Random Bizarre Pirate Traditions Most People Don't Know About (18 items)

(#16) The Jolly Roger Is The Best Known Pirate Flag But It Has Many Variations

The Jolly Roger black flag with a skull and crossbones might be the best known pirate insignia but there are multiple versions of that banner. The first mention of the Jolly Roger came from the 1724 book, A General History of the Pyrates, by Charles Johnson.
Blackbeard’s flag, for example, featured a skeleton toasting the devil while spearing a bleeding heart. Others had red skeletons, hourglasses, or even men standing on skulls.
(#5) No One Ever Wanted To See The Bloody Red Pirate Flag

The Jolly Roger flag that flew from pirate masts was terrifying but the most dreaded sea flag was red. A ship hoisting a red flag warned its enemies that no mercy would be given to a captured ship; everyone on board would be killed immediately.
The red flag was sometimes called the “Bloody Red” and if it replaced a skull and crossbones flag, the pirates under siege might sometimes jump ship.
(#11) Pirates Had All Kinds of Superstitions About Their Earrings

The earring might be the most famous piece of pirate jewelry; they were certainly very practical. The sea buccaneers were quite superstitious about the hoops, though, and there were many myths about the earrings' otherworldly abilities. One tale claimed that they could prevent sea sickness while another suggested that the precious metals could cure bad eyesight.
Many pirates believed that a gold earring could prevent a man from drowning but that myth was disproved a number of times.
(#17) The Plank Was Mostly A Myth, And Their Way Of Actually Killing People Was A Lot Worse

While there is some evidence pirates did use walking the plank as a form of psychological torture, there is not enough evidence to prove it was a widespread practice. It became popular thanks to the rise of pirates in entertainment in the 19th Century. There were plenty of other ways pirates killed people, and some of it involved forms of torture. But for the most part, anyone they wanted to execute was killed quickly and swiftly.
But the most common form of death-by-torture involved something much worse than a plank. It was called keelhauling, and it involved throwing the victim into the water underneath the boat. They would hoist him up on one side, passing him under the ship's keel, and then place a large weight on his legs to make sure he stayed underwater. As if that wasn't enough, the perpetrator then endured being pulled by the ship's weight and drowned. If they were lucky, the blow from being thrust against the ship's bottom would be enough to kill them.
(#14) The Most Famous Pirates Probably Weren't The Most Successful Pirates

In a strange but sensible irony, the pirates whose names have made their way through the decades of history to the present day probably weren't the most successful pirates. According to museum curator David Moore, the pirates whose names we know were the ones who got caught.

In Moore's line of thinking: "The reason many [pirates] became famous was because they were captured and tried before an Admiralty court. Many of these court proceedings were published, and these pirates' exploits became legendary. But it's the ones who did not get caught who were the most successful in my book."
(#12) Most Pirates Didn’t Bury Their Treasure

Even though it’s easy to picture a pirate burying treasure on a tropical island, only one pirate, William Kidd, was ever recorded as having buried treasure. Kidd deposited his loot off the coast of Long Island but the scheme backfired when an ally dug up the trove and used it as proof to convict Kidd of piracy.