Captain Kidd - Greenock Folk Hero.

Captain William Kidd was hanged on 23 May 1701.

Was he a bloodthirsty swashbuckling pirate who was born just off West Blackhall Street and made a fortune on the High Seas...or some bloke from Dundee?

With Kidd, even the historical facts arent straightforward, a Scottish merchant, who was asked by the government to raid French ships and then subsequently hanged for murder and treason when he got caught doing it. And when they hanged him, the rope broke...so they just strung him up again. Not a very lucky man. However, as is often the case, it was after he died that things got really interesting. A ballad of his (largely made up) confession from the gallows was hastily printed and distributed, becoming a popular song in taverns all across the east end of London. It is this ballad which names him as coming from Greenock, creating centuries of confusion. It's hardly the most reliable historical source - but we aren't historians, we're folklorists. As we are fond of saying, historically speaking we're not 100% that there's a big dinosaur living in Loch Ness, but that doesn't stop people going up for a look - have a bit of fun, just go with it. 

Kidd’s legacy lives on, a controversial character long after his death, the historical accuracy of Kidd’s Greenock lineage was recently called into question, and Dundee claimed the pirate as their own. A shrewd move on the part of Dundee city council’s tourist board. However, Dundee are very welcome to Kidd the historical character, we'll have Kidd the bloodthirsty pirate that inspired Treasure Island and every pirate tale that followed. The one which folklore and happenstance have gifted us.

Regardless of historical fact, many local folk would maintain that Kidd’s birthplace is Jamaica Street in Greenock. Until recently, we even had a 'direct descendant' living in the town. One local legend suggests that Kidd’s father was a covenanting minister, responsible for some of the baptisms at the Covenanters Well in Larkfield. Perhaps Kidd himself was baptised there. Probably not though.

Today, at the site of execution dock you can find “The Captain Kidd”, a pub dedicated to his immortal memory. London folk legends talk of his ghost still wandering at the Wapping dockside. Treasure hunters sail around the Caribbean in search of his ill gotten gains and in Boston, schoolchildren are taken on “treasure tours” which use stories of Kidd’s journeys to teach history and geography.

Stories of Kidd’s buried treasure were also adapted into the new wave of American romantic literature in stories by Washington Irving, James Fenmore Cooper and later, Edgar Allan Poe. The work of Washington Irving was fundamental to bringing a sense of “mythology” to the new world of the Americas. “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle” were among his most popular stories. Kidd – who had spent most of his life in America – became a part of this folk patchwork. For this reason, Kidd is better known in America than he is here, a legendary “bogeyman” who still finds his way into children’s stories. No surprise then, that Hollywood has plundered his legend before. Charles Laughton played the misguided Kidd in the 1945 film – recently re-released on DVD. A slew of sequels followed, “Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl”, “Captain Kidd Against All Flags” and the final indignity “Abbott and Costello meet Captain Kidd”.

Each year, we celebrate Captain Kidd on the blog, with Captain Kidd Month.

Kidd is also one of the hosts in our Tales of the Oak comic. He appears in our childrens book Wee Nasties, and he sails around the world collecting stories in our Thirteen Commonwealth Tales book. We are also developing a permanent exhibition based on his legend for The Dutch Gable House in Greenock, and are working on a graphic novel I Thought I Was Undone, based on the myths and mythconceptions about this complicated and controversial character.

Wherever you believe him to be from, we invite you to celebrate Captain Kidd with us here in Inverclyde and on the Tales of the Oak blog...

Why we should celebrate Kidd more locally, historically accurate or not...

Tales of adventure in Captain Kidd and the Legend of the Maltese Gold

Video footage from Kidd's sunken ship The Quedagh Merchant

Captain Kidd toys and Comics in Pop Pirate

Our failed attempt to purchase "genuine" Kidd memorabilia Lot 27

A reading of Edgar Allen Poe's Kidd story The Gold Bug

Early adventures for another famous pirate in The Cabin Boy

And buy our Captain Kidd books and comics in the Magic Torch Online Shoppe

Greenock by William Wordsworth

We have not passed into a doleful City,
We who were led to-day down a grim dell,
By some too boldly named “the Jaws of Hell”
Where be the wretched ones, the sights for pity?
These crowded streets resound no plaintive ditty
As from the hive where bees in summer dwell,
Sorrow seems here excluded; and that knell,
It neither damps the gay, nor checks the witty.
Alas! too busy Rival of old Tyre,
Whose merchants Princes were, whose decks were thrones;

Soon may the punctual sea in vain respire
To serve thy need, in union with that Clyde
Whose nursling current brawls o’er mossy stones,
The poor, the lonely, herdsman’s joy and pride.

