonney, Rackham, and Teach outlined with anchor chain and rope borders. The lanyard is 7-strand French sennit held under a 5-strand, 3-pass Turk’s head. The lanyard is tight, but don’t be swinging this gourd about your head to repel borders, the lanyard could pull loose if abused.
This is a one-of-a-kind design. Hand wash only, this piece is not dishwasher safe.
Buy this piece of unique art for $60 and bring the romance of the pirates to your feast table. I’ll pay shipping to the lower 48.
Update: In response to a question from Garith, here is a link to see brewer's pitch on the Jas Townsend & Son web pages.
2 comments:
The gourd looks great. I really like the way you worked with the historical pirate flags. You know there is a festival in April called the Cutthroats of Corona (discoverlore.org)you might want to look into.
What is brewer’s pitch?
Thanks, Garith.
This is a gourd that I actually started at Pasadena and was going to do a build-along on. Unfortunately, I forgot about that goal and didn't get pictures of the design burning, the knotwork, or pouring in the brewer's pitch. So I think I'll have to do another to continue with the build-along.
Brewer's pitch is refined pine tar pitch. I'll put a link on the front page to see it at the Jas Townsend & Son, Inc. catalog. There is also a video on how to use it.
Thanks for the info on the Cutthroats, I'll have to look into that.
Guy
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