Episode 275: Pay the Ferryman

This week Shauna and Dan have to pay the ferryman. Well, not exactly. Bonus: Charon, Commodores, and Chris de Burgh

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Bunny Trails: A Word History Podcast
Episode 275: Pay the Ferryman
Record Date: May 4, 2025
Air Date: May 7, 2025

Intro

Dan:
Welcome to Bunny Trails, a whimsical adventure of idioms and other turns of phrase.

I’m Dan Pugh

Shauna:
And I’m Shauna Harrison

Each week we take an idiom or other turn of phrase and try to tell the story from its entry into the English language, to how it’s used today.


Opening Hook
There are many ideas regarding what happens after death… It’s a question humans have asked for centuries… What happens when it’s time to pay the ferryman?  

Meaning

The phrase "It's time to pay the ferryman" draws from ancient Greek mythology, where Charon, the ferryman of Hades, transported souls across the River Styx to the underworld. Traditionally, the dead were buried with a coin (an obol) to pay Charon for passage; without payment, souls were believed to wander the shores for eternity.

Today, paying the ferryman can be used to express a few different things, including, death - the original context, consequences - in a metaphorical sense, or a turning point - as in a symbolic crossing.

Ultimately, it comes down to paying a price to move forward — often with finality.

The tone might vary, but the structure is the same:

You’ve taken an action > Now it’s time to pay > There’s no going back.

The key word in our phrase is ferryman.

According to Oxford English Dictionary, the term “ferryman” means:

Quote
A person who operates, or who is in charge of, a ferry.
Sometimes with reference to Charon, the ferryman of the underworld in classical mythology
End quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/charon_n?tab=meaning_and_use#9614344

In English, the term ferryman started appearing in texts around the mid 1100s to refer to living men who operated ferry services across bodies of water in the overworld. This usage continued to be the primary usage for several hundred years.

1464
In the compilation work ‘Manners and household expenses of England in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries’, the following was noted from around 1464,

Quote
Payd to the ferrymanes wyffe
End quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/ferryman_n?tab=meaning_and_use#4361116

In medieval England, travel often required crossing rivers by boat, and ferrymen (or their families) operated these crossings. The ferryman’s wife might have collected the fare if her husband was unavailable or if she assisted in running the ferry.

It was natural for these concepts to be linked in certain contexts and for people to use the phrase of paying the ferryman to convey deeper meaning.


1615
In George Sandys’ 1615 work, A relation of a journey, we find the following ominous excerpt,

Quote
Charon grim Ferri-man, these streames doth guard.
End quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/ferryman_n?tab=meaning_and_use#4361116

In this context, it's more poetic and literary than literal. Sandys is blending classical myth with his observations — often comparing real-world places or experiences to familiar figures from antiquity. He may have been describing an actual river or stream he saw on his journey, but used the myth of Charon as a metaphorical lens to interpret it.

1724
We see a similar usage in the 1724 work Itinerarium Curiosum by William Stukeley.

Quote
When we had... paid our naul to the inexorable ferryman.
End quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/ferryman_n?tab=meaning_and_use#4361116

“Naul” is an old or dialect word meaning a fare or toll, especially for river crossings.

Stukeley is describing a real ferry crossing during his travels, but he sets the moment in this dramatic, mythological language. By invoking "the inexorable ferryman", he exaggerates the mundane act of paying a boat fare into something that resembles paying Charon for a one-way trip to the underworld. It adds a sense of foreboding, but in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way.

1865
The Ferryman, a painting by Camille Corot, was originally created in 1865. It was digitized and uploaded to the Fine Art America website on July 24, 2023.

In the painting, a small rowboat glides through a shadowed riverbank, steered by a solitary ferryman. Three passengers sit quietly beneath a large tree and light breaks through the clouds. The scene feels like a quiet passage between worlds — peaceful, yet marked by a sense of finality.
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-ferryman-1865-camille-corot.html


I thought this was an interesting piece because it’s not depicting a grim reaper type of character but there is still an almost serene sense of separation from the rest of the world.

1868
In The Wheeling daily register, October 28, 1868, out of Wheeling, West Virginia, we find a short advice blurb.

Quote
Make Your Chances
While ten men watch for chances, one man makes a chance; while ten men wait, like Macauber, for something to turn up, one man turns up something; so while ten fails, one succeeds and is called a man of luck - the favorite of fortune. Pluck makes luck, and fortune favors those most who are utterly indifferent to her smiles. He who waits for a fortune to assist him, is like the man who sat down upon the bank of a swiftly running stream, thinking that the water would soon pass and he could pass over without paying the ferry-man.
End quote
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026847/1868-10-28/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1850&index=11&rows=20&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=ferry-man+paying&proxdistance=5&date2=1875&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=pay+the+ferryman&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

This quote uses the ferryman as a metaphor to show the value of action and self-reliance over passivity... Don’t sit around hoping life will change for you — take action, accept the cost, and cross the river yourself.

