Billy black sails. The old pirate from 'Admiral Benbow'

Billy Bones is a fictional pirate from the 18th century, a character in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island. Bones was a navigator on Captain Flint's ship. Along with the lanky John Silver, he was one of the leader’s inner circle.... ... Wikipedia

Billy Connolly Billy Connolly Birth name: William Connolly Jr. Date of birth: November 24, 1942 ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Treasure Island (meanings). Treasure Island ... Wikipedia

Other films with the same or similar title: see Treasure Island (film). This term has other meanings, see Treasure Island (meanings). Treasure Island ... Wikipedia

Other films with the same or similar title: see Treasure Island (film). This term has other meanings, see Treasure Island (meanings). This article lacks links to information sources... Wikipedia

Other films with the same or similar title: see Treasure Island (film). This term has other meanings, see Treasure Island (meanings). Treasure Island Treasure Island Genre ... Wikipedia

Treasure Island (cartoon, 1988) Treasure Island Cartoon type Hand-drawn animation/combined shooting Director ... Wikipedia

Books

• Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson. Scottish writer and poet, author of world-famous adventure novels and stories, the largest... audiobook
• Treasure Island. Reading book, Stevenson R.L.. Once upon a time at the Admiral Benbow inn, which belonged to the mother of Jim Hawkins, the main character of the novel, ...

Robert Stevenson described the pirates of the 18th century very plausibly. This is an evil, stupid and drunken rabble, devoid of any organization.

Silver, Flint, Billy Bones and Blind Pew are, of course, fictional characters, but they have a lot in common with people who actually existed. Even some of the facts mentioned in the book took place in reality.

Collective image

The famous dialogue at the apple barrel, from which Jim Hawkins learns that a conspiracy is brewing on the ship, is literally filled with references to real events.

“I had it amputated by a learned surgeon - he went to college and knew all Latin by heart. And yet he did not escape the gallows - he was hung up in Corso Castle, like a dog, to dry in the sun... next to others. Yes! These were Roberts' men, and they died because they changed the names of their ships."

John Silver will talk about the famous captain Bart Roberts, who terrorized the seas of the New World and Africa for several years. Black Bart himself died in the battle, but the pirates from his crew were actually hanged in the Corso Castle fortress.

As for the name of the ships, changing it was indeed considered a bad omen, not only among superstitious pirates, but even in the English fleet. A little later in the same dialogue, Silver will mention Howell Davis, the same one after whose death Roberts became the captain of the Rover and began his “career.”

There are a lot of such references in the text of the novel. Blind Pew will say that he lost his sight in the battles for King George. Surviving pirates who returned to land often described themselves as former Royal Navy sailors.

Silver, dreaming of wealth, will mention that he wants to be a lord and ride in a carriage. This is quite consistent with the pirates' ideas about a rich life. Everyone who has money, of course, is a member of parliament and does nothing but ride around in a carriage.

However, the main thing, of course, is the collective image of a pirate. A completely wild, very angry, and also armed to the teeth man who is ready at the first opportunity to get into the throat of his own comrade - this is what a real pirate is like. They have been walking the seas for many years, but they do not know how to control it at all. Silver doesn’t want to kill Captain Smollett and the others right away, because he knows for sure that without them he won’t even get to England, or to the neighboring island. And the pirates, of course, set up camp in the middle of the swamp. Because their heads are not burdened with any unnecessary knowledge. Like the fact that swamps contain insects that are dangerous to health and life.

Captain Flint

Blackbeard is the prototype of Flint. (pinterest.com)

Blackbeard is considered to be the prototype of the fictional Flint. We are talking about Blackbeard. He was not a devil in the flesh and a fiend of hell, he was a man who loved to instill fear in others. This is exactly how Flint appears before us, with all the abundance of terrible stories that are told about him. Blackbeard's greatest fear was his own people. In the same way, the pirates who sailed with him on the Walrus are even afraid of Flint’s name.

Flint and Edward Teach are related and another character is Israel Hands. In the book, he is the second boatswain, who, according to Abraham Gray, was Flint's gunner. This seems to be the only time when a real person appears among the characters. Hands was on Teach's team and was either a navigator or a boatswain there. When Blackbeard died in the battle at Ocracoke Island, Hands was not with him. Shortly before that story, Teach shot his officer in the knee during a drinking binge. There were no compelling reasons for such cruelty. Teach explained his action by the need to maintain discipline on board. The mutilated Hands settled in Carolina and escaped death and even the gallows. In Treasure Island, he is killed by Jim Hawkins. At the same time, in the novel Hands appears as the most unpleasant and disgusting of the pirates - cruel, arrogant and treacherous. At the same time, he knows how to operate a ship, which is already an achievement for a pirate without the necessary education.

