Song of the Sealmaid

My apologies, dear reader, for not posting in a very long time - the seasons shift, time passes and so too do my daily opportunities to post anything meaningful or worthwhile for your enjoyment.

However, suffice it to say I was extremely pleased to hear that my Flash Fiction piece 'Tideline'was chosen to win the MicroHorror.com Hallowe'en Short Story competition. You can read the piece here!

I have long been fascinated by the notion of shapeshifting, and particularly our own Scottish mer-folk, known as Selkies.  It was to these mysterious people that my mind travelled when I read the theme for the competition: water.  My great friend and artist, Jennie Cooper drew the most deeply evocative image of a Selkie I have yet seen and it was this image I had in my mind's eye for my sealmaid.

Bealtinne Eve by Jennie Cooper

So it was with a great sense of synchronicity that I have recently encountered this Icelandic folk tale about  a Selkie:

The Seal's Skin

There was once some man from Myrdalur in Eastern Iceland who went walking among the rocks by the sad one morning before anyone else was up. He came to the mouth of a cave and inside the cave he could hear merriment and dancing, but outside he saw a great many seal skins.  he took one skin with him and carried it home and locked it away in a chest. Later in the day he went back to the mouth of the cave: there was a young and lovely woman sitting there, and she was stark naked and weeping bitterly.  This was the seal whose skin it was and the man had taken. He gave the girl some clothes, comforted her and took her home with him. She grew very fond of him but did not get on so well with other people. Often she would sit alone and stare out to sea.

After some while the man married her and they got on well together and had several children. As for the skin, the man always kept it locked up in the chest and kept the key on him wherever he went. But after many years he went fishing one day and forgot it under his pillow at home. Other people say he went to church one Christmas wit the rest of the household but that his wife was ill and stayed at home; he had forgotten to take the key out of the pocket of his everyday clothes when he changed. Be that as it may, when he came home again, the chest was open ad both the wife and the skin were gone. She had taken the key and examined the chest and there she had found the skin; she had been unable to resist temptation but had said farewell to her children, put the skin on, and flung herself into the sea.

Before she woman flung herself into the sea, it is said she spoke these words:

"Woe is me, Ah! woe is me!

I have seven bairns on land

And seven in the sea"

It is said the man was broken hearted about this. Whenever he rowed out his fishing boat afterwards, a seal would often swim round and round his boat and it looked as if tears were running from its eyes.  From that time on, he had excellent luck in his fishing and valuable things were washed ashore on his beach. People often noticed that when the children he had by this woman went walking on the seashore, a seal would show itself near the edge of the water and keep level with them as they walked along the shore and would toss them jellyfish and pretty shells. But never did their mother come back to land again.

The origins of this sealwife folk tale goes back to the 1600s, though this version of the story was retold by the Rev. Skuli Gislason before his death in 1888.  Traditionally the belief held that seals, or Selkies (the Orkney term for seal) were descended from the drowned soldiers of Pharoah, who shed their skins at Midsummer or on the twelfth day of Christmas. So I find it fitting that I should leave you with this tale of denizens of the mysterious realm beneath the waves and wish you a blessed and beautiful Yule. May you cast off the sealskin of your old year, in the dark nights and chill winter days, to be reborn anew at the advent of the New Year, full of love and light.

Communion

She walks through the gateway into the forest.  Overhead the trees move, swaying to the caresse of the winds. She hears them whisper; talking softly to themselves of countless cycles of moon and stars.  Beneath, the ground is thick with green moss.  It spreads like a cloak, flung from the shoulders of dryads to fall in soft emeralds at her feet.  Here there is no time save that of the trees themselves, ancient and deep in their knowledge.  Each step takes her further from the hard bright human world, and into the embrace of the forest kin.  They call to her in day-dreams and sing to her at night:  

“Little sister, step lightly to us, we miss your shadow-dances. Join, once more, with us beneath the bough-halls of our realm”.

She longs to return to her kin, yet she was, this time, born in the thick human flesh of mortals, a mistake, a curse. No longer does the wave of her hand create light in the dark or the breath from her lips swell the winds among the hills.  Deeper into the hallowed halls of her kind she steps, searching, longing for a way to shed this skin of the hard, bright chrome world. 

