Anne Maria Clarke - Tales of Wonder - Ancient Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairy tale
  • Welcome
  • articles
    • Botticelli Reimagined >
      • Vesta & the Vestal Virgins
  • storytelling
    • The Call of the NIGHTINGALE
    • The Six Swans >
      • Gawain & the Green Knight >
        • The Eagle Woman
  • books
    • The Little Goddess
  • events/presentations
  • Tales of Healing
  • blog
  • events/presentations

The Selkie Bride – adapted by Anne Maria Clarke

2/10/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture

 The Selkie Bride - adapted by
Anne Maria Clarke

Picture
Where ever the sea meets the shore - where ever the water is deep and cold enough for seals – the tale of the Selkie Bride is told. More human than human it is said – yet deeply and profoundly of the sea!  Maybe you have seen such creatures, bobbing up and down on the swell, watching you with their large doleful eyes, their curiosity mirroring your own? If you have you will know how easy it might have been for folk to begin to weave ideas for stories around them as they sat beside their crackling fires on dark winter’s nights.

“Long ago when the moon was full and the human folk were sleeping,” someone may have begun, “the Selkie and her sisters emerged from the deep, slithered onto a big rock close to the shoreline and slipped effortlessly from their sleek seal skins, discarding them like coats - and then they danced –as human women dance and sang as human women sang, but not quite - because they were not quite as human women are.

Now it happened just then that a lonely fisherman was returning late to shore and saw them from afar shedding their skins and dancing in the moonlight; their long black hair flowing like waves over their white shoulders as they swayed and twirled and abandoned themselves to the rhythm of their song. Free as birds they seemed to him then, without sorrow or care and their voices rang out across the water, clear and pure and full of love.

The fisherman led a solitary life. He was a hard working man who took very little time for the pleasures of the heart. Yet all men desire such things and the lonely man in this story was no different. How he longed for a wife, to snuggle up with by the fire and to share his bed at the end of the day, but sadly there were no young women for miles & miles around.

Well for a long time he listened to the Selkies beautiful song and watched them dancing from afar. For the most part they paid him no heed, even though they knew he was watching. They were not overly enamoured by human folk you see. The older ones had heard tell of abductions and the wise ones among their kinsfolk issued strong warnings to all who would venture too deeply into the human world. But the youngest was inquisitive and sorely drawn to the land and to the warm bloodied folk who lived there and secretly she took pleasure in the man’s attentions. She was the sweetest and most trusting of the sisters – but she was also the most naive.

In fact, she was everything the lonely man had been dreaming of and as he watched her, he began to forget himself – a madness crept over him, gripping him with desire and he began to plot.

Well the Selkies danced on until just before dawn, when they took up their skins and slipped back into the sea.

A whole month passed and every night the fisherman rowed out eagerly to the rock, drew up his boat and waited out of sight but the Selkies never came - until the next full moon. All then occurred as before, as well you might expect, and the sisters emerged once more from the deep, slithered on to the rock, shed their skins and were soon lost in girlish abandon.

It was easy to steal the skin of the girl he wished for, as neither she nor any of her sisters apprehended him this time or even noticed that the youngest Selkies skin was stolen until it was much, much too late. Without her skin she could not return to the deep. She searched and searched but could not find it and shivering with fright she cried out to her sisters to help her. But they were all long gone, down into the depths where they could no longer hear her cries.

And that was then the lonely man stepped out from hiding to help her, or so in her innocence it seemed to her then. He offered to look after her if she wished and he took her to his little house, wrapped her in soft blankets and lit a huge, roaring fire in celebration of her arrival. Later, when she was sleeping, he hid the stolen skin in a place where she would never ever find it.

Soon after she became his wife.
 
Well at first all went well and she hardly missed her seal-skin at all or her life beneath the waves and those of her own kind whom she had forsaken. She loved her human life and her human home and the warm fire that spat and crackled in the grate – and the duck down quilt and soft pillow and the warm embrace of her husband at the end of each day. She learned to cook and sew and keep house as well as ever any human woman did and in time she grew big with child and gave birth to a strong, healthy son. It seemed for a time that her happiness was complete.

But it did not last long.

She didn’t notice the changes at first you see. She thought only that she was tired because of the birth and the endless hours spent tending to her child and the seemingly ever increasing needs and demands of her husband – but as the months passed such weariness came over her that she could no longer live as before.

