Once upon a time, even before the first sailors set sail, eager to see the lands that lie beyond the sea, a sea king and a sea queen lived peacefully and happily under the waves. They had many beautiful children. Slender, brown-eyed children played all day with cheerful sea lambs and swam in the thickets of purple algae that grow on the bottom of the ocean. They loved to sing, and wherever they sailed, they sang songs similar to the splashing of waves.
But then great grief came to the sea king and his carefree children. The sea queen fell ill, died, and her relatives buried her in a coral cave with deep sorrow. And when she died, there was no one to look after the children of the sea, comb their long hair and lull them to sleep with gentle singing.
The sea king sadly looked at his unkempt children, at their hair, tangled like seaweed. He heard how the children did not sleep at night and rushed about on their beds, and thought that he needed to get married again - to find a wife to take care of his family.
And I must say that in a dense forest at the bottom of the sea lived a sea witch. It was her that the king took as his wife, although he had no love for her, for his heart was buried in the coral cave where the dead queen lay. The witch really wanted to become a sea queen and rule a vast sea kingdom. She agreed to marry the king and replace the mother of his children. But she turned out to be a bad stepmother. Looking at the slender, brown-eyed children of the sea, she envied their beauty and became angry, realizing that they were more pleasant to look at than her.
And so she returned to her dense forest at the bottom of the sea and there she picked up the poisonous yellow berries of sea grapes. She brewed a potion from these berries and cast a terrible spell on it. She wished that the children of the sea would lose their harmony and beauty and turn into seals; so that they would forever swim in the sea as seals and only once a year could again take on their previous appearance, and then only for a day - from sunset to the next sunset. Her evil spell fell on the children of the sea when they played with cheerful sea lambs and swam in the thicket of purple algae that grow on the bottom of the ocean. And so their bodies became swollen and lost their slenderness, their thin arms turned into clumsy flippers, their light skin was covered with a silky skin, some gray, others black or golden brown. But their gentle brown eyes did not change. And they didn’t lose their voices - they could still sing their favorite songs.
When their father found out what had happened to them, he was angry with the evil sea witch and forever imprisoned her in the thicket of a dense forest at the bottom of the sea. But he could not disenchant his children. And so the seals, who were once children of the sea, sang a plaintive song. They were sad that they would no longer have to live with their father, where before they had been so free that they could no longer return their happiness. And the old sea king looked with sorrow at his children as they sailed into the distance. For a long, long time, seals swam across the seas. Once a year, at sunset, they looked somewhere on the shore for a place where people did not look, and having found it, they threw off their silky skins - gray, black and golden brown - and took on their previous appearance. But they could not play and frolic on the shore for long. The next day, as soon as the sun set, they again put on their skins and swam out to sea. People say that seals first appeared in the Western Isles as secret messengers of the Scandinavian Vikings. True or not, seals really have fallen in love with the foggy West Coast of the Hebrides. And even today you can see seals off the Isle of Lewis, off the Rhone Island, nicknamed “Seal Island”, and also in the Harris Strait. The inhabitants of the Hebrides heard a rumor about the fate of the children of the sea, and everyone knew that once a year they could be seen frolicking on the seashore for a whole day - from one sunset to the next.
And that's what happened to one fisherman, Rodrick McCodrum of Clan Donald. He lived on the island of Bernereri, one of the Outer Hebrides. One day he was walking along the seashore to his boat, when suddenly he heard voices - someone was singing among the large stones scattered along the shore. The fisherman carefully approached the stones, looked out from behind them and saw the children of the sea, who were in a hurry to play enough until the sun set. They frolicked, and their long hair fluttered in the wind, and their eyes shone with joy.
But the fisherman did not look at them for long. He knew that seals were afraid of people, and was about to turn back when he suddenly noticed silky skins piled up in a heap - gray, black and golden brown. The skins lay on the stone where the children of the sea had thrown them off. The fisherman picked up one golden-brown skin, the most silky and shiny, and thought that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take it away. And so he took the skin, brought it home and hid it in the crack above the lintel of the front door.
In the evening, Rodrik sat down by the fire and began to repair the net. And suddenly, shortly after sunset, I heard some strange plaintive sounds - it seemed as if someone was crying behind the wall. The fisherman looked out the door. Before him stood such a beauty as he had never seen in his life - slender, with gentle brown eyes. She was naked, but her thick golden-brown hair covered her white body from head to toe like a cloak.