Moonlight slants between branches, the air is sweet with the flowers scattered like blessings in the luminous pools where it falls. Placing a hand here, there, each trunk she passes holds the memories of a hundred years and more, moving with slow sap, keeping the secrets of this woodland world.  The feathered folk who dwell here call from the air, to their children who lie in their nests, lined with the hair of squirrel and soft rabbit. 

She raises her arms in the glade, eyes closing as she tilts back her head. With that smile on her face, she goes through the old steps. Slowly at first, for each time feels harder than the last as if learning the dance anew.  She plucks her long skirts where they trail the dark earth, and she dips and turns.  Here between the shade of the leaves and the moonbeams with their bright motes she dances.  Her hair streams out as she spins, laughing, whirling. Here is her communion. 

And soon between the arching giants, in glimpses of what might have been, she sees beyond the veil of human eyes, sees her kin. They are smiling shyly at her, softly, sadly, the sister they have lost. Yet wanting not to call her to them for fear of her bringing the mortal world too close they turn and slip away... sad in their ken that she is lost to them, but not for all time.

The colours and magick she weaves in her shadow-dance spin out, fine filaments, glitter and cobwebs between the trees, a weir between worlds. Her dances work a bridge between fae and mortal realms, sending love to her kin and their thoughts to her. Suddenly she stops, and falls, breathless, to the loam, she lies back and watches the branches criss-cross overhead, a frail and perfect lace against the velvet dark sky.  The smile stays on her lips, though, satisfied, replete.  She has felt her kin reach out and soothe her mind. She is not alone, never alone, and she is loved.

A Conversation

‘You said you wanted to talk?’ She said as she sat down at my desk, book in her hand. ‘Well, I’m here.’

I pushed my work to one side and set down my pen.  ‘Yeh, though now you’re here, I’m not quite sure where to start.’ This was my chance, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to take it.

‘Well, why don’t you start with what’s on your mind,’ she smiled and leaned forward, sun catching her hair in the evening light that flooded through the window, turning it to a gold band across her brow.

‘Ok.’ I sat back in my chair and looked at her. I think perhaps, this was the first time I really saw her and it scared me a little.   ‘I want to know why you’ve been avoiding me, I guess.’

‘Avoiding you?’ She laughed. ‘Hasn’t it been the other way around?’

‘What do you mean?’ I was confused. ‘Surely the fact that you’ve not been to visit me in like, what, six months, says a lot, don’t you?’

‘Well, to be honest I’ve not really felt that welcome. Every time I make an overture you seem like you’re busy with other stuff, so I thought “what the Hades...” and went away.  If you’d have given me the slightest sign you wanted me around I’d have been there, like a shot. You know that, right?’ Her response made my stomach swim. She was right and I knew she knew I knew it. Damn.

But...’ I began. ‘Ok, it was like you didn’t really need me anymore. I thought - fine, you’ve better places to be...’

She cut me short, ‘For Gods’ sake, don’t be so stupid.  You were the one that needed me originally, remember? You asked me for help and things were great for a while. Then... I don’t know,’ she trailed off and sat back in the swivel chair.  She shook her head. ‘It was just like you decided to break up with me but you never bothered to tell me. What the hell was that about? I was hurt.  If I knew this was going to be a damn tragedy I’d have told you to speak to my sister!’ She stood up and moved away from the desk towards the door.

‘No! Look, I’m sorry, ok? It’s you I want.’ My voice suddenly seemed loud in the room. I didn’t want her to go. ‘I don’t what you to go. I’m sorry.’  Gods, this was uncomfortable. I floundered for the right words and found none. ‘I’m sorry, ok?’ I repeated helplessly as I looked at her, trying to search her depthless eyes for a sign she believed me. ‘I’m just going through this dry patch and it’s frustrating the hell out of me. I guess I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you to see me like that’.

’I know.’ Her soft voice was a balm to my soul. ‘Don’t think I don’t care. I do, it’s just...’  She spread her hands, indicating the piles of papers on my desk. ‘It’s like you need me a little too much? You can do things on your own, you know.’

 ‘Yeah, I guess I do.  But you know what?’ I looked at the PC monitor. 

