The Selkie's daughter

In a time before the rivers were drowned by the sea, in a land between the sun and the moon...
In this land were our people came from,
the fishermen told a story about a man who fell in love with ine of the seal women,
selkies the people called them,
seals that once a year could shed their skin and become women and no one ever knew whic they had been first,
seal or women which is part of their mystery.
When you looked into the seal's eyes you could see the human beinf looking out,
but when you heard the woman sining you could hear the sound of the sea in her voice.

And so it happened that one day a farmer went down to the sea...
He wanted the path to his house to glow in the moonlight like broken pearls.
That's what he was thinking about when he looked up and saw,
sunning herself on a rock,
a girl with skin like crushed pearls and hair as dark as coal. T
he darkhaired girl with pearl skin sang like something you might hear in a dream,
sweeter than anything you'd hear in a theater or Cornegie Hall even...

And so thefarmer fell in love with the dark-haired girl and decided he wanted her for a wife,
but when he tried to get closer to the rock where she sat,
she heard him and dived into the water.
The farmer stood on the shore watcing for the girl, sure that she couldn't stay in the water for long.
Then he saw out beyound the breakers, a sleek dark head appear. But she wasn't a girl anymore, she was a seal!

But he couldn't forget the dark-haired girl and her beautiful voice.
Ha was so lovesick for the selkie-girl that he was unable to sleep and the sound of the ocean,
which he'd heard since the day he was born,
began to grate on his nerves.
It seemd there was always sand in his bed,
not matter how many times he'd shake out his sheets and even with all the windows open he'd feel as if he were suffocating inside his cottage.
Things went on like this until thefarmer began to neglect his fields. His cows went unmiled and his hes wandered into his neighobours' yards looking for food.

In desperation,
he sought out the help of an old wise woman who lived in a cottage on a cliff above the sea.
The minute she laid eyes on the farmer she knew by his shrunken pupils and the way his ribs stood out under his threadbare shirt like the hull of a staved-in boat,
and how his hair was tangled like a mass of seaweed,
what his problem was.


To be continued.