Stortebeker

DESCRIPTION: German (Plattdeutsch). Forebitter shanty. "De Stortebeker un Godeke Micheel" -- Stortebeker and Micheel are pirates who offend God. Near Hamburg they try to take a merchant, but the Bunte Kutz rams them; they are hanged by Rosenfeld
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1977 (Hugill-SongsOfTheSea)
KEYWORDS: pirate ship battle death execution foreignlanguage shanty
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Hugill-SongsOfTheSea, p. 131, "Stortebecker" (2 texts, German & English, 1 tune)
NOTES [144 words]: According to Jan Rogozinsky, Pirates, Facts on File, 1995; republished as The Wordsworth Dictionary of Pirates, Wordsworth, 1997, pp. 327-328, Johan Stortebecher/Stertebecker was a Frisian nobleman about whom many legends gathered -- e.g. that when his ship was captured, the mast was found to be hollow and filled with bars of gold. Another story was that, when he took prisoners, he executed them unless they could empty his wine glass at one swallow; this was the origin of his name, which means something like "gulper of glasses."
It sounds as if he fell somewhere between a privateer and a pirate. He had fought for Lübeck against Denmark, but began raiding ships on his own once peace was made in 1395. He terrorized the entire Baltic, and many nations tried to capture him. In 1402, the Admiral of Hamburg finally caught up with him and he was hanged. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.0
File: HSoSe131

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