‘What?’ She walked around the desk to look at the flashing cursor on the empty white screen and leaned in close and I could smell her perfume, filling the study with its essence.

‘If you don’t visit, this happens.’ I pointed to the blank whiteness. Then I got up and walked to the shelves. I pointed to the books and magazines. ‘See what happens when you do?’  I opened a folder and pulled out a poem from our last time together and held it out to her.  ‘See this? This used to be us. We make a damn good team, you and I. When we really try. Don’t we?’

‘We do.  And it’s what I’m here for, right?’

‘Right.

‘Right.’ She walked across the sun-faded rug and kissed my brow. ‘Now get back to work. I’m right here.  Is there anything else you want to say to me? She tilted her head quizzically.

‘I suppose I could say thanks.’

She set down her papers and leaned back in the chair, kicking her sandals off under the desk.
            ‘That’d be a start.’

I sat back down too, and picked up my pen. Her presence comforted me, we both felt it.

‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ She said, as she settled in for the evening, ‘Mum says “Hi”.’ We both laughed at that.

‘Thanks, Calliope’.

A Landdísir remembers...

We were not born. We were made.

Before the Age of Men and its wheels and chains and the weight of logic, we had no form.  We existed in the winds, rain and the warmth of the sun, dwelling in rock and tree and waterfall.  Present in all things, we were Landvættir.  Our light was the life of the earth and though hidden it was not unnoticed. They were thankful our lakes quenched their thirsts, our forests offered them game to hunt, that stones could shelter. Then mortals began to need us. Their petitions for aid in their fleeting lives were a plea we could not ignore – and thus we sealed our fate, changed by the needs of man. The power of thought, the magick of the mind!

We became Álfar.

Made into this word of man, this world of men, their belief shaped us anew, shifting our forms as they changed their minds as to what we were. The destruction was a creation.  Reified, the naming gave us substance.  In the minds and mouths of humans we were given flesh - clothed in their word-form. How strange they are with their need to name, but words hold power and once they spoke our new name aloud they held dominion over us.

Elf. 

Their voices called us forth from the tree in the wood, the flower on the tundra, the pool-stirring breeze. 

Fashioned from fen and forest, sedge and waterway.

Moulded from  mountain and cliff, valley and grove.

Shaped from sea and shore, fjord and pasture.

The pain this caused us was fleeting in mortal terms, though it is a wound we shall bear until the End Of All Things. 

So we stepped into the world, our immortal forms in the guise of our creators. From Álfheimr we slipped through doorways onto the mortals’ plane.  Out of the earth we came; out of darkness we brought our Light into Manheimr.   Our purpose changed too, no longer soothing the base sufferance of human existence, but a required finesse as humanity created wonders – art, music, song... our magick became theirs, born out of their connection with nature.


Humanity grew, and changed. And that which we had invested so much energy and love in could not be left to wither and fade.  Our brightness was both a gift to mortals and a curse to Elfkind and in time we became earthbound as with their craftsmanship came beautiful bonds.  The subtle chains of servitude.


Some Elves left, abandoning their kin and mankind - returning forever to Álfheimr, returning to dwell in tree and rock and pool. The rest of us stayed, hopeful we could exist in harmony, always attempting bring beauty and love, trying to share Elf-nature –bringing them out of themselves as they brought us into the world.   

No more could the brilliance of our Vril refresh and sustain the land, the water or the air.  Steel and steam, glass and greed, iron and anger - such is the stuff of human life now.  We could not inhabit these forms of matter, so our energies waned. 

And so began the debilitation of the earth and the necessity for repetition of our countless rebirths in mortal form.  Once we were nature, now we are a dying culture.  There is no longer a need for us, nor a belief in our kind.  Yet we still walk the earth clad in the thick meat of human bodies, our outer brightness burned away through the monotony of myriad mortal lives. We are still immortal though many of us have forgotten our true nature and dwell evanescent, content in their endless repetitions, caught in the same traps as the wights we first came to aid.

I hold onto the knowledge that our inner essence remains truly Light. And when I and the other Ljósálfr leave these bodies with this understanding, we shall return to Elfhome and exist once again as pure energy - sustaining, renewing, loving. Freed at last from this point in space and time, I shall be unfettered from these cycles of Doing, able to just Be... MysElf.