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From: lberlind@panix.com (Len Berlind)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.cecil-adams,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Jolly Roger?
Date: 26 Jan 1996 14:21:37 -0500

Susan Moyers Porter (sporter@roux.com) wrote:

: An easy one for you guys, probably, though I can't find a reference on the
: web. Off the top of someone's head, why is a pirate flag called a Jolly
: Roger? It's a skull and crossbones, which don't look all that jolly to
: me.

That's why they still have those funny leafy things called 'books'. From _The Oxford Companion to Ships and The Sea_, ISBN 0-19-282084-2:

"*JOLLY ROGER*, the name popularly given to a flag flown by pirate ships as seen by the eyes of writers of pirate stories. It was supposed to be a white skull on a black ground, sometimes with crossed bones below the skull. There is, however, no evidence that such a flag was ever flown by a pirate ship at sea, and if there ever were a general flag which might be recognized as a pirate flag, it would probably be the plain black flag which some such ships were occasionally reported as flying from their main masthead. Another version of a pirate flag was said to be black skeleton on a yellow field, but this may have arisen from a mistaken impression of the imperial flag of Austria, which was a black double-headed eagle on a yellow field. During the 18th century a number of privateers sailed under Austrian letters of marque, which were much easier to obtain than those of other nations, and as many privateers, flying the imperial flag of Austria, behaved little better than pirates, the impression may well have gained ground that this was in fact the pirate flag."

Undeterred by that last wowser of a sentence, I go on to quote the same source:

"*BLACK JACK* (1) the flag traditionally flown by pirate ships. Popular imagination gives the flag a white device of skull and crossed bones in the centre of a black field, but there is no real evidence to support this. W.G. Perrin, an authority on ancient flags, gives the pirate flag as a black skeleton on a yellow field. It is more probable that individual pirate captains designed their own flags, if in fact they ever flew them, to their own taste of the moment."

Len Berlind
Senior Maritime Archivist
Rohm, Bulgari and DeLash