Walking the Plank
Walking the Plank
I ‘tweeted’ recently that I was going to make one of the people here at the office walk the plank and it made me think what an odd idea walking the plank actually was. First things first, let’s displel the myth.
Pirates did not make people walk the plank as a form of punishment. There are a few instances of mutineers and the such making officers and captives walk the plank but this was not widespread and this was certainly not piratey. I can’t imagine that being told that I was going to walk the plank would make me shiver in me timbers. The number of instances of someone being tied to a mast and burned alive or tortured are much more prevalent then the number of times you hear of someone being forced to walk the plank.
Pirating, or going on account, was not a subtle profession. Pirates did torture people and they did kill people but walking the plank seems rather lax when you look at a caste of people that would kill, keel haul and set people on fire. Walking the plank also seems rather mundane when you are looking at people that attacked bigger ships and took over towns. It would be kin to robbing a bank with a herring, not a terrifying prospect. You might hit someone with a herring but I doubt that they would actually be frightened and I can imagine that the people watching would laugh at your herring slapping instead of being scared. Certainly the next time you robbed a bank you would not inspire terror.
So, let us relegate walking the plank to the back of our piratical lexicon and in the future look to better, more effective, ways of execution and torture.
-Bobaganush the Pirate
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