In Treasure Island, Stevenson only wrote the chorus, leaving the remainder of the song unwritten, and to the reader's imagination:[7] Fifteen men on the dead man's chest— ...Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
[8][1] Other variations of the poem were printed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that claimed to be folklore, but in reality were nothing more than new extensions from Stevenson's original.
In the 1954 film Return to Treasure Island, starring Robert Newton, the song was sung in the opening credits, and instrumentally as the thematic background to the action.
[citation needed] Alan Moore made a play on the song in the 1986 graphic novel Watchmen; the chapter is called "One man on fifteen dead men's chests."
[10][11] Likewise, in the Hungarian translation of Treasure Island, the phrase is "seven (men) on a dead man's chest"; apparently these numbers provided the closest effect to the original regarding rhyme and syllables in English.
In Delderfield's story, the song is about 15 pirates who shipwrecked there who had salvaged many barrels of rum but almost no food, and were "all raving drunk" upon their rescue.
the first of those numberless isles which Columbus, so goes the tale, discovered on St. Ursula's day, and named them after the Saint and her eleven thousand mythical virgins.
The Dutchman's Cap, Broken Jerusalem, The Dead Man's Chest, Rum Island, and so forth, mark a time and a race more prosaic, but still more terrible, though not one whit more wicked and brutal, than the Spanish Conquistadores