Myths and legends

Stories of Table Mountain and Cape of Good Hope↗

Daniel Case · CC BY-SA 3.0

On the seas off the Cape of Good Hope sails the most famous ghost-ship legend in maritime history — the "Flying Dutchman": in the 17th century a Dutch captain swore in the Storm Cape that he would round the cape even if he sailed until the end of the world, and was cursed with ship and crew to wander the waters off the Cape forever, bringing doom to any vessel that meets her. From the British navy to Wagner's opera, the legend has lived for four hundred years in the Cape's raging seas — and it is not groundless: two ocean currents meet in these waters amid dense reefs, and the Portuguese navigator Dias, arriving first, called it the "Cape of Storms", while King John II gave it a name freighted with ambition — the "Cape of Good Hope", hoping for the eastern route, spices and wealth. The story on the Table Mountain side is gentler: when the south-east monsoon pushes cloud over the ridge, spilling it down the tabletop to dissolve halfway, Capetonians say "the tablecloth is laid". Local legend attributes the cloud to a smoking contest on the summit between a retired pirate and the devil — the wreathing smoke is the tablecloth taking shape. Today's summit cable car has a slowly rotating floor, which in a few minutes brings Cape Town, Robben Island and the Atlantic past your eyes in turn; standing at the cliff edge looking south, the Cape of Good Hope lies at the peninsula's end, where the waves have beaten against the cross Dias erected for four hundred years as if it were a single day.