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He used to hang de lanterns
on de coconut trees
and lure the ships upon de reef
and when de sailors thought
they'd sighted land,
alas they ran aground
alas they ran aground!
Sam Lord was a legendary Barbadian folkhero who has made his way
into calypsonian's songs (The Merrymen wrote about him in one of their records) and as a
major figure in at least one novel, The Regency Rascal by Lt. Col. Drury. He
was apparently a pirate with very extravagant tastes, as his castle on the southern tip of
the island (in St. Philip parish) with enormous, tooled ceilings and an external turtle
pit illustrates.
Sam Lord was considered eccentric for some of the design principles
he insisted on building into his home. For example, the hallways slope markedly,
which might indicate an insane or bad designer. But apparently Sam Lord created the
slope so that, whenever hurricanes came and drove water into the house, it would drain
back out of the house again instead of ruining the wood.
According to the myth, Sam would hang lanterns in the coconut trees
outside of his estate. The lights fooled captains looking for a safe harbor to land
their boats, because Sam Lord lived on the south-eastern tip of the island. His
shores met the more brutal thrust of the Atlantic ocean. After the boats wrecked on
the coral reefs off-shore, Sam Lord and his men would go out to rob them.
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