why the stereotypes of pirates

Why do pirates always have peg legs, parrots on their shoulders and eye patches? Im assuming this stereotype is partially based on fact so why would pirates have these things?

Id assume the eye patch and peg leg would be signs of a violent life but i don’t understand what the parrot is for. is it to scout out neighboring ships or something.

Treasure Island and Peter Pan made quite an impression.

“Aaaaargh! It’s driving me nuts!”

Back to the thread…

People who sailed around the tropics tended to pick up all sorts of critters as pets. Monkeys and parrots were favourites in both pirate and legitimate vessels. Their behaviours are diverting.

The eye patch thing is from using a Cross-staff to navigate. It’s a sort of very primitive sextant, and one way to use it is to look directly into the sun. Over a period of years, navigators would lose their vision in the eye they used to sight the sun. It’s really hard to focus on anything when the vision in your two eyes is radically different… hence, the eye patch.

A picture of a Cross-staff:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~mosmd/crstaff.htm

You have a cite for that, Hello?

It seems rather more logical that a better way of using a Cross-Staff would be to close one eye, and that eyepatches on pirates (and other sailors) served the same purpose they did on everyone else who wore them - to cover an open (and unsightly) socket where an eye once was.

Some pirates would have worn eyepatches or had peg-legs because of the dangerous nature of their profession (both the ‘looting and pillaging’ and the normal sailing portion).

Ah, crap, I misread - ignore me.

ARRRRRRRR !!! Avast ya landlubbers !!!
If ya be aboard a ship once in a while, ya would know that rigging (aka ropes as land sissies call them) can cause ya to lose bodily appendages. Be it rigging used for sailing or belaying to a dock if ya gets too careless, hands and legs can be lost thereby resulting in “hooks” and “peglegs”.
Of course it seems more romantic and exciting to tell a lusty wench that ya lost ya arm whilst plundering a ship or fighting off Moby Dick rather than ya hand got stuck in the anchor rope.

Flint guns were prone to blowing up in the face, though luck; one eye less to worry about.

There is at least one historical pirate known to have a peg-leg, a French robber who earned the nicknames “Jambe de Bois” and “Pierre Palo” for his handicap.

Incidentally, the most famous fictional pirate, Long John Silver, does not have a peg-leg. He uses a crutch.

I know of no historical pirates who wore eye patches, but losing an eye was a common accident amongst sailors, piratical or honest, and it would hardly have been thought strange for a pirate to have one.

But you learn very quickly to stay out of the bight.

**One day a Pirate was having a friendly chat with the Barkeep down at the alehouse.

The Barkeep inquired,
“Where did ya get that peg leg from?”

The Pirate responded,
“We were loadin’ the longboat with pillage, when I slipped overboard, and a monster of a shark came up to me afore me maties could haul me in and bit off some of me leg.”

The Barkeep asked,
“Well, where did you get that hook from, then?”

The Pirate replied,
“Well, me crew and I were in a fierce battle with some Spaniards, and their First Mate got me with a lucky chop of his cutlass afore I could run 'im through.”

The Barkeep then asked,
“Then where did ya get the eye patch from?”

The Pirate said “Whilst we was at anchor in the mouth of the Amazon, I heard a familiar squawk from the rigging above, and when I looked up, this parrot o’mine took a dump right in me eye.”

The Barkeep was puzzled and asked the pirate,
“Why would you need an eye patch just because a parrot took a dump in your eye?”

The Pirate half-stared back at him and said,
“Arrrrrgh! 'Twas me first day with the hook!”
**

Scary stories of cut-throat bandits of the high seas are that much scarier if the characters are horribly scarred or mutilated… they seem more dangerous.
Parrots were an exotic species from the lands that pirates visited. Sometimes they had monkeys. (The pirates, I mean.)

Losing a leg was a pretty common injury due to cannon fire. The cannonball hits the deck and skims along it, taking everything in its path. You also have to deal with flying wood splinters – often lethally sharp and just as dangerous as the cannonballs themselves – that could easily take off an arm or an eye. Cannons also kick when fired – an unwary sailor could easily have a leg crushed or broken.

Given the state of medical treatment available (pretty much none), pretty much all you could do for any severe crushing or laceration injury was lop off the limp and hope it didn’t mortify.

And yeah, the parrots are just pets.