Sam--short for Samantha, if you please--has been living in Crawley, Maine for about a year in her grandfather's lighthouse. A promising advertiser, she works from home and the local coffee shop, where she gets her daily hot chocolate fix. For her, l...
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The Saturday night before I left for Maine, Evelyn begged me to read her a bedtime story. Amused, I agreed, but when she showed me the front cover of the book, I choked on my tea.
The Selkie Bride: A Scottish Folktale
"Are you sure you want me to read that to you?" I chuckled nervously, "Don't you want to keep reading that one Egyptian mythology book?"
"I finished that one on my own, Sam! I want to read this one!" She held up the book, and wiggled it back and forth, "You promised to read the one I picked!"
I sighed, the air coming out uneven.
"Alright, c'mon. Let's go upstairs."
"Yippee!" She shouted, dancing ecstatic little entrechats all the up the stairs.
As we settled in, Evelyn nestled in the crook of my arm, I opened the picture book conscientiously.
Chickening out, I slammed the book shut again.
"You know what, aren't you a little old for picture books? Let's go find a good ol' fashioned chapter book. I'll read double tonight--"
"Sam~, you promised~." She pouted, lower lip quivering.
Swayed by her puppy dog eyes—the girl could cry on cue!--I sighed, and relaxed back onto the bed. Opening to the title page, I read, a bit ruefully,
"The Selkie Bride: A Scottish Folktale."
I paused and turned to her, eyebrow raised quizzically,
"You really want to read this?"
"Mm-hmm!" She nodded emphatically up at me, then refocused on the book.
"Oh-kay then! Here goes nothing."
Long ago, on a wild Scottish coast, a fisherman spent all day at sea, but he caught only a few very small fish.
As the sun began to set, the fisherman still had only a meager catch, but when night fell, he rowed to shore and beached his little boat.
As he walked toward his little cottage across the pebbly beach, he heard beautiful voices singing a sweet, high, lyrical and lovely tune, a song more beautiful than any he had ever heard.
This is starting to sound more like a siren story than anything else. Are we reading the right book?
I continued reading.
He turned toward the sound and saw what few have ever seen. There, near the water, a dozen Selkie people were laughing and playing and singing. The fisherman could not believe his eyes. Few ever saw the seal folk who now and then cast aside their skins, and took on human forms to play onshore.
"Uh oh," I commented, as I turned the page, pointing to the accompanying picture, "what is the fisherman doing there?"