Billy Bones

Billy Bones. (pinterest.com)

Bones is a bit of an atypical pirate. Just a little. He, just like any other sea robber, abuses rum and grabs a knife at the first opportunity, but there are important differences in his image.

First of all, he is a navigator. And this ship position requires special skills and knowledge that you can’t get anywhere. Anyone can be a boatswain or quartermaster; a gunner only needs to know how to handle cannons, and this skill can be acquired through practice. Doctors and navigators were worth their weight in gold on pirate ships. People trained in medicine and navigation. Calculating the course requires knowledge of the starry sky, the ability to use complex instruments to determine the height of bodies, as well as an understanding of the basics of mathematics and geometry. To understand: many pirates did not know where north was and where south was; most did not know how to read or write.

Bones has no problem with this. Not only is he educated (albeit minimally), he also has a habit of taking notes. Its probable prototype could be a certain Blaise Kennedy, who was a navigator for Captain Edward England and then ran away from him.

John Silver

Silver with Jim. (pinterest.com)

Silver is distinguished from all other pirates by his enterprise and charm. He doesn't drink away his share like Blind Pew or Ben Gunn, but tries to invest it in business. He has his own tavern and a wife with savings. To put it bluntly, such thrifty and enterprising people were not liked among the pirates. The idea of ​​drinking everything at once came not so much from savagery, but from the thought that you would be hanged anyway, sooner or later. It's a shame to hang around in a noose when your pockets are full of money.

In fact, in the middle of the 18th century the situation was exactly this. Almost all the pirates ended their lives on the gallows; some were lucky enough to die in battle. English laws of those times did not allow pirates not only to spend their loot other than in taverns, but also to return to civilian life. The time for amnesties had already passed by that time.

Silver, with his “Spyglass” and the old woman who is waiting at the appointed place, is undoubtedly different from the gray mass. He looks like pirates in a completely different way. Firstly, for all his intelligence, he is still stupid. He chooses the right strategy for himself, but the wrong one for the common cause. Dr. Livesey will deceive him by exchanging the card for the ship, and Silver will not suspect a trick. A typical trait of an 18th-century sea robber is self-confidence based on nothing. Arrogance and lack of critical thinking.

Silver is brutally cruel, which can be seen in the last chapter. Jim experienced this himself at the moment when Silver thought he was about to find the treasure. There was no treasure there, the old pirate again needed Jim, and he again came to his defense. But finishing off a dying comrade who doubted his authority with a shot is quite the trait of a pirate. And Silver does just that.

Finally, there are external attributes. A wooden leg, a parrot, nautical words - all this adds up to the classic image of a pirate. You can also add Silver's nickname to it. He, if you forgot, is “Ham”. The origin of the nickname is not explained anywhere; it apparently has to do with skin color. Over the years of wandering in the tropics and subtropics, she became weathered, roughened and brownish, just like chicken roasted over an open fire.

Bones is a heavyset sailor with a saber scar on his cheek. William "Bones" Boney was the navigator on Captain England's ship. Pirates with Captain Flint. Along with the “lanky” John Silver, he was one of the leader’s inner circle. According to the recollections of Silver and other pirates, he was distinguished by cruelty: “Billy was heavy on his hands and quick to kill...”. His favorite saying was: "dead people don't bite." After Flint's death, he took possession of the map of Treasure Island, becoming a target for other pirates. Bones settled in the Admiral Benbow tavern, owned by Jim Hawkins' mother, where he asked to be called simply "captain". He lived alone and drank a lot. After threats and attempts from old friends (among the visitors were Black Dog and blind Pugh), which ended with him being given a “black mark,” he died of a stroke provoked by chronic alcoholism. The map went to Jim Hawkins, which served as the beginning of the novel.
The life of Billy Bones is described in detail in the books by Stephen Roberts "Piastres, piastres!!!" and “Island of Sunken Ships,” released in 2016. The story is told on behalf of Billy and is a prehistory of the events described in the original novel. The story tells of Billy's early life and his reasons for becoming a pirate; as well as about events directly related to Stevenson’s original novel.

Incarnations in cinema

In famous film adaptations Billy Bones was played by:

• , Treasure Island - Lionel Barrymore
• , Treasure Island - Nikolay Cherkasov
• , Treasure Island - Kazys Vitkus ( lit.)
• , Treasure Island - Leonid Markov
• , Treasure Island - Oliver Reed
• , Pirates of Treasure Island - Justin Jones
• , Treasure Island - David Hurwood
• , Black Sails - Tom Hopper

see also

Write a review about the article "Billy Bones"

Links

• Olivia Verma and Nick Smith.(English) . - Characters from Treasure Island. Retrieved April 20, 2013. .