1911
An article from The Nome Daily Nugget, August 30, 1911, uses the phrase,  

Quote
We are not rich enough to afford to neglect the merchant marine problem. Americans pay foreign ship owners about $5,000,000 a week for carrying goods and passengers across the sea. Thus we have to send more than a quarter billion dollars abroad every year—just to keep even on the transportation account. It is a big fare to pay the ferryman.
End quote
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87062011/1911-08-30/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1900&index=2&rows=20&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=ferryman+pay&proxdistance=5&date2=1920&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=pay+the+ferryman&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

This article uses the phrase "pay the ferryman" metaphorically to describe the steep economic cost Americans were bearing by relying on foreign shipping rather than investing in a stronger U.S. merchant marine.

I also found the story of a steep fine paid to a ferryman in several papers from 1915. This particular ferryman was nicknamed the Emperor's Boatman. You can learn how he earned the moniker in our behind the scenes video which airs every Friday on Patreon at Patreon.com/BunnyTrailsPod.

The phrase “pay the ferryman” originally alluded quite directly to Charon, the mythological figure who ferried souls across the River Styx in exchange for a coin, often placed in the mouth of the deceased.

For centuries, references to the ferryman were mostly straightforward, echoing this classical idea of death and spiritual passage… or referring to actual ferryman in the living world.

In the early 1900s, the phrase began to carry a deeper sense of mysticism or metaphor beyond myth—often symbolizing not just death, but a reckoning, debt, or inevitable cost tied to fate or risk.

At this point, the phrase held more emotional or superstitious weight, especially among seafarers, who saw coins under the mast not just as good luck but as insurance for the soul’s safe passage.

These ideas existed and were shared before this, but became prominent in the early 1900s like in the example we just read from 1911… mentioning the ferryman became often synonymous with the idea of fate or death.

1941
We see an example and explanation of this in The Daily Alaska empire, May 29, 1941, out of Juneau, Alaska.

Quote
"KEEP SOULS SAFE"
Seafaring men will tell you that coins under the mainmast not only bring good luck but “keep their souls safe.” Commander Beckett, of the British Royal Navy, who has made a study of the custom, says it arises from the old Roman habit of placing coins in the mouths of the dead to pay Charon for transportation across the River Styx. Should a ship meet disaster, says the commander, there would be coins there to pay the ferryman of the Styx for a safe crossing for all aboard.
End quote
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045499/1941-05-29/ed-1/seq-7/#date1=1930&index=1&rows=20&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=ferryman+pay&proxdistance=5&date2=1963&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=pay+the+ferryman&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1


We have several modern uses to cover and we’ll get to those, right after we say thank you to our sponsors.

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Modern Uses

1977
Betty Arvaniti, Jack Hedley, and Mairi Sokali starred in the 1977 UK tv series, Who Pays the Ferryman? Here is a short description from tvGuide.

Quote
Alan Haldane, footloose after selling his boat building business, returns to Crete where he fought in the Second World War - only to find out that his former girlfriend died, but had a daughter. He decides to stay.
End quote
https://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/who-pays-the-ferryman/cast/1030214206/

The show brings in some of that symbolism regarding the emotional debt and reckoning the main character faces for past choices… and suggests that no one escapes the cost of unfinished business or buried guilt.

1982
‘Don't Pay The Ferryman’ is a song by Chris de Burgh from the 1982 album, 'The Getaway' Here are some of the lyrics:

Quote
It was late at night on the open road
Speeding like a man on the run
A lifetime spent preparing for the journey

He is closer now and the search is on
Reading from a map in the mind
Yes there's the ragged hill
And there's the boat on the river

And when the rain came down
He heard a wild dog howl
There were voices in the night, ("Don't do it")
Voices out of sight, ("Don't do it")
Too many men have failed before

"Whatever you do
Don't pay the ferryman
Don't even fix a price
Don't pay the ferryman
Until he gets you to the other side"
End quote
https://youtu.be/8kNwvIEQsg0?si=KSlT5cEUI4-p_P4D


2003
The phrase appears in the 2003 Disney movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. In case you have never seen the movie, here is a synopsis,

Quote
The roguish yet charming Captain Jack Sparrow's idyllic pirate life capsizes after his nemesis, the wily Captain Barbossa, steals his ship, the Black Pearl, and later attacks the town of Port Royal, kidnapping the governor's beautiful daughter Elizabeth. In a gallant attempt to rescue her and recapture the Black Pearl, Elizabeth's childhood friend Will Turner joins forces with Jack.What Will doesn't know is that a cursed treasure has doomed Barbossa and his crew to live forever as the undead.
End quote

In a tense moment when Will Turner is captured by Captain Barbossa’s cursed crew, Barbossa explains the dire nature of their situation and the price they must pay to break their curse. He ominously states,

Quote
The last thing you shall see is the mark of the black spot. Now, pay the ferryman his due.
End quote
https://movies.disney.com/pirates-of-the-caribbean-the-curse-of-the-black-pearl


2020
Don't Pay the Ferryman #1 – Momoko NYCC Virgin Brushed Metal Variant is a limited-edition comic released in 2020 by 4 Leaf Comics, featuring exclusive cover art by Peach Momoko. This brushed metal variant was limited to 100 copies and debuted at New York Comic Con, making it a rare collector's item. ​

The cover art showcases Momoko's signature ethereal style, and depicts a haunting figure associated with the ferryman myth, crossing a body of water in a small boat which is made from or at least adorned with bones, primarily skulls. The artwork is in greyscale.