Her limbs began to ache, her eyesight dimmed and her glossy black hair became dull and dry and fell from her scalp in brittle clumps as she combed it. It was then that she began to realise what she had done.

“If only I could find my skin once more,” she cried to her husband, “so that I might return to the sea now and then, to visit my sisters and my home beneath the waves. The lack of moisture here is withering me so. I shall be old before my time and I fear you will not love me by and by."

“Be silent wife,” her husband commanded, for he was sore afraid of loosing her.

“Your home is with me now and the bonny babe in your arms. Forget the sea and your life beneath the waves. It is passed and you may not return.”

But she did not forget – how could she – and each moment thereafter, she wished for the return of her skin and the more her husband counselled her to forget, the more she remembered and the more deeply she yearned for that which she had lost.

Her interest in human home-making waned, even though it vexed her husband. She no longer cooked the warm winter broth over the fire, nor baked the bread he relished so much. Instead she served cold raw fish and sea kelp on salt blanched, scalloped shells washed up on the tide.
And though he saw the yearning and the longing taking hold of her – though he saw the pitiful withering away for lack of that which was rightfully hers, still he kept her seal-skin hidden.

“Think of your son,” he implored her, “and cease your hankering after the sea.”

But inside he knew, in a secret place where all is understood – he knew he had taken her unlawfully.  He knew he had stolen her from her own, from the sea, her element, her home. Without the sea, her kinsfolk and her wild girlish freedoms, she could not thrive. He knew! But he also feared he could not live without her and so he continued on and on to lie about the whereabouts of her skin.

Each day whilst he was out fishing she wandered the shoreline with her tiny babe cradled in her arms and all the while she sang to him in a strange tongue and told him stories of the life she had known beneath the sea. What she shared we cannot even begin to fathom, even if we could decipher her words – but the child knew, as surely as he knew his mothers scent.

Time passed and the babe grew to a boy. The little cottage was now full to the brim of flotsam and jetsam from the sea which his mother collected each day from beach. It did not seem at all strange to him but his father loathed it almost as much as he loathed the raw fish and salty kelp that she served up for supper. But still he held on to what he knew.

Well things could not go on forever in this way and soon enough the Selkie’s sisters rose up from the deep to reclaim her, for they knew that if she stayed overlong in the human world she would perish. That night, her son was awakened by a sharp gust of wind that blew open his window. As he went to shut it he heard a cry from the sea, a sad, mournful lament in the strange yet familiar tongue of his mother. He ran down to the shoreline, where the seals were bobbing about in the waves. And in that same tongue, they told him where his mother’s skin was hidden.

Without thought of himself he made haste for that place, far away from his mother’s failing eyes – and as he drew close he sensed it, sniffed it – his mother’s sweet scent that he knew so well.

Next morning the precious skin lay beside her when she awoke. Her husband was still sleeping beside her oblivious of what had occurred – she looked across at him, stretched out her human hand, placed it gently on his heart and forgave him his weakness. She bore him no ill will  but knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the moment to leave.

She pulled the familiar soft, damp fur over her limbs and with her beloved son beside her they made haste from the cottage down to the edge of the sea and without ever a single glance behind – they were gone.

No one knows what became of the lonely fisherman.

That's another story.

But we do know that after a time, the child returned – now grown into a fine young man – and he made his way cheerfully into the wide world, telling tales and singing songs of wonder -

   - yet whenever the moon was full and wherever the sea was deep and cold enough for seals - there they would be - mother and son together again - between the land and the sea.

The Selkie Bride

I adapted this tale a while ago. I will record it by & by with a little music - but for now it is at it is – a story to be read rather than listened to – dedicated to all those women and girls, known & unknown, who have in their innocence, lost touch with parts of themselves, of their souls, that it is not possible to live fully without.

It is a cautionary tale for girls not yet grown
- & for their older sisters 
who like the Selkie Bride may have already lost their soul -skins &  may not yet have realised why they feel as weary as they do.

So if you are a mother, read it aloud to your daughters & if you are daughter like the Selkie Briide, read it to yourself & remember – it’s never, ever too late to find & reclaim those parts of yourself that have been lost!

