Davy Jones is portrayed in “Pirates of the Caribbean” as an octopus-faced man with tentacles and saucer eyes who locked his heart in a chest on a desert island after his one true love betrayed him. He was a cruel captain who sailed the seas collecting souls and damned them to serve on his ship for eternity.
When most think of Davy Jones, they think of Davy Jones’ Locker, where the pirate sent Jack Sparrow and his ship, the Black Pearl, to pay Jack’s debt. In the movie, the locker is a desolate coastline, but over the centuries, the locker has taken on several myths and depictions.
However, the real story behind the phrase is quite different from its fictionalized versions, but some legend details seem to be true.
According to the mythology of sailors, the phrase “Davy Jones’s Locker” is an expression that refers to the seabed, the final resting place of the thousands of sailors who have drowned at sea.
Sailors use the phrase to suggest an afterlife for seafarers or even objects, including ships fated to rest at the ocean’s bottom in a graveyard.
Still, in its figurative sense, the phrase has been part of the English language for a long while, and the origin of the word remains disputed.
In the early days, the name Davy Jones was referred to as the sailors’ devil and, sometimes, the evil god of the seas. However, after turning up unsuccessful in tracing the term’s origin, historians argue that its root went back centuries ago, and the stories were shared with generations by word of mouth.
