The Richness and Beauty of the Selchidh, and Hiking Boots

From Arthur Rackham's Undine

I have just finished reading a wonderful book about the seal people of Ireland and Scotland. It is a journal of a journey, mainly through Ireland, and the stories collected of the Selkie, the Kane, Silkies, Selchies, Selchidh; the shape shifters. The stories are of another time but not that long ago. The book was printed in 1954, and some stories were told 'in living memory', the rest as ancient as the creatures themselves.  There is something special, timeless about the tales of the seal people.

My brother gave me the book for my birthday this year and it is one of those rare books that are an easy read which do not lose the richness of language. The writing, the narration, has an easy gait to it, but I did not want to rush through it. The stories needed to be savoured, so I would dip in and read a chapter, then sit there and mull it over. I felt I was traveling with the author, David Thomson. My brother had given me a first edition and the pages are now delicate, the dust jacket worn. It is a treasure to enjoy slowly. Sometimes I would look up words I was unsure of, words describing clothing I had not heard of, like bawneen, or the pronunciation of those tricky Gaelic words. Life of the islanders in the 1950's had the old ways upon them; the old men had certain ways of life and attitude the younger folk had started to lose. It was similar in that way to reading Mary Webb's 'Precious Bane'. She wrote of a time passing and the old ways just about hanging on, but a generation earlier in England.  'The People of the Sea' by David Thomson, is a book I will treasure for a long time.

There is something very magical about what I call the Old Stories and Ancient Stories - the folk and faerie tales, the myths and sagas of long ago, but there is something even more magical, or deeper to the Selchidh, Selkie stories. I often wonder what it is. My mother, I think, told me the story of the Woman of the Sea when I was young, or someone did when we visited the Isle of Aran in my very young days. I rediscovered the story in Kevin Crossley-Holland's wonderful book 'Northern Lights, Legends, Sagas and Folk-tales' when I bought it in 1987. It was a great rediscovery. I have been sharing the tale since then. That book got me into folk and faerie tales as an adult in my 20's.

There are many fun tales to be told, some stories which beg for humour. There are those filled with depth, and those with meaning, but the Selkie tales for me stand out. Is it because of the shape-shifting ability? (My son likes werewolves!) Does this dual life appeal to us because these tales offer a hope of something else when things get rough, life gets tough? Could some of us, the dark haired of us, walk to the coast, dive in and take form of a seal?

I was having lunch with Papa Joe a couple of days ago and we were talking about stories and how there are different types of tales that come to you. I am not talking about motifs or the
Aarne–Thompson tale type index, I am talking about how a story finds you. When I come across a tale I love, there are times the story is immediately lodged into my head and never leaves, like, for me, the Woman of the Sea; and The Goat from the Hills and Mountain, collected by Alma Flor Ada and Isabelle Campoy. There are other stories which I know I want to tell but stay dormant in my mind as I process them, mull them over. Sometimes years pass before I tell them, like Beowulf (still mulling around!), or those which have not yet given me their voice yet like Little Red Riding Hood - she is out and about now! Although Woman of the Sea sank in immediately, but I did not tell it for years. I would share it, but not tell it. As I said to Papa Joe, it is like buying a brand new pair of very good, expensive, leather hiking boots - you would never go hiking the same day, you would break the boots in over days and weeks. The Selkie stories, all of them, to me are like that. I have them in my mind and could tell them, but they need, no, I need to be broken in with the story. The tales need to tell me how to share them, how I personally can best serve the stories and those who listen. Some stories are like sneakers and you can jump into them and start running; some are like dress shoes, you polish them up and keep them polished; and some are like hiking boots that need to be worn for a good while before taking them out. Maybe that's why I like the Selkie stories so much, once you have worn them for a while they will last forever, and will take you to places you never thought you would go.

For a source of Selkie stories, or books with the stories of the seal people, go to my website.
http://www.diamondscree.com/selkies
Peace,
Simon

Who's dropping in for a story?

Balloons! Well, one bloody great big one!

