The Sea King's Daughter

Long, long ago, before the first sailors set out on their voyages, hoping to see the lands beyond the sea, beneath the waves lived peacefully and happily a sea king and a sea queen. They had many beautiful children. Slender and brown-eyed, the children spent their days playing with cheerful sea lambs and swimming among the thickets of purple seaweed that grow on the ocean floor. They loved to sing, and wherever they swam, they sang songs that sounded like the gentle lapping of waves.

But then great sorrow came to the sea king and his carefree children. The sea queen fell ill, passed away, and her family buried her with deep grief in a coral cave. After her death, there was no one to look after the sea children, to comb their long hair, or to lull them to sleep with gentle songs.

The sea king looked sadly at his unkempt children, their hair tangled like seaweed. He heard them tossing and turning in their beds at night, unable to sleep, and he thought that he must marry again—find a wife who would care for his family.

Now, it must be said that in a dense forest at the bottom of the sea lived a sea witch. It was she whom the king married, though he did not love her, for his heart was buried in the coral cave where the dead queen lay. The witch very much wanted to become the sea queen and rule over the vast sea kingdom. She agreed to marry the king and take the place of a mother to his children. But she turned out to be a wicked stepmother. Looking at the slender, brown-eyed sea children, she envied their beauty and grew angry, knowing that they were more pleasing to the eye than she was.

And so she returned to her dense forest at the bottom of the sea and gathered poisonous yellow berries of the sea grape. From these berries, she brewed a potion and cast a terrible spell upon it. She wished that the sea children would lose their slenderness and beauty and turn into seals; that they would swim in the sea as seals forever, only able to regain their true form once a year, and even then, only for a single day—from sunset to sunset. Her evil magic fell upon the sea children as they played with the cheerful sea lambs and swam among the thickets of purple seaweed that grow on the ocean floor. And so their bodies swelled and lost their slenderness, their delicate arms turned into clumsy flippers, their fair skin was covered with silky fur—some gray, some black, others golden-brown. But their gentle brown eyes remained unchanged. And they did not lose their voices—they could still sing their beloved songs.

When their father learned what had happened to them, he grew furious with the wicked sea witch and imprisoned her forever in the depths of the dense forest at the bottom of the sea. But he could not break the spell on his children. And so the seals, who had once been the sea children, sang a mournful song. They grieved that they could no longer live with their father, where they had once been so free, and that they could never regain their happiness. The old sea king watched with sorrow as his children swam away into the distance. For a long, long time, the seals roamed the seas. Once a year, at sunset, they would find a place on the shore where no humans ventured, and there they would shed their silky fur—gray, black, and golden-brown—and return to their true forms. But they could not play and frolic on the shore for long. The very next day, as soon as the sun set, they would don their fur coats again and swim back into the sea. People say that the seals first appeared near the Western Isles as secret messengers of the Scandinavian Vikings. Whether this is true or not, the seals indeed came to love the misty western shores of the Hebrides. And even today, you can see seals near the Isle of Lewis, the Isle of Rona, known as "Seal Island," and in the Harris Strait. The people of the Hebrides heard of the fate of the sea children, and all knew that once a year, you could see them frolicking on the shore for a full day—from one sunset to the next.

And this is what happened to a fisherman named Roderick MacCodrum of the Donald clan. He lived on the Isle of Berneray, one of the Outer Hebrides. One day, as he was walking along the shore to his boat, he heard voices—someone was singing among the large rocks scattered along the beach. The fisherman cautiously approached the rocks, peered over them, and saw the sea children, hurrying to play to their hearts' content before the sun set. They frolicked, their long hair streaming in the wind, their eyes shining with joy.

But the fisherman did not watch them for long. He knew that seals feared humans and was about to turn back when he noticed a pile of silky fur coats—gray, black, and golden-brown. The coats lay on a rock where the sea children had shed them. The fisherman picked up one golden-brown coat, the softest and most lustrous, and thought it would not be a bad idea to take it. And so he took the coat, brought it home, and hid it in a crevice above the doorframe.

That evening, Roderick sat by the hearth, mending his fishing net. Soon after sunset, he heard strange, mournful sounds—it seemed as though someone was crying outside. The fisherman looked out the door. Before him stood a beauty the likes of which he had never seen—slender, with gentle brown eyes. She was naked, but her thick, golden-chestnut hair covered her white body like a cloak from head to toe.