Much love

Anne Maria Clarke

x x x


Picture
Subscribe to Anne Maria Clarke's YouTube channel
http://www.youtube.com/c/annemariaclarke

More fairy-stories, myths & legends by
Anne Maria Clarke 

​http://www.archivepublishing.co.uk

www.annemariaclarke.net

Subscribe to Newsletter
2 Comments

Carnevale di Venezia – the last excess

2/1/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
Anne Maria Clarke  
...invites you to take an imaginary stroll through the heart of Venice on the last night of the Carnivale.... 
  
Imagine the scene if you will - La Piazza di San Marco, swathed in plumes of gossamer like mist on a dark February night. It’s Shrove Tuesday, night of the last excess before the Christian season of lent.

The Canale Grande is illuminated from end to end. Candles flicker on the window sills of the elegant Palazzi that overlook the water and magnificent antique chandeliers twinkle within. Bright medieval style torches cast their reflections onto the water, where they dance, unhindered by the swell, like jewelled diva’s lighting the way of a procession of vaporetti bound for the central square. Each and everyone teeming to the brim with elaborately costumed and mysteriously masked revellers.

You are here too, jostling for position amongst the exotic throng. It is not the you that you normally are though, the everyday persona you present to the world. No, this part has taken a back seat. Have no doubt, you will be reunited with Ms or Mr Everyday soon enough – yet for now, you are embarking upon something infinitely more exhilarating – an encounter with ritual, a dreamlike journey into otherworldly realms and a meeting with the powerful archetypes that inhabit them.

Hairs bristle and stand on end as this delicious realisation ripples to the surface of your awareness. Suddenly you glimpse your reflection in the water. Distant music comes to claim you, familiar yet remote, filtering through the network of narrow streets and canals, weaving it’s potent spell, pulling you deeper and deeper into the approaching mystery. Yet who ever can it be – this enigmatic masked companion staring back at you so intently, completely unabashed and totally fascinated by what is seen?


The wearing of masks has roots in many cultures. In Greek theatre they were employed to depersonalise the actors, bringing the wearers and their audiences into closer contact with the archetypes depicted. In shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism it is believed that masks allow the individual to go beyond the bounds of ego, transcending the everyday self to allow the expression of deep unconscious content. Seen in this kind of way, masks function to reveal, rather than merely to conceal as is more commonly supposed.

But let us return now to our own Venetian imaginings...like Alice, peering though her Looking Glass, you are more than a little perplexed. Your mind whirrs a little, trying at first to make sense – maybe this, maybe that, the possibilities are endless yet before you have chance to ponder, let alone decide, the emboldened image is swept away on the tide, fragmenting into the flicker of the dancing lights, before dissolving and disappearing into the shadowy mists.

​Che peccato - ma non importa - as the Italians say.  What a pity but it’s not important - for it is ever the way of the archetype to slip from our awareness – and yet the mystery is not diminished but rather increased because it.  They defy our intellects, spurn all our rational attempts to pin them down and yet still we are drawn, like moths to a flame, full of daring and childlike innocence – and this,  dear friends – is the only way to arrive – for the suspension of our disbelief is not an optional but prerequisite of carnival enchantment.

Presently your vaporetto pulls in along the bank. You disembark and make your way through the crowd to the famous piazza, now utterly devoid of any sense of normality, which is quite something given the unparalleled, magnificence and fabulous excess of its architecture.The familiar, towering Campanile, the intricately crafted baroque facades of the floodlit Palazzo Ducale and the sumptuously gold inlaid domes of the Basilica di San Marco appear more surreal than ever.

‘Opium couldn’t build such a place,’ wrote Dickens,
‘and enchantment couldn’t shadow it forth in vision!’

​
The air hums with palpable expectation. Jugglers, fire-eaters, musicians, acrobats and mime artists play to the exotic, costumed throng. There are Jesters in traditional Punchinella masks, golden suns and luminous silver moons, elegant Venetian ladies of yesteryear in their exquisitely beaded half-masks and Pan, the great choreographer of the gods, whose dances created order out of chaos and wove the world into being.

This final gathering in San Marco is the culmination of the carnival, which has lasted two full weeks. It is a time of celebration, an uninhibited indulgence before the inhabitants of the Christian world traditionally begin the long season of fasting and purification that precedes the death and resurrection of Christ – the last stretch of winter, as it were, before the rebirth of spring.

