Crossed Swords Jolly Roger

Crossed Swords Jolly Roger.

The Crossed Swords Jolly Roger, or Skull and Crossed Swords Flag, are figurative terms for a popular modern variant of the pirate naval ensign Jolly Roger, whose motif consists of a skull above crossed swords (sabres).

Design

While not historically attested, the design derives from various attestations of historical flags. Naval ensigns featuring swords are attested from before the Golden Age of Piracy. The Dutch Navy is known to have featured a sword arm on their naval attack flag during the Battle of the Sound in 1658. One of the closest historical designs to the Crossed Swords Jolly Roger is the flag of pirate Bartholomew Roberts, which was described by two separate eyewitnesses to have flown a "skull with a sabre or sword-arm on a black field". It should also be noted that crossed swords have been reported as a historical pirate flag motif. One of the flags of French pirate Olivier Levasseur is described as: "… made of black cloth and was painted in the middle a skeleton flanked by scattered bones and crossed cutlasses".

Another root of the design could be the Jolly Roger from the 1935 swashbuckling pirate film Captain Blood, which features a similar motif but with crossed sword arms.

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  Dutch attack flag during the Battle of the Sound (1658); painting painted between 1670–1679
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  Bartholomew Roberts' flag, interpretation per: "a Black Flag with Death's head and a cutlass in it"
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  Bartholomew Roberts' flag, interpretation per: "a death's head and an arm with a cutlass"
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  Olivier Levasseur's flag, interpretation per: "… in the middle a skeleton flanked by scattered bones and crossed cutlasses"
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  The Jolly Roger from Captain Blood with crossed sword arms.

Popular culture

Name

The flag is often called the Calico Jack flag, or John Rackham flag, and thereof, referencing the Golden Age pirate John Rackham, with the modern nickname Calico Jack (probably not a period nickname), who in modern popular culture is said to have flown it on his flagship, which originates from the 1959 book Bordbuch des Satans by Hans Leip.

Media

Hector Barbossa's flag in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

The flag is widely used in modern pirate media, even though it is not historical. It was the naval ensign of the pirate ship Black Pearl in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, a modified variant was used by Hector Barbossa on his captured ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, flying a black motif with golden border on a wine red field.