"O mortal, help me, help me!" she pleaded. "I am the unfortunate daughter of the sea. I have lost my silky seal coat, and until I find it, I cannot return to my brothers and sisters."

Roderick invited her inside and wrapped her in his plaid. He immediately guessed that she was the very sea maiden whose coat he had taken from the shore that morning. All he had to do was reach up to the doorframe and retrieve the hidden seal coat, and the sea maiden could swim back to her brothers and sisters in the sea. But Roderick looked at the beauty sitting by his hearth and thought, "No, I must keep her with me. This lovely seal maiden will save me from loneliness, bring joy to my home, and how wonderful life will be then!"

And he said:

"I cannot help you find your silky seal coat. Surely some man found it on the shore and stole it. By now, he is probably far away. But you stay here, be my wife, and I will honor and love you all my life."
The daughter of the sea king raised her eyes, filled with sorrow, to him.

"Well," she said, "if my silken pelt has truly been stolen and cannot be found, then I have no choice. I will have to live with you and become your wife. You have welcomed me so kindly, as no one else would, and I am afraid to wander alone in the world of mortals."

Here, she remembered her entire life in the sea, where she no longer hoped to return, and sighed heavily.

"How I wish I could stay forever with my brothers and sisters!" she added. "They will wait and call for me by name, but they will not find me..."

The fisherman's heart ached, so sorry he felt for this sorrowful maiden. But he was so enchanted by her beauty and tenderness that he already knew: he would never be able to let her go.

For many years, Roderick MacCodrum and his beautiful wife lived in a house by the sea. They had many children, and all the children had golden-chestnut hair and voices that were soft and melodious. And the people who lived on this secluded island now called the fisherman "Roderick MacCodrum the Seal," because he had married a seal maiden. And his children were called "the children of MacCodrum the Seal."

But all this time, the daughter of the sea king never forgot her great sorrow. Often she wandered along the shore, listening to the noise of the sea and the splash of the waves. Sometimes she even saw her brothers and sisters when they swam along the shore, and sometimes she heard them calling her, their long-lost sister. And she longed with all her heart to return to them. And so one day, Roderick set out to fish and tenderly bid farewell to his wife and children. But as he walked to his boat, a hare crossed his path. Roderick knew this was a bad omen and hesitated—should he return home? But he looked at the sky and thought, "If there is to be trouble today, it will only be from the weather. And I am no stranger to battling storms at sea." And he went on his way.

But he had not gone far out to sea when a strong wind indeed rose. It whistled over the sea and around the house where the fisherman had left his wife and children. Roderick's youngest son went out to the shore. He held a seashell to his ear to listen to the sound of the surf, but his mother called 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 with a crash, and the earthen roof shook. And then, from a crack above the lintel, a silken seal pelt fell out. This was the one Roderick had hidden long ago, and it belonged to his beautiful wife. Without a word of reproach for the man who had kept her against her will for so many long years, she simply shed her clothes and pressed the seal pelt to her chest. Then she said to the children, "Farewell!"—and went to the sea, where whitecaps played on the waves. There, she put on her golden-brown pelt, plunged into the water, and swam away.

Only once did she glance back at the house where, though she had lived against her will, she had still known a little happiness. The surf roared, the waves of the Atlantic Ocean rolled onto the shore, and their foam edged the beach. Beyond this foamy fringe stood the fisherman's unhappy children. The daughter of the sea king saw them, but the call of the sea sounded louder in her soul than the cries of her children born on land. And she swam farther and farther away, singing with joy and happiness. When Roderick MacCodrum returned home from fishing, he saw that the front door was wide open and the house was empty. No caring wife greeted him, no cheerful peat fire welcomed him in the hearth. Fear gripped Roderick, and he reached up to the lintel. But the seal pelt was no longer there, and the fisherman understood that his beautiful wife had returned to the sea. It weighed heavily on him as the children tearfully told him how their mother had simply said, "Farewell!"—and left them alone on the shore.

"Black was the hour when I walked to my boat and the hare crossed my path!" lamented Roderick. "The wind was strong then, and the fish were scarce, and now great sorrow has fallen upon me..." He could never forget his beautiful wife and grieved for her until the end of his life. And his children remembered that their mother had been a seal woman. Therefore, neither Roderick MacCodrum's sons nor his grandsons ever hunted seals.

And their descendants came to be called "the MacCodrums of the Seal."

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The Sea King's Daughter

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