The Jonah
- THE JONAH - A computer painting. It appears in the book, "Masters of the Weird Tale: Hodgson," published by Centipede Press in 2009. It illustrates the story, "The Boats of the Glen Carrig".
Actually, I did this picture to illustrate the story, "The Jonah," which is about a new crew member aboard ship who is thrown overboard by other crew members because they believe him to be a "Jonah," someone who brings bad luck to a ship at sea.
Once again, I used my computer to clip and paste a portion of a painting that I did for the magazine, "Fantastic, Aug.1976". I added the sky and the sailing ship.
This "Jonah" story reminds me of the curious case of "Violet Jessop". She was hired as a nurse aboard "The Olympic," one of three sister ships that were the largest ocean liners in the world. The other two sister ships were, "The Titanic'" and "The Britannic".
In 1911, "The Olympic" collided with British warship, "HMS Hawke," and sank. Violet Jessop was one of the survivors. She was then re-assigned to "The Titanic," and in 1912 when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank, Violet Jessop again, was one of the survivors. She was then re-assigned to the "The Britannic," and in 1916 the Britannic was being used as a hospital ship during the early part of World War 1. She was sailing on the Aegean sea bound for the Greek island of Kea to pick up wounded soldiers, when a mysterious explosion in the ship caused it to sink. There were only five survivors, and you guessed it, Violet Jessop was one of them.
So tell me, is there something to this "jonah" curse? It is good that after the Britannic sank, Jessop never went to sea again.
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