"During many years of seafaring life, I have frequently considered the origin of this phrase, and have now arrived at the conclusion, that it is derived from the scriptural account of the prophet Jonah. In the story, Jones is described as having saucer eyes, three rows of teeth, horns, a tail, and blue smoke coming from his nostrils. This same Davy Jones, according to sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is often seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes:, ship-wrecks, and other disasters to which sea-faring life is exposed, warning the devoted wretch of death and woe. Īn early description of Davy Jones occurs in Tobias Smollett's The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, published in 1751: Some of Loe's Company said, They would look out some things, and give me along with me when I was going away but Ruffel told them, they should not, for he would toss them all into Davy Jones's Locker if they did. George Roberts, by author Daniel Defoe, published in 1726 in London. The earliest known reference of the negative connotation of Davy Jones occurs in the Four Years Voyages of Capt. Other explanations of this nautical superstition have been put forth, including an incompetent sailor or a pub owner who kidnapped sailors.
The origins of the name of Davy Jones, the sailors' devil, are unclear, with a 19th-century dictionary tracing Davy Jones to a "ghost of Jonah". It is a euphemism for drowning or shipwrecks in which the sailors' and ships' remains are consigned to the depths of the ocean (to be sent to Davy Jones' Locker).
Davy Jones pictured by George Cruikshank in 1832, as described by Tobias Smollett in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle ĭavy Jones's locker is a metaphor for the oceanic abyss, the final resting place of drowned sailors and travellers.
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