Greenock – By William Wordsworth
(composed while travelling
through on his highland tour)

The Ghostly Captain of Lunderston Bay

Who has not heard the tale of Auld Dunrod, the stories of the Inverkip witches, or the haunting Bogle of Boglestone? But who among you has heard the tale of the Ghostly Captain of Lunderston Bay?

Our tale begins in 1588, when King Phillip of Spain raised an Armada and sailed against England. After a disastrous defeat at the battle of the Gravelines, the Armada found itself blown off course and scattered along the Northern coast of Britain. Only a few brave or foolhardy Captains were able to steer their ships through the dark nights and harsh storms of the North-western coast of Scotland. Among those few left was Captain Mordoba, whose ship the Salamanca became the scourge of Ports and villages along the West Coast of Scotland. The bowels of his ship became stuffed with the gold of the Scots.

Then one night, late in October, a fierce storm, much like the ones we still see this time of year, tore the sails from the Salamanca, and threw her into the Firth of the Clyde. As the wind howled and the rain battered down, Mordoba’s men scrambled overboard. But the Captain himself would not be separated from his gold. It was to be the death of him. And so it was the Captain met his fate on the rocks of the Gantocks, his ship lost the waves. Some say that the Captain himself was laid to rest in the old cemetery of Inverkip, and to this day, if you look hard enough amoung the overgrown stones, you will find a small grave marked with a simple skull and cross bones.

But what of Mordoba’s treasure, you may ask? Well it is said that in the days after the storms a young farm hand named John Carswell came across a black chest while walking along the beach at Lunderston Bay. He thought fortune had smiled on him that day. With Mordoba’s gold, Carswell was a rich man. But never a happy one. For the tale goes hat wherever he went, a shadow was always at his back. He became convinced that the Captains Ghost had returned for his gold, following him at every turn, unresting and unyielding in his haunting. And so, driven mad by the spectre, Carswell resolved to bury what little remained of the gold, and leave the cursed wealth behind. He died a penniless and miserable man, and as he went to his grave, he still muttered of the Ghostly Captain.

Just a yarn you might say. But there is a strange twist to this tale. In the 1950’s two workmen discovered a cow horn containing sixty coins while digging in Burns Road. The coins were dated to around 1580, and to this day reside in the National Museum of Scotland and the McLean Museum. The last of Mordoba’s gold? Perhaps. Or perhaps it still lies waiting to be found. Certainly there are still those today who swear they have seen the haunting spectre of the Ghost Captain stalking along the beach at Lunderston Bay, searching for his treasure.

Twice Told Tales

From ancient celtic sun worship to haunted country mansions, from the coming of the Roman Legions to the rule of the Welsh Kings, through a dark age of superstition to the red tides of war, the river has always run, bringing settlers, invaders and travellers to our shores.

Templar Knights, Irish immigrants, Nazi spies, sea serpents, exiled highlanders, Vikings, pirates, gypsies, warlocks, mystics, saints, witches, poets and revolutionaries; some passed through, some stayed forever, all of them left their mark on the Clyde and her people.

All of them have stories. Centuries of songs and stories.

And the stories never stop. Even now a black wildcat roams the hills behind our town, a semi-mythical wildman lives on the outskirts of the east end and strange lights are seen in the sky above Port Glasgow...you'll know stories of your own...or the stories your Gran told you.

Thats what this is. Somewhere to share those stories. Mainly stories about this wee corner of the world, but folktales, stories and urban legends from everywhere always find their way across cultural and geographic divides - even more so these days.

Here's the rule...its not history...its folklore. If people are genuinely telling and sharing a good story, we're only half interested in the facts.

Here's why...

"The legends represent the imagination of the country, they are the kind of history which a nation desires to possess. They betray the ambitions and ideals of the people, and in this respect, have a value far beyond the tale of actual events and duly recorded deeds which are no more history than a skeleton is a man."
Standish O'Grady