Saskia van Doorn

Saskia van Doorn lived in Oostende, Vlaanderen, a harbor town in the south of the Netherlands, now Belgium, in the Golden Age. She was to marry Nilius Spierings, a young man who had bought a large trading vessel, a new ship, built with the money he had inherited. But he was young and inexperienced and shipbuilders and harbor officials smelled his ignorance and let him bleed. He had paid much to many gold for a ship that was made from inferior wood and other poor materials.
On the day Saskia and her young captain were to marry, his ship, Angel Saskia, named after his beautiful bride, was sunk by the British pirate Tobias Stanwood. This all took place near the coast, in front of everybody to see, including Saskia. Had he had had a good ship he might had been able to outmaneuver the pirate vessel, but the shipbuilders had sold him in his ignorance a floating coffin.
Saskia did not hesitate long and the next day she sailed out in a little boat, in search of the pirate Stanwood. To take his head and the heads of anybody who had double-crossed her dead husband. Her flag was her bridle gown which she had painted black. She boards the Lowethme, the ship of pirate captain Cabeljau and she persuades him to help her in her quest for revenge. For a price only women can pay. She was already a well trained sword fighter and on board she learned all there was to learn about life on a big ship. In the end captain Cabeljau tracked down Stanwood, attacked his ship and it was Saskia herself that killed the British pirate. Then she continued her search foor other guilty men.
This is where the written evidence of the life of Saskia van Doorn ends. No more logs, no more letters, no more notes in other ships books. What remains are rumors, half forgotten legends and testimonies of sailors, drunk, sick and delirious seamen, about ghost ships, steered by dead men and sometimes accompanied by a young, blond, blue eyed and scarred woman. Some say she died in a battle with a unidentified ship. But is is also said that Saskia van Doorn had forgotten the oath she had sworn to destroy the guilty. Instead she had named herself Black Saskia and had become a guilty herself. Rumors say she spent many month, perhaps years on the ghost ship Flying Dutchman, voluntarily joining the dead because she had cut off all her roads back home, burnt all her bridges. And is whispered on the moors that one day she was brought ashore by a dead man and delivered a baby, a boy who disappeared in a cloud of dust and ashes the moment he was born. These thing do not happen no more nowadays but it is said it did happen then.

Story Saskia des vagues, © Dargaud 1996
For the Dutch edition Zwarte Saskia, © Dargaud 1996

Writer: Pierre Dubois, Artwork: lucien Rollin

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