Literary allusions and historical references

Let's use italics for Arthur Ransome text,normal text for external source material

List of literary allusions in the texts, the chapters where they appear and the original source (if known)

Swallows and Amazons

• chapter head quote: Or like stout Cortez ... silent, on a peak in Darien. see Wikipedia: John Masefield
• Titty had named the peak Darien ... she had heard the sonnet read aloud at school (SA1).
• 'Wraggle Taggle Gipsy' is actually a song
• And what happened to Don't Care? (Mary Walker, SA2): traditional nursery rhyme: "Don’t care didn’t care/Don’t care was wild/Don’t care stole plum and pear/Like any beggar’s child./ Don’t care was made to care/ Don’t care was hung/ Don’t care was put in a pot/ And boiled till he was done."
• "'And well,' says he, 'and how are your arms and legs and liver and lungs and

bones afeeling now?' Don't you remember?": Clearly a literary allusion, but the only result for this in Google Books is SA.

• Books taken to Wild Cat Island by the Swallows:
  • Titty took Robinson Crusoe: "It tells you just what to do on an island." (SA2). Later: "So you really are Robinson Crusoe," said mother, "and I am Man Friday in earnest." (SA18). see Wikipedia:Robinson Crusoe
  • John took The Seaman's Handybook. (The only result for this in Google Books is SA and a couple of other books about Arthur Ransome, so this might be a fictional book.)
  • John took Vol 3 of The Baltic Pilot: The Baltic pilot: comprising directions for the Baltic Sea, Gulf of Finland, and Gulf of Bothnia, Great Britain. Hydrographic Office, Printed for the Hydrographic Office, Admiralty, 1888 (Google Books)
  • Susan took Simple Cooking for Small Households: (As with The Seaman's Handybook above, the only result for this in Google Books is SA and a couple of other books about Arthur Ransome, so this might also be a fictional book.)
• Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh (SA2): see Wikipedia: Elizabeth I of England and Wikipedia: Walter Raleigh
• Chapter 3 header by Thackeray: There were three sailors in Bristol city Who took a. boat and went to sea.

But first with beef and captain's biscuit And pickled pork they loaded she. See Wikipedia: William Makepeace Thackeray

Swallowdale

• The GA wants Nancy and Peggy to learn a poem, so Captain Flint suggests Casabianca, a pretty long poem. But says Peggy we knew it already (as CF knew) and rattles off The boy stood on the burning deck ... (SD24).

• Later on Kanchenjunga Nancy mentions Skiddaw and Titty thinks of Carlisle: And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle from Macaulay's poem The Armada. Peggy says the poem is worse than Casabianca.(SD27).

• Moving it at all reminded him of the mermaid who had to walk on sharp knives (Roger with a wounded foot; SD29): see Wikipedia:The Little Mermaid, by Hans Christian Andersen

Peter Duck

• Captain Flint was reading aloud to them out of one of the little volumes of Hakluyt that made up part of the little library in the deckhouse bookshelf; he came across a passage ... by Master Thomas Masham, who sailed with Sir Walter Raleigh to Guinea ... in the year 1596 (PD36). For Hakluyt’s Voyages see wikipedia:Richard_ Hakluyt.

Winter Holiday

• Is this a Dorcas party? asked Mrs Blackett (WH9) when they are making quarantine flags from scraps of material; a reference to the New Testament disciple Dorcas who made clothes for the poor; see wikipedia:Dorcas.

Coot Club

• Castles in Spain came crashing down (CC2): ?
• They folded their tents like the Arabs and silently stole away (Mrs Barrable, CC16): “And the night shall be filled with music, and the cares, that infest the day, shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, and as silently steal away.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Mr Toad got out of prison disguised as a washerwoman (Dorothea, CC13): see wikipedia:The Wind in the Willows

Pigeon Post

• ...mastodons stomping their feet... (Dorothea, first mention in the series of mastadons, PP3): A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
• Phillips on Metals: A manual of metallurgy; or, A practical treatise on the chemistry of metals, by John Arthur Phillips, 1859
• "Suffered a sea change...rich and rare" (Titty, imagining Timothy's fate, PP21): The Tempest, William Shakespeare: Wikipedia:The Tempest

We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea

• stiffen us out rusty corps (Titty, WD3): ?
• [Jim might have met an] ancient mariner with skinny hand and glittering eye (Titty, WD7): "For he heard the loud bassoon. The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she; .... I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand. I fear thee and thy glittering eye ..." 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• The wind came first... (Roger, WD11): "When the wind's before the rain, soon we may set sail again [or "topsails remain"]; when the rain's before the wind, bring topsails in" - sailors' proverb
• Bridget would be like the mermaid walking on knives (WD 'At Pin Mill'): The Little Mermaid, Hans Christian Andersen
• Bridget would be like the princess with peas in her shoes (WD 'At Pin Mill'): ?
• And hear the drowning folks lament the absent chicken coop (Titty, WD17): ?
• Goblin would be like the Revenge in the middle of the Spanish fleet (Titty, WD18): ?

The Big Six

• inscription on the title page quoting Dorothea: It's the Big Five really. They are the greatest detectives in the world.: According to the Metropolitan Police website, 'By 1906 Scotland Yard were regularly assisting provincial forces to investigate murders, invariably by the "Big Five" Chief Inspectors Arrow, Dew, Fox, Frost and Cane.' (see Metropolitan Police History
• You and your young Portia (Dr Dudgeon, BS24) and He called you Portia by mistake (Tom Dudgeon, BS25): Shakespeare character, see Wikipedia:Portia (Merchant of Venice).
• bleating kid...ravening tiger: ?
• I ain't no Jonah (BS12): Biblical character who brings bad luck on a ship's crew (Jonah1:7 "And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.") See Wikipedia:Jonah.

Secret Water

• "You look like Ben Gunn already" (Mary Walker, SW4): Ben Gunn, fictional character in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. See Wikipedia:Treasure Island.
• "And we'll have to call all this the Red Sea." ... "Why?" asked Roger. "Pharoah and the Israelites," said Titty. (SW7): "And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. ... Exodus ch 14. See Wikipedia:Book of Exodus.
• "The Walker Expedition" (Nancy's suggested title for the Secret Archipelago Expedition, SW11): see Wikipedia:Walker Expedition to Quebec
• Titty remembered her mother's story of the Obeah woman (SW14): see Wikipedia:Obeah