Everyone knows about the pirates of the Caribbean. Let’s talk about other pirates. Since I’m a medieval historian, I’ll stay firmly in the European world.
Before we get started, a general comment: the lines between pirate, merchant, and rebel were blurry and ever-shifting. If you had a ship, it was sort of like having a pickup truck—you could use it for any number of enterprises.
Few pirates were exclusively that. The real interest lies in the variations on our standard idea of piracy.
Who were pirates? Given the comment above, pretty much anyone with a ship and a few followers could engage in piracy at one time or another, but there were a few places notorious for the practice of robbing other ships.
Frisian Pirates
Frisians were one. They lived along the coast of northeastern Netherlands; the region is still called Friesland. The Frisians were their own people, with their own language. Their land is made up of a complex of islands and marshlands that were rarely the object of ambition from other peoples, so they rarely were under the foot of invading armies.
The Frisians were constant raiders, not all that dissimilar to the Vikings, save that they did not try to invade and conquer. They were content to loot and go home. It just so happened that they were as content to do their looting at sea as on land.
Frisians are a fine example of the muddy lines between pirate, merchant and rebel. Under the Carolingians, their ports flourished and Frisian ships traded as far as England, France, Denmark and into the Baltic Sea. This trade was largely ruined by the Vikings, who hit this part of Europe hard. By the 14th century, we encounter them as pirates preying on ships from Hamburg and Bruges, calling the Vitalienbrüdern. Eventually, they annoyed the neighboring Germans and Danes enough that they were conquered and their sailing skills were put to use by others.
Cilician Pirates
Pirates were a constant problem in the ancient world as well. The pirates of Cilicia (southern coast of modern Turkey) once captured Julius Caesar. They later regretted that. The Great Pompey was given the task of clearing what Romans called Our Sea (the Mediterranean). He did so with Roman efficiency. He deployed a fleet and an army. Working in tandem, they moved along the coast from one end of Cilicia to the other. The navy destroyed their ships and the army destroyed their ports. Few kingdoms in later centuries had the resources to pull off an expedition of that scale.
The Sea Beggars
These fellows fall at the rebel end of the pirate spectrum. When the Spanish waged war in the Netherlands in the later 1500s, a number of ship owners decided to use their ships to harass the Spanish. They were sometimes effective, sometimes not, but they fairly consistently pocketed their prizes, arguing that they needed to cover expenses.
Whenever peace broke out, the brave, patriotic rebels became pirates. When war returned, they were once again patriots. Their most famous exploit was the raising of a Spanish siege of the town of Leiden in 1574.
River Pirates
River pirates could be found on the Thames in England, the Ganges in India, and the Yangtze in China (the Yangtze Patrol was made famous in the book and movie, The Sand Pebbles). There were even Cossack pirates, such as Stepan Razin.
Once, Razin was surrounded by a Persian fleet in the Black Sea. The Persian commander put his ships in a circle, chained together, to keep Razin from escaping. The pirate ships were smaller and lower, completely vulnerable to the Persian cannon fire. But Razin attacked anyway. A lucky shot set off the powder magazine in the Persian flagship, sinking it almost instantly. When it sank, it dragged the other ships down with it and only three Persian ships survived. Razin sailed away unscathed.
He rained terror and death along the Volga, the Don and into the Caspian Sea. He sacked Astrakhan and Samarra. At the height of his career he commanded several thousand followers and whole fleets of ships.
Other Cossacks also took to rivers. The most famous of these were the Ushkuiniks, who operated in northern Russia, around Novgorod. Their ships were remarkably slim and light (uisk in Russian means snake). Although they could hold as many as thirty men, the ship could be carried overland between rivers. Ushkuinik ships were frighteningly swift.
There was Alfhild, the pirate princess. Daughter of Siward, King of the Goths. Beautiful, of course, but she went about hooded and cloaked so men would not be provoked to passion. She was to be married to the handsome Viking Alf, who himself was a great hero at sea. But she refused to marry. She and some friends dressed as men and commandeered a ship, then embarked on a career as pirates. According to legend, all her crew were women.
Alfhild operated in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, not on rivers, so technically she doesn’t belong here. I just like her story.
Many so-called pirates were at least part-time merchants, glad to engage in peaceful trade when that was profitable, and equally happy to engage in piracy when that was the easier course. Stepan Razin’s pirates would enter as merchants and live in a place for weeks or months before turning on the population, stealing everything. In one case, forty of them entered as pilgrims. They went to the shrine, killed the guards, and opened the gates. In another case, the pirates posed as merchants bringing jars of wine. The weapons were hidden in the jars.
River pirates could form whole flotillas. They typically had an island or swamp as refuge. It’s rare to find river pirates operating at sea, and vice versa, mainly because the ships and techniques are quite different.
Pirates in Fantasy
River pirates would make a great target for an expedition of heroes. Ship to ship battles are always colorful, and the climax could be the assault on the pirates’ island fortress. Also, your readers are less likely to know the details of non-seafaring ships.
Since this is fantasy, why not add magic to the mix? River pirates might command currents, summon river monsters, or even be the ripuarian equivalent of mermen.
Even if river pirates are not the focus of your book, they could make a colorful side-quest or could provide a rich secondary character or two.
I don’t know of any fantasy tales that make use of river pirates. If you do, please let me know. I’ll update this article and give you credit!
As for sea pirates, I don’t think anyone needs encouragement there. All I’ll add is that there’s room for a story about the moral ambiguity of a pirate’s career. The pirate could see himself as a defender of his people, while his enemies see him as a … well, as a dread pirate (with apologies to Mr. Goldman).
How about you? Have you used pirates in any of your stories? Read any good fantasy pirate tales? The clear leader in that last category is Tim Powers (On Stranger Tides). How about any others?
