skullgoblet1089

As a child, I heard the legend of Blackbeard's cup. On the night before a raid, Blackbeard and his berserkers would quaff from a common cup carved from a human's skull. This custom was known to grant the pirates dark and supernatural powers: inhuman strength and vitality. There are many legends and tales regarding Blackbeard. In the end, he was decapitated while fighting to the death with 5 gun shots and 20 mortal sword wounds. His body was thrown overboard and his head was tied to a ship mast for its bounty. Blackbeard's skull came into the ownership of the governor of Virginia, who, curiously, crafted it into a decorative goblet of his own. Over years, the cup was lost to time...

As a child, I heard the legend of Blackbeard's cup. Now it is in the past: only a childhood memory. Still, on the night of a full moon, the ink well of the imagination stirs. Some nights, the stories return to me and, my senses overflowing, transpose onto reality. If I sit by the hearth where it is peaceful, the goblet may materialize late in the dwindling light of the fire. At those times, its features become familiar to me, only the warmth of nostalgia remains, and the vessel appears to me in its most fundamental aspects: a portal to an infinite ocean of the mind's eye. By the light of day, the tales must always end. It has been some time that I journey to this place. Now is the time to put pen to paper with what I have gathered.