Here is a little about the comic itself,

Quote
Welcome to a new psycho thriller that leaves you asking yourself....
DO you dare tempt fate?

For the residents of Castle Hill, Rhode Island, life moves at a steady pace. This small coastal fishing town is home to some of the best Atlantic salmon in the northeast.

For the town of Castle Hill, a myth stays buried among the townspeople; a myth that, over time, has driven men mad. Tempting fate is a risky choice, one that could result in consequences affecting a person’s future. To tempt fate a person must take the hunt, solve the riddle, and grab the coins, but as the townspeople beg…

Don't pay the Ferryman.
End quote
https://recalledcomics.com/DontPayTheFerryman1MomokoNYCCMetal.php


2022
Ferryman is a 2022 song by Shayfer James & Will Wood. This is a very catchy song. I listened to it several times in a row just because it was fun. Here are the lyrics to the chorus.

Quote
Oh, your time is comin' fast (row, row, down the)
(Stream) and the Ferryman only deals in cash (this is not a)
(Dream) oh, your time is comin' fast (row, row, down the)
(Stream) and the Ferryman only deals in
The Ferryman only deals in cash
End quote
https://youtu.be/em3QhcVZZhU?si=fgTkr37aRtR7aaiH

The verses to this song describe ways in which some people meet the Ferryman. It’s fun but a little dark. We’re going to look further into these during our behind the scenes which airs every Friday on patreon. That’s Patreon.com/BunnyTrailsPod.

2025
To Pay The Ferryman is a 2025 novel by P.R. Black. Here is the synopsis from the publisher,

Quote
A cold case in the city of the dead.
D.I. Lomond is a devoted family man. A good detective.

When the body of a young woman involved in the worlds of art and adult streaming is found in the River Clyde, Lomond believes there may be echoes of a cold case from the start of his an unsolved death on a rural Scottish estate in the 1990s.

Then, a Swedish feminist activist, who also has a connection to Lomond's past, arrives in the city to protest against the failure of the police to find the killer. The victims all seem to be drawn from the world of art and business. Is the cold case the answer, or just part of the key, and could the killer be about to get dangerously close to Lomond and his family?
End quote
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pay-Ferryman-D-I-Lomond-Thriller-ebook/dp/B0DF2PT1CQ


Current
There is a necklace for sale on Etsy - The Ferryman. Antique Coin Necklace by cloven. Here is the description,

Quote
From a 16-1/2" long antiqued brass cable chain, swings a trio of antique coins.
One of Russian descent, from 1735, another from France 1917 and finally a Victoria farthing from 1877.
Wear the necklace with either the design side facing out or the date side facing out.
End quote
https://www.etsy.com/listing/77537064/the-ferryman-antique-coin-necklace



Wrap up:
To me, "pay the ferryman" is a powerful phrase that speaks to the idea of reckoning—of debts coming due, whether literal or moral. I like how it carries a sense of inevitable justice, a moment when actions meet consequences. It’s dramatic, a little dark, and perfectly captures the weight of facing what’s owed. But it can also be used lightly, like when it's finally time to deal with something you've been putting off or to jokingly acknowledge a small but unavoidable cost.

Shauna:
That’s about all we have for today. If you have any thoughts on the show, or pop culture references we should have included, reach out to us on Patreon, patreon.com/bunnytrailspod, or comment on our website, bunnytrailspod.com

Dan:

It’s poll time!

Recently we asked our Patrons, “Do you finish your book in one or two sittings, or take your time?”

The winner, receiving 2/3 of the votes was “Take my time - I take pleasure in a good, slow read”

JGP says:
Quote
It depends on the book. There have definitely been times I'd intended to take my time  but then whoops, what do you know, it's 2am and the book is finished.
End Quote

Shauna:
I have that same issue. But I’m really a solid combination of both on this one and like JGP, it really depends on the book.

Dan:
I’m part of the 1/3 here. And it’s mostly because the problem between 9pm and 3am is that they are only 10 minutes apart when I'm reading. I tell myself I'll finish this chapter, then suddenly it's 3 am and I've just finished the book. I don't intend to read it all in one sitting... but that is what happens, usually.

As a reminder, our silly polls mean absolutely nothing and are not scientifically valid. And patrons of all levels, including our free tiers, can take part. Head over to patreon.com/bunnytrailspod to take this week’s poll!

Outro

Dan:
Thanks for joining us. We’ll talk to you again next week. Until then remember,

Together:
Words belong to their users.