There will be dancing, curtesy of a Viennese orchestra. Everyone in character is invited to join in. Waving his baton, the conductor signals the commencement of the dance – the orchestra strikes up and you and the rest of the masked revellers - step into position.

Through the mist your partner approaches, bowing flirtatiously. He is swathed
in a long, black-hooded cloak and wears a three-cornered hat and awesome white mask featuring an outrageously elongated nose.
He is - il Dottore - the infamous plague doctor from the period of the Black Death in which the population of Venice was seriously laid low. The rich symbolism that surrounds him however is broader and deeper than this, for he embodies the timeless archetype of The Healer. He is the one who does not turn away in the face of suffering, who walks amongst the sick offering comfort and solace, tending the wounds and easing the pains and sorrows of his charges.

You acknowledge his approach, hold out your hand – and are swiftly drawn into his embrace! 

The music swells and the crowd is propelled into motion. You begin tentatively. You are shy, unsure of your steps. Why wouldn’t you be? You are crossing a threshold, entering the unkown – allowing the character of your mask to take center stage. Your resistance is significant.

At first you don’t really listen to the music, beset as you are by this chronic inhibition and you shuffle, self-consciously around the square, out of time, out of step, sometimes bumping into other couples and treading on your partner’s
toes.

You need to get in time – procure a balance and a rhythm that suits. You are no longer a separate entity and must find some common ground, not only with your partner but with the rest of the crowd as well.
The music supports you and you start to relax and gradually find your feet. Your partner invariably follows suit. He encourages you, first taking the lead – then supporting you to. The dance gathers momentum, waltzing with gay abandon towards its peak – and soon there is neither leading, nor following. Finally you are in step!

The much mis-understood fairy story of Cinderella climaxes at a gathering not unlike this. The Prince discovers his love and dances with her until midnight. The underlying symbolism is that of union, a weaving together of the disparate threads of the self, a marriage of opposites, an unforgettable ecstatic moment in which profanity gives way to sacredness and time dissolves into eternity.
​
Like whirling dervishes, whose dances carried them to the core of the mystery, you too arrive at the heart of the dance – and fleetingly you are one with your partner – with yourself and with the entire dancing throng. 

Brava! Brava! Brava!

  Savour it if you can, for the clock ticks onward toward midnight, impervious of such notions and all too soon the Carnival will be over and the delicious spell will have run it’s course.

And so it is – for no sooner has this thought occurred – the music stops – and your mysterious partner releases you – bows wistfully and is gone...and as the midnight bells ring out from the Campanile above, signalling the beginning of Lent – then so do all the masked revellers fade from your imagination too – and you are once more back in the everyday world, returned to your everyday self.  


When I attended the Carneval with Pat my husband a few years ago -I remember the incredibly stark contrast between the final night, when we too had danced together in our splendid theatrical costumes, wigs and masks – and the morning after as our everyday selves in San Marco.

All vestiges of the previous night’s revelry had been cleared and swept away. A few solitary tourists sat sipping coffee and reading the papers. Everything on the surface was returned to normality. Yet I couldn’t help wondering what mysterious revellers resided beneath the everyday faces of these sober coffee drinkers.

Who were they last night and who indeed was I?
You may well wish to ask yourselves the same?
What face did you see reflected back at you?
What mask did your imagination create?

My own thoughts returned to the scene in Alice through the Looking Glass - where she is told that she is merely a fragment of the Red King’s dream – and I ponder upon the question - asked many centuries ago by the Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu – concerning who is really dreaming who?  Was the Red King part of Alice’s dream, as she indignantly maintained – or was Alice part of his?

I wonder!

Much love


Anne Maria Clarke

x x x

Picture
 My Carnival costume & mask several years ago. What delicious fun! 
The official website is www.carnevale.venezia.it

Subscribe to Anne Maria Clarke's YouTube channel
http://www.youtube.com/c/annemariaclarke

More fairy-stories & adaptations of myths & Legends by Anne Maria Clarke at
​http://www.archivepublishing
​
www.annemariaclarke.net

2 Comments



    Anne Maria Clarke is a storyteller, writer, & teacher of myths, legends & fairy - stories.

    https://twitter.com/MariaClarke
    Picture

    Archives

    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.