The Flying Ship Commentary

"The Flying Ship" is a classic tale of the adventurous fool setting out to seek their fortune and, in the original, winning the hand of the King's daughter. Among the adventures, the myth of Theseus is observed with the acquisition of wood, which when thrown on the ground, will become an army of soldiers (this being dragon's teeth in the Theseus myth).

Here, I have heightened the comic element considerably, and made the protagonist a heroine rather than a hero. Is her desire to win the princess' hand in marriage? Well, the protagonist always responds, she hasn't given it that much thought--her motivation is simply the desire for the flying ship. And, in the end, the princess having rejected her, the comic heroine rejects the king (whereas in typical tales she would have accepted him) because he has treated her rudely and is so proud as to think he rules the universe, which she proves he does not by his lack of control over her in her flying ship.

Perhaps in former generations the flying ship was imagined as a ship with sails as one might find on the sea. But how she comes about the ship is through a meeting with a little magical man, and I have integrated that with today's tales of UFOs. Not that today's classical UFOs were unknown in earlier times--for there are accounts of them and, curiously, they have in some of these old accounts been connected with appearing during battles and swaying victory to one side or another, just as here the flying ship heroine and her helpmates succeed in battle against the king with the miracle of the army arising from the scattered wood.

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