One of the worst places a Sailor could imagine was the watery grave, the realm of Davy Jones. The term Davy Jones Locker is used here to refer to the drowned and the shipwrecks. For the dead are banished to the depths of the ocean - Davy Jones Locker. Who Davy Jones is or where the myth comes from is not clear, but there are several versions. All in all, Davy Jones is regarded as the Evil Spirit or the devil himself, whose children include the pirates, smugglers and all other outlaws of the seas. No one can clearly say what he really looks like, but he is described in the books The Four Years Voyages of Captain George Roberts by Daniel Defoe, 1726 and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, by Thomas Smollet, 1751 as a creature with large eyes, three rows of teeth, horns, a tail and blue smoke coming out of his nostrils. In others he appears as a ghost and others describe him as a simple old Sailor who suddenly appears and waits for prey. Smollet even describes his activity in Peregrine Pickle: ‘This same Davy Jones, according to the mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes, shipwrecks, and other disasters, to which a seafaring life is exposed; warning the devoted wretch of death and woe’.
Illustration of Davy Jones sitting on his locker, wearing a pirate captain’s uniform, while viewing a 1789 chart of Ferrol Harbor, Spain, belonging to HMS Howe, by John Tenniel (1892) (x)
As to the origin of this charming contemporary, one is not sure. There is a theory that he is the pirate David Jones, who did his mischief in the Indian Ocean in the 1630s, but his reputation is not particularly notorious and he is rather unknown. Therefore, this theory is very unlikely. It is a different story with Duffy Jonah as he is known among the sailors of the West Indies, where Duffy stands for spirit or devil and Jonah refers to the biblical Jonah who was thrown overboard and then survives because he was swallowed by a whale so that he could pass on his prophecy.
Davy Jones’s Locker, by William Lionel Wyllie 1890 (x)
On the English island itself there are three variants. One refers to Davy Jones, a 16th century pub owner who got unsuspecting men drunk and drugged, locked them up in a locker and sold them to the press gangs.
The second version relates to Welsh sailors turning to St David in distress for help. If the Sailor was an evil character, St. David would steal his soul and banish him to the bottom of the sea. The last one thinks that it is about Duffer Jones, an unlucky man of several English tales whose clumsiness often sent him overboard.
Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean Movies
In the end, Davy Jones is a creature you would never want to have anything to do with and the men always hoped to get home safely and not end up in his realm.
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