Excerpt characterizing Billy Bones

At the appointed hour, powdered and shaved, the prince went out into the dining room, where his daughter-in-law, Princess Marya, m lle Burien and the prince’s architect, who, by a strange whim, was allowed to the table, was waiting for him, although by his position this insignificant person could not count on such an honor . The prince, who firmly adhered to the differences in status in life and rarely allowed even important provincial officials to the table, suddenly proved to the architect Mikhail Ivanovich, who was blowing his nose into a checkered handkerchief in the corner, that all people are equal, and more than once inspired his daughter that Mikhail Ivanovich was nothing worse than you and me. At the table, the prince most often turned to the dumb Mikhail Ivanovich.

As I continue to look at the site, I often wonder who are the positive characters here and who are the negative ones? And I can’t clearly answer this question. It would seem that the most negative heroes subsequently do very good deeds, and the seemingly positive heroes do the opposite.

Books Billy Bones - navigator, old pirate
Billy Bones - navigator, old pirate

Billy Bones is an old pirate, a sea wolf, a veteran of his craft. He was Flint's navigator, an experienced sailor, and could read and write. He was, judging by the memoirs of Israel Hands and John Silver, who were terrible personalities, very cruel. One of his favorite phrases was "Dead people don't bite."

Source: novel "Treasure Island", novel "The Adventures of Ben Gunn"

Kinds: Soviet cinema villains, Fictional pirates

According to Ben Gunn (The Adventures of Ben Gunn), Billy Bones was not the worst person (besides, Bones patronized him). In the past, he was an honest skipper for many years until pirates robbed him near Havana. Then Billy became bitter. He was terrible in battle, but kept himself apart from the rest. He has a devoted servant - a black man, whom Billy saved from wolfhounds when he fled the plantations.

After the famous events, when Flint killed everyone who helped bury the treasure, Billy was the first to learn from the drunken Flint the location of the treasure (how he did it is a mystery). He drew a map and fled with it, making himself the target of the rest of the team.

He hid for a long time and one day chose one of the coastal taverns, Admiral Benbow, to live. This is where the events described in Stevenson's novel "Treasure Island" begin.

"...He was a tall, strong, heavyset man with a dark face. A tarred braid stuck out above the collar of his greasy blue caftan. His hands were rough, covered in some kind of scars, his nails were black, broken, and the saber scar on his cheek was rather dirty -white in color, with a leaden tint. I remember how the stranger, whistling, looked around our bay and suddenly began to sing an old sailor's song, which he then sang so often:

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest.

Billy Bones carried a chest with him, in which he kept the treasured card:

"...A strong smell of tobacco and tar came upon us. First of all, we saw a new, carefully cleaned and ironed suit, very good and, according to the mother, had never been worn before. Having lifted the suit, we found a bunch of various items: a quadrant , a tin mug, several pieces of tobacco, two pairs of elegant pistols, a silver ingot, an old Spanish watch, a few trinkets, not very valuable, but mostly of foreign manufacture, two compasses in copper frames and five or six fancy shells from the West Indies. I often thought why the captain, who lived such a restless, dangerous, criminal life, carried these shells with him.

But we didn’t find anything valuable except a silver bar and trinkets, and we didn’t need that. At the very bottom lay an old boat's coat, whitened by the salt water of many coastal shallows. Mother impatiently threw it away, and we saw the last things lying in the chest: a bag wrapped in oilcloth, like a bundle of papers, and a canvas bag, which, judging by the sound, contained gold..."

Billy drank a lot and had a very nasty and domineering character. In the tavern he forced everyone to call themselves captains. He swore and ordered me to drink with him and listen to scary stories about pirates and their crimes. These stories, according to Jimmy, showed what a vile life Bones led.

Billy constantly belted out the song "Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest." At the same time, he was very careless in paying for housing. However, among the local youth, there were people who admired him “... this is a real sea wolf, thoroughly salted by the sea...”.

Billy was afraid of publicity and authorities. Therefore, Dr. Livesey quickly put him in his place, threatening him with bailiffs. It was he who diagnosed him: “Rum and death are the same thing for you.”

He lived in constant fear of his former comrades, who eventually found him and brought him with a black mark to a stroke, from which Billy died (however, Bones’s drunkenness also affected), causing so much anxiety and enormous wealth to the heroes of the book.

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Probably I like negative heroes because, firstly, they are beautiful, secondly, they all have a sad story, thirdly, they must be smart, and fourthly, he must be unhappy and lonely. But I think that the negative heroes are mysterious, brave, but it’s a pity that sometimes these heroes often die at the end of the film or at the end of the anime... But some heroes realize their guilt and begin to fight for the side of good.