So for the last few years, I have been privileged enough to be invited to a family camp in Vermont to tell tales.  It is a little over an hours drive away (although it was a lot closer before we moved to New London).  The 'patrons' of this camp vary.  The very first time I visited, it was for General Electric power players.  There are some groups I have told to, who are families of the Vermont Guard. Every week during the summer whilst the family camps run, I have gone up on a Sunday evening and told stories, mostly outdoors with the sun setting as I tell.  It is an amazing place.  There is an ambiance about it that is rarely found anywhere else I have gone.  It is almost a spiritual experience going there, for me, and I have heard the same from some of the families there too.

Today I journeyed north there.  I packed my gear in the car, my drum, my Irish Breakfast tea and a litre of water and off I went. I arrived and it was a beautiful evening.  The sky looking calm and dry, and the clouds were already catching some colour as I set up my apple box and tuned my drum.  People seated themselves around me after the bell was rung, with the lodge as my backdrop for the listeners, and the sky as the backdrop for me, behind them! Some people had seen me before, others had not.  This place is so great many families come back year after year. The kids were at the front on blankets, the parents, for the most part, on the Adirondack chairs and camp / lawn chairs behind the blankets.  There was some heckling from the kids, but we got underway and headed into the stories.

I began with a tale I was not planning on telling, but because we began talking about my drum and other musical instruments, I felt a musical story should be told, and it was perfect.  Although I do not tell this story often, I love it.  I first heard it told on Amy Friedman's CD Tell Me A Story 3: Women of Wonder. The story is an English story called The Cleverest Tune.  I did a few more other stories, ones I had planned on telling, and was into my last tale for the night: one of everyone's favourites, The Goat from the Hills and Mountains!  One of the parents pointed, from my angle, to a tree and I wondered if there was a bear up there.  We were in the woods of Vermont, here! But it turned out to be a balloon.  A hot air balloon.  With this slight distraction, I carried on, but the balloon got closer and closer and we could hear it's dragon's breath over and over and it got louder and louder!  The climax of the story was getting close as I tried to tell it between bursts of hot air.

The balloon was also getting close - very close and very low.  By now it was crashing through the trees and the pilot was calling out for someone to grab the line which he deftly dropped.  My guess was that the weather was not ideal for ballooning, being as hot as it was.  The bottom of the basket looked damp, which informed me that it might have taken a dip in the nearby lake! Although I had been trying to incorporate the balloon into the story, my formerly attentive audience was lost to the excitement of a bloody, big balloon landing on us! Children and adults alike! And the noise was more than dragon-like at this point and no one could hear except between the bursts!

One parent who had not rushed over to see the balloon pulled from the trees and sky asked me if the goat was squashed under a hot air balloon.  I laughed and said 'no'. Once the balloon was stabilized (a chaser van had arrived and the balloon was attached to it), and children were made safe from the descending basket, and bag of hot air, the kids were offered an up-and-down ride.  Whilst some were thrilled about the prospect of a free hot air balloon trip (up and down 50 feet or so), some wanted to hear what happened to the goat. So those who were interested (old and young) came into the hall where I finished the story.

I chatted a while and then packed up.  As I said my farewells to the people there (including the aeronaught), some of the adults who had snagged an elevation ride, asked about the end of the story and what had happened to the family and the Goat From the Hills and Mountains.  I suggested that their children had heard the ending and some of the adults had heard it too, and they could ask for the end to be told by the people who had moved with me, to tell them the story over breakfast.  I told them, however, that the goat, as one had suggested, was not killed by a hot air balloon!

The story, The Goat From the Hills and the Mountains can be found on my CD More Second-hand Tales or in the book where I found the story: Tales Our Abueli­tas Told by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy who gave me permission to tell the story and record it.  The book is published by Atheneum For Young Readers.  I highly recommend this book (it would be interesting too, for those interested to see how a story changes in the telling.  When I recorded the story, I thought I was being very faithful to the original.  Apparently the story took on it's own personality with my help!  (Alma said of my version: "What a wonderful retelling!" which made me very happy!)