Behind the Folklore - Red Sky At Morning

by crystalrach

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GHOST SHIP
In modern English, the term ghost ship has come to denote at least one of three separate (though occasionally overlapping) definitions, all of which involving, in one respect or other, unexplained circumstances.
Historically, the term has been used to refer to reported sightings of apparitions over water that have appeared in the form of maritime sailing ships, often after having previously been known to have sunk, or to derelict vessels found floating with no crew.
In fiction, ghost ships have often been vessels crewed by some manner of spectral or non-living beings.

The main legend of ghost ships among mariners has been the Flying Dutchman, a captain condemned to eternally sail the seas. The legend has inspired several works.
According to some accounts, many ships responded to the desperate Morse code messages from the Dutch freighter Ourang Medan. The ship was found adrift off Indonesia with all of its crew dead. The boarding party found the entire crew "frozen, teeth baring, gaping at the sun." Before the ship could be towed to a home port, the ship exploded and sank.
The reason for the deaths are still unexplained today. The original report of this incident cannot be located, and the entire episode is thought to be apocryphal.

HAND OF GLORY
The Hand of Glory is the dried and pickled hand of a man who has been hanged, often specified as being the left (Latin: sinister) hand, or else, if the man were hanged for murder, the hand that "did the deed."
According to old European beliefs, a candle made of the fat from a malefactor who died on the gallows, virgin wax, and Lapland sesame oil (the candle could only be put out with milk), and the hand having come from the said hanged criminal, lighted and placed in the Hand of Glory (as in a candlestick) would have rendered motionless all persons to whom it was presented. (In another version the hair of the dead man is used as a wick, also the candle is said to give light only to the holder.) The Hand of Glory also purportedly had the power to unlock any door it came across.
The legend is traceable to about 1440, but the name only dates from 1707. It was originally a name for the mandrake root (via French "mandragore" and thus, "maindegloire" - "hand of glory") that became conflated with the earlier legend. The confusion may have occurred because mandrakes are said to grow beneath the bodies of hanged criminals.


OTHER REFERENCES
Sam: It’s not your birthday...Happy Purim?
Purim is a Jewish festival that falls around February/March each year.

Gertrude: My Adonis
Adonis is a figure from Greek Mythology. His name is often used as an allusion to a young, attractive man.

Sam: Tell me I didn't get groped all night by Mrs. Havisham for nothing.
Miss Havisham was a character in Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations", who was an older woman with an interest in Pip, the main character.