The Dutchmen’s Curse
The Story
They say if you sail far enough—past the reach of maps and mercy—you’ll glimpse her ghost-white sails cutting through fog like a knife through flesh. The Dutchman. Creaking, groaning, sailing without wind or purpose. She don’t dock. She don’t die. And her crew? Neither dead nor living. Just… cursed.
Once, the Dutchman was a proud ship crewed by stubborn sailors with more rum than reason. Men who mocked gods and spat at fate. But they weren’t always cursed. No, it began with blood. Blood and a song.
The sea had been calm the night the sirens came.
Voices like honey on warm bread drifted from the dark waves. Sailors leaned over rails with wide eyes and stupid hearts, chasing that sound as if it called each man by name. They didn’t know the song was sorrow turned into bait. But even among monsters, there was one who didn’t sing for death.
She was the youngest of the sirens. Still pink in her gills, more heart than hunger. While her sisters lured men down to drown, she dreamed of peace, of joining the world above and learning the language of laughter. Her name was Lina. She stayed back while the others struck—watched, horrified, as sailors gasped beneath the waves.
And then came the boy.
He was barely a man—barely brave—but too full of vengeance to see. He’d watched his crewmates dragged into the deep. So when he saw Lina, soft-eyed and weeping, he thought only of justice. He drove his harpoon into her chest as she tried to speak.
She died in silence.
The sea stilled. The sisters emerged from the depths, no longer singing.
They did not scream. They did not attack.
They simply chanted a new tune, drawing power from the Siren’s Pearl.
A spell, thick and old, written in the bones of the world. A curse.
“You take the heart that wished you peace,
Then yours shall never find release.
The ship you love, the sea you crave,
Shall be your prison, not your grave.”
And so it began.
The sails of the Dutchman rotted, but the wind still filled them. The hull splintered and wept brine, but never sank. Rats and rot infested every corner, but the men could not die of plague or poison. Storms struck, but no wave could swallow them whole.
They starved—but never perished. Their bellies roared for bread, their throats cracked for fresh water, but no food ever filled them. The sea mocked their thirst with every splash against the hull.
The boy—now a man with hollow eyes—stood at the bow each night, whispering apologies to a sea that would not forgive. Sometimes, in the distance, they heard a song. Not the hungry call of sirens—but one voice, soft and sorrowful.
Lina.
Her spirit never passed on. It clung to the tide, weeping in moonlight. And the Dutchman follows her sound—not out of hope, but punishment. Chained to guilt. Anchored by regret.
To this day, sailors swear they’ve seen her: a ship with sails like cobwebs and a crew of gaunt shadows with wide, yearning eyes. No one who boards ever returns. For they are not meant to rest. Not meant to eat. Not meant to love.
They are the damned.
And the sea never forgets.
Song Lyrics
We sailed beneath a bloodlit moon,
Where sirens wept a deadly tune.
They crooned from depths where no light shone,
But we were deaf with hearts like stones.
We turned our eyes, we held our breath,
But one among us dealt them death.
He speared a voice that meant no harm,
And broke the spell of the ocean’s charm…
And so the sea did answer back,
With thunder’s roar and skies turned black.
A pearl was raised by weeping song,
To bind us in the deep for our wrongs…
No shore, no home, no dawn, no land,
No death, no peace, no guiding hand.
We sail beneath a curse profound,
No grave to rest, no hallowed ground.
The mast is torn, the sails aflame,
Our souls adrift, condemned by shame.
The one who struck the siren down,
And damned our names to tales renown.
The Pearl, she sang with silver fire,
She cursed our breath, she froze desire.
Now winds may blow and years may flee,
But our souls belong to no man’s sea…
The Siren’s Pearl, she does not sleep,
She hums our doom beneath the deep.
And every storm that haunts the tide,
Is borne of what we tried to hide…
No love to hold, no grave to keep,
Just endless waves and souls that weep.
We sail with eyes that do not blink,
And drown in waves that make us sink.
O daughter of the drowning song,
Forgive the wound, forgive the wrong…
But time won’t break the spell we wear—
The sea is judgment cold and fair…
The cursed winds still carry flame,
And none on land recall our name.
But when the sirens start to cry,
You’ll know the Dutchmen wander by…
For we who stole the ocean’s grace,
Now haunt the tides and leave no trace.
No moonlight shines upon our wake—
Just shadows of men the sea did take…
The cursed winds still carry flame,
And none on land recall our name.
But when the sirens start to cry,
You’ll know the Dutchmen wander by…
For we who stole the ocean’s grace,
Now haunt the tides and leave no trace.
No moonlight shines upon our wake—
Just shadows of men the sea did take…
