BREAKING NEWS: Scholars have announced a new manuscript attributed to Geordie Redbeard the pirate!
It has been some time since new documentary evidence surrounding the life of the infamously inept pirate Geordie Redbeard has surfaced. Some of his drunken poetry surfaced in 2018 and 2019 (see: GC7NGQX and GC7REHJ) leading intrepid scholars to a treasure chest and some gold. This is third such discovery in recent years.
The lackadaisical scholars of the Lincolnshire Academy of Geocaching were unable to announce this new discovery sooner, thanks to a secondment to a project where they were scanning QR codes on lampposts. After returning to the Academy, and several large spoonsful of dry coffee for lunch, the scholars read from the new manuscript:
After a great day of pillaging,
I sit drinking me rum at the bar,
Someone fool always asks us:
‘How’d I get this big scar?’
Well me hearties, says I,
I’ll tell ye me fine tale.
‘Tis much more dramatic,
Than Jonah and his whale.
I was on me own ship
Had so much grog that I’d cried.
I was well throwing up,
With me head over the side.
Would you believe it,
In that night so very dark?
When out of the water
Jumped an evil, great shark!
It chomped on me beard,
Chewed up me fine hair,
Those fearsome red locks!
Off it went with no care.
For many long years,
It was the shark that I feared,
That jumped out of the drink,
And bit off me beard.
But I got my revenge,
I caught up with the beast,
Jumped over and wrestled it,
Tis it was deceased!
I took it as a trophy,
Brought it for all to see,
I hauled the great creature
And strung it up on a tree.
There is no clear indication when the script was created, though it its authenticity is assured thanks to a series of portrait paintings of the pirate apparently wearing a false, red beard. The scholars suggest that the shark may well have been forgotten about and is still in place. It is likely that any adventurers seeking the beast will need to take a pen with them and beware of dog-walking muggles. The shark is probably about the size of a medium-sized geocache, though, without space inside it for anything else.