The appearance of Billy Bones at the Admiral Benbow Hotel actually marked the beginning of all the adventures of Jim Hawkins and the crew of the schooner Hispaniola. Bones came to the hotel with a mysterious chest in his hands; his very behavior was also quite mysterious - for example, Billy Bones was looking for a place with a good view of the sea, but away from popular routes. Billy was also in no hurry to tell the hotel owners his real name - he asked to call himself “captain”. The advance payment for the hotel was quite worthy, even excessively generous; however, he spent more than enough time at the Bons Hotel - much more than he should have for that kind of money. Attempts to get additional payment from Bones also led to nothing - the old pirate managed to discourage the protagonist's father from any desire to ask for money with just his unkind appearance. At the same time, Billy had some money at that time - he paid Jim Hawkins for looking out for the “one-legged sailor.” Bones himself was clearly not sure that this sailor would even appear on the horizon, but he also could not refuse the opportunity to notice him first.

Billy Bones spent his days walking around the area, studying the local rocks and looking out to the sea. At such moments Billy did no harm; the situation changed when the pirate returned to the hotel. Bones clearly could not control his addiction to alcohol; after drinking, he began to terrorize other guests with his swearing, singing and generally rather aggressive behavior. It’s interesting that over time this turned out to be more beneficial for the hotel - stories about the “real sea wolf” began to attract new clients to the Admiral.

For a long time it was unclear what or who Billy Bones was hiding from. Over time, however, the past nevertheless found him - someone named Black Dog, a villainous-looking man without two fingers on his hand, came to the hotel. The noisy argument between Bones and the Dog escalated into a fight with bladed weapons; Billy turned out to be a dangerous opponent and managed to wound his opponent, forcing him to retreat. The victory came at a high price for Bones - soon after the Dog left, the Captain suffered a stroke. Saved the Captain by Dr. Livesey; By the way, he found out the real name of the sailor - while bloodletting him, the doctor shaved the pirate’s hand, where he found the tattooed name. Bloodletting Bonsu helped, but the doctor strictly forbade the pirate to drink alcohol in the same quantities - promising otherwise catastrophic consequences. Billy Bones did not heed the wise advice of the doctor; the meeting with the Black Dog and the blow he suffered clearly broke the old sailor. Greatly weakened, Bones continued to seek peace at the bottom of the bottle; his mood changed greatly - one day Jim Hawkins even overheard the old man singing a village song about love. Shortly after this mysterious demonstration of his long-forgotten innocent side, Billy Bones told Jim Hawkins part of his story - as it turned out, he had once been the first mate on the ship of the legendary pirate Captain Flint. This largely explained Bones' behavior and made it possible to guess what exactly he was hiding from.

A few days later, Bones had to face another old acquaintance of his - Blind Pew. Despite his blindness, Pugh's mere appearance drove Billy into wild, uncontrollable horror. This time, however, there were no long fights - Pugh simply put a small object in Bones's hand and left. As it turned out immediately, this object was the Dark Mark; Seeing her, Billy Bones let out a heart-rending scream and suffered his second blow - which became fatal for him.

In numerous versions of Stevenson's original work, Bones took on different appearances. In Disney's animated film Treasure Planet, for example, Bones appears as a creepy alien turtle whose spaceship crashes near the Hawkins Hotel. Before his death, Billy manages to give Jim a mysterious sphere and warn him about some extremely dangerous cyborg - which later turns out to be the local incarnation of Long John Silver. In the Starz television series "Black Sails", Billy Bones is played by Tom Hopper. Here the viewer is given the character's full name - William "Bones" Manderly - and given his biography. As it turns out, Bones was once the son of civil activists who opposed the system of forced recruitment into the Royal Navy; It was Billy himself who became a victim of this set - and they took him away right at the time of distribution of pamphlets on this topic. For the next three years Bones was essentially a slave on the ship; A meeting with Captain Flint brought him freedom. William dealt with his former “master”, after which he decided to become a pirate - feeling that after everything he had done he would no longer be able to return home and appear before his family.

There is reason to believe that the image of Billy Bones was not invented by Stevenson in its pure form - the writer based his work on a very real story. The story of William Thomas Bones did not involve treasure or maps, although it did feature a desert island; Moreover, this story is directly related to the legendary pirate song "Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest." There is a theory according to which this song was invented after an unsuccessful mutiny on the ship "Queen Anne's Revenge", which belonged to Edward "Blackbeard" Teach himself. Tichu managed to suppress the rebellion; as punishment, he landed 15 of the most dangerous and active rebels on a desert island. One of those landed was the team's quartermaster, William Thomas Bones. The island, called Dead Man's Chest, belonged to the Virgin Islands and was essentially a not very large rock. According to legend, each of those landed was given a bottle of rum; This was the deep cunning of Tich - he perfectly understood that rum does not quench thirst, but on the contrary, kindles it.