The pirates' stuff
Sometimes it is possible to meet the image of pirate with the iron hand in the form of the hook. In reality there were no hooks at all. First the hook appeared in 1904 in the book of JM Barrie "Peter Pan" where one of the negative characters had the arm in the form of the hook. Because of the great popularity of this book, this attribute became very spread in the stories about pirates.
In some stories pirates are also pictured with the earrings made of gold and copper in one or two ears. In real life European men had earrings but not in the form of the rings and only in the 16th century. Even women stopped wearing earrings during the late periods when the long hair, wigs and hats started to cover ears.
The origins of the myth about the earrings in the form of rings that were worn by pirates are still rather doubtful. There are no signs of earrings in the works of almost all writers about pirates. And in 1890 Howard Paul first mentioned earrings in the texts and pictured them in illustrations. However his pirates were wearing the silver earrings with the precious stones instead of simple earrings. Paul can be considered to be the first who pictured pirates with the earring in the ear. But the pirate with the ring is the result of the artists' imagination of 20th century.
He was also the first who covered the head of pirates with bandanna. But there are no evidences that pirates were really wearing them. Moreover pirates were not wearing the hats that could be blown up with the wind. Instead of bandannas and hats pirates were wearing the caps with ropes to bins them under the head.
