The Phantom's oath is one of the few things that has stayed basically the same since the beginning in 1936.

 

The oath is a vow sworn by every Phantom, generally repeating the words given to him by his father as the elder lies on his death bed. However every child of the Phantom grows up knowing the words in the event that the father dies without being able to carry out this final duty.

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The commonly accepted wording of the Phantom's oath is:

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"I swear to devote my life to the destruction of all forms of piracy, greed, cruelty and injustice. My sons, and my sons' sons, shall follow me."

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Acceptable variations of the second line of the oath are "My sons, and their sons, shall follow me" or "My descendants shall follow me".

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Key points of the origin and continuation of the oath that cannot be varied:

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• Christopher Walker, cabin boy on his father's ship, sees his father killed by a Singh pirate as they are attacked and boarded. Walker survives the raid but washes ashore on the beach.

• He finds the body of the man who killed his father also washed ashore, and is the first man to swear the oath. He does so on the skull of his father's killer.

• The first Phantom swore the oath in 1536.

• The Phantom line is unbroken "father to son" since this time.

• The secret of the oath and therefore the family dynasty of Phantoms is known only to the Bandar and the Phantom's immediate family.

• Whenever possible, as a Phantom is on his death bed in the Skull Cave, the incoming Phantom should swear the oath on that same skull of the first Phantom's father's killer.

• Where the Phantom has died before being able to return to the Skull Cave, the incoming Phantom may have to swear the oath in less traditional circumstances - see The Phantom's for details of each death and oath-swearing where it is known.

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