References
- Pirates in New York?
- Chinese river pirates
- Cossack pirates
- Ushkuiniks
- Danish pirate
- Dutch pirates
- Cilician pirates
E.L. Skip Knox is the creator of the fantasy world called Altearth, a place where magic is real, monsters roam the land, and the Roman Empire never fell.
Hi E.L,
Fantasies are more than dreams. They are shared imaginary images that can either frighten or thrill the readers of the fantasies. They are a break from reality that many people need every now and then in a world that is too often a nightmare. Write fantasies if your imagination is broader than the ocean and you know there are enough readers out there that want to read what you can imagine. Who knows? You might create the next Harry Potter, or “Game of Thrones,” or “Persona Maximus.” Imagine that.
Thank you for the comment. I agree that stories are important to the human experience, and that fantasy offers a special contribution to that.
You're right, Laurence. This was true of all sorts of contract warriors. A notable case is that of the routiers in France during the Hundred Years War. That war had several truces, and the mercenaries took over castles or even whole towns, or simply had a hideout stronghold from which they preyed on merchants, churches, and monasteries, waiting for the war to start up again. Similarly, ship captains might carry goods and do trade in ports, or they might just decide to snatch up a slow ship that looked like good pickings if business was slow. The line between outlaw, solider, and merchant was never a clear one, at least before modern times. Some would say not even then. <wink>
I was researching privateers in guernsey (a British island off the coast of France) for a branding thing recently. For anyone who doesn’t know, privateers are essentially any armed ship commissioned to capture enemy ships and cargo during war time.
Sounds like a lot of legal privateers continued their businesses illegally when the wars ended. Could be a nice route for a pirate origin story!
"Religious" is a term than covers a wide range of human behavior, so I'm not really seeing the "despite" part. Individual pirates were, of course, individual, so this one might be pious, that one might give only lip service to a deity, while another might be blasphemous while still believing in his religion and is filled with guilt. Any generalization about the spiritual condition of pirates is going to be wrong. Also, it's worth remembering that very few pirates were in that trade for their whole life.
Maybe soe asian pirates were religious. It was not rare for ancient Hindu people to have a spiritual master no matter of the things they did for a lving.
As far as I've read pirates, at least western ones, went the whole way from gangsters to mafia so I'd dare to guess most of them had to live by some sort of a code, some sort of Omerta. On the other hand religion, when in the wrong hands, has always been a great tool for making people obey. Any likelihood with similar present conditions is pure coincidence
I heard somewhere once before that some pirates were very religious despite their way of piracy. I wonder if that is true and if living by the code is something that pirates do to remain true to religion?
there are a bunch of espace and interdimensional areas wanderers in my story and they devote most of their efforts to piracy. They are ensalvers also
diamond crystal like substance…hope it's not MoonLady blood. well I'd go with avians.
Depends. If the ships are flying while being attacked easily an avian hybrid. However, if they're on the water then a reptile hybrid as they can swim VERY fast.
As a fan of pirates, I have them show up all over in my writing (at least where they fit, if not, then they go into space!). River pirates show up on the occasion. On Eld mostly as humans, though there are a version of river elves descended from sea elves, which are a big merchant/privateer/pirate as needed and one of their big rulers is a pirate queen who rules out of Eld's bayou. I was kind of surprised there was no mention of the Knights of Malta, ruling from their little island, being pirates from time to time while still being a holy order of knights.
A bunch of people would qualify as occasional pirates, including a great many “merchants” — and the ever-virtuous Knights of Malta. One of my favorites is Henry the Fisherman, who gave the young Frederick Hohenstaufen a lift off of Sicily. He was called the Fisherman as a kind of joke–when not boarding your ship and taking your stuff, he would pose as a fishing vessel. Classic.
Wonderful article and I’ll be sure to use some river pirates and sea beggars whenever I return to my post-apocalyptic/fantasy world.
I must note however, that the Frisians are still their own people with their own language. Luckily for the rest of the country, they’ve traded raiding for farming 😉
Oh yes! Very much so. I worked with an econ professor named Draayer, who was both aware and proud of his Frisian heritage.
Haha a good representative of the place, I don’t think I’ve ever met a Frisian who isn’t proud of his home. Only we in Limburg can rival them on that front, and even then I think the Frisians still edge out a win.
ARGGG Pirates, I love them. When I was growing up my girlfriends read romance novels. I read “Mutiny on the Bounty”, “Pitcairn Island”.
Thank you for the medieval history lesson.
One of my favorite pirate history lessons came from James Michener, his
the novel, “Caribbean”.
Adventure, sailing ships and the open sea is what makes my heart beat
for the pirates of all time.
Glad you liked the article. Michener was an outstanding writer.
Demesnedenoir, that he does! I'd forgotten about that, I think mainly because that particular volume was such a slog for me.
The Missouri and the Mississippi did indeed have river pirates. Disney even had a movie about them, with Fess Parker.
I had river pirates make a brief appearance in my Donzalo's Destiny novels. The last one, I think, not that it matters. But all they did was glare at my well-armed travelers as they floated by. 🙂
Does GRRM use river pirates at one point? Not a major focus, but seems like they might exist.
I know I will use both river and coastal pirates in an upcoming book as I head into the Gorotan and their city states. Why? Because a local school has Reivers for a mascot, which is a river pirate. Apparently the Missouri and Mississippi had pirates in their day… still might, which is why I don’t go on the river. heh heh.
Why, the Black Pirates of Barsoom, of course.
Well, let's say there's a substance a diamond crystal like substance that can be used to make a ship fly.
Who would be the best antagonist pirate
Goblins
Reptilians
Avians
Humans