- O mortal, help me, help me! – she begged. - I am the unfortunate daughter of the sea. I have lost my silky seal skin and until I find it, I will not be able to return to my brothers and sisters.
Rodrick invited her into the house and wrapped her in his blanket. He immediately guessed that this was the same sea maiden whose skin he had taken on the shore in the morning. He had only to reach out to the ceiling and take out the seal skin hidden there, and the sea maiden would be able to swim out to sea again to her brothers and sisters. But Rodrik looked at the beauty who was sitting by his fireplace and thought: “No, I need to keep her with me. This beautiful seal maiden will save me from loneliness, bring joy into my home, and how good life will be then!”
And he said:
“I can’t help you find your silky seal skin.” Some man must have found it on the shore and stolen it. He's probably already far away now. And you stay here, be my wife, and I will honor you and love you all my life.
The daughter of the sea king raised her eyes to him, full of sorrow.
“Well,” she said, “if my silky skin really was stolen and it is impossible to find it, then I have no choice.” I'll have to live with you and become your wife. You received me as kindly as no one else will, and I’m afraid to wander alone in the mortal world.
Then she remembered her whole life at sea, where she no longer hoped to return, and sighed heavily.
– How I would like to stay forever with my brothers and sisters! – she added. - After all, they will wait and call me by name, but they won’t wait...
The fish’s heart ached, he felt so sorry for this sad girl. But he was so fascinated by her beauty and tenderness that he already knew: he would never be able to let her go.
For many years, Rodrick McCodrum and his beautiful wife lived in a house on the seaside. They had many children, and all the children had golden-brown hair, and their voices were gentle and melodious. And the people who lived on this secluded island now called the fisherman “Rodrik McCodrum the Seal,” because he took a seal maiden as his wife. And his children were called “the children of McCodrum Seal.”
But during all this time, the daughter of the sea king never forgot her great grief. She often wandered along the shore, listening to the sound of the sea and the splashing of the waves. Sometimes she even saw her brothers and sisters as they swam along the shore, and sometimes she heard them calling for her, their long-lost sister. And she longed with all her heart to return to them. And then one day Rodrick got ready to go fishing and tenderly said goodbye to his wife and children. But while he was walking to his boat, a hare crossed his path. Rodrik knew that this was not good, and he hesitated - should he return home? But he looked at the sky and thought: “If there’s going to be a bad day today, it’s only because of the bad weather. And this is not the first time I’ve had to fight a storm at sea.” And he went his way.
But he had not yet gone far into the sea when suddenly a strong wind really rose. He whistled over the sea, and whistled around the house where the fisherman left his wife and children. Rodrik's youngest son came ashore. He put the shell to his ear to listen to the sound of the surf, but his mother called to him and told him to go home. As soon as the boy stepped over the threshold, the wind blew with such force that the door of the house slammed shut and the earthen roof shook. And then a silky seal skin fell out of the crack above the lintel. It was Rodrick who once hid it, and it belonged to his beautiful wife. She did not say a word against the one who had kept her by force for so many years. She just took off her clothes and clutched the seal skin to her chest. Then she told the children: “Goodbye!” - and went to the sea, to where the white lambs were playing on the waves. And there she put on her golden-brown skin, threw herself into the water and swam.
Only once did she look back at the house where, although she lived against her will, she still knew a little happiness. The surf was noisy, the waves of the Atlantic Ocean rolled onto the land, and their foam bordered the shore. Behind this foamy border stood the unfortunate children of the fisherman. The daughter of the sea king saw them, but the call of the sea sounded louder in her soul than the cry of her children born on earth. And she swam further and further and sang with joy and happiness. When Rodrick McCodrum returned home from fishing, he found the front door wide open and the house empty. The owner was not greeted by his caring wife, nor was he greeted by the cheerful flame of peat in the hearth. Fear overwhelmed Rodrik, and he extended his hand to the ceiling. But the seal skin was no longer there, and the fisherman realized that his beautiful wife had returned to the sea. It became hard for him when the children tearfully told how their mother just said to them: “Farewell!” – and left them alone on the shore.
- It was a dark hour when I was walking to my boat and a hare crossed my path! – Rodrik lamented. “And the wind was strong then, and the fishing was bad, and now great grief has befallen me... He was never able to forget his beautiful wife and missed her for the rest of his life.” And his children remembered that their mother was a seal woman. Therefore, neither Rodrick McCodrum's sons nor his grandchildren ever hunted seals.
And their descendants began to be called “McCodrum Seals.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru