Songs and Poetry from Selkies' Skins
Just like when I was working in the Dragon Shaman series, this storyline is ending up with songs and poems in and for it. I will gather those on this page and add them as they happen.
A Selkie's Lament
Sitting by the shore
The water kisses my ankles.
It's the wrong water.
I long to feel it,
That cold arctic sea.
The wind lifts my hair...
When it should tweak whiskers...
And what fur I have, I hide.
It's wrong, all wrong.
This fresh water teases.
It coddles.
It's not mine.
Where are the gulls' cries,
The salt tang and spray?
How many months longer
Till I swim free?
Once I've won my skin,
Once I've claimed my soul...
What then?
--- Kirsty is not much of a poetess, but the character does sometimes dabble. That "dabbling" comes as a result of her singing most usually. This free verse song/poem from her viewpoint is set at a time before her school year ends, going slightly insane while waiting for the summer that she will have the chance to earn a skin of her own.
The character is only part selkie, but as her ancestress was one of the selkies that never managed to find a skin after it being stolen I could very easily imagine Marsali singing this... or any other captured selkie maiden. This very likely will end up on the site where I am archiving all the materials related to "Selkies' Skins" and the story of Kirsty's family.
I originally uploaded this to my DeviantArt account.
Kirstine "Kirsty" Makay and "Selkies' Skins" (c) AmehanaRainStarDrago (AKA Teresa Garcia).
The water kisses my ankles.
It's the wrong water.
I long to feel it,
That cold arctic sea.
The wind lifts my hair...
When it should tweak whiskers...
And what fur I have, I hide.
It's wrong, all wrong.
This fresh water teases.
It coddles.
It's not mine.
Where are the gulls' cries,
The salt tang and spray?
How many months longer
Till I swim free?
Once I've won my skin,
Once I've claimed my soul...
What then?
--- Kirsty is not much of a poetess, but the character does sometimes dabble. That "dabbling" comes as a result of her singing most usually. This free verse song/poem from her viewpoint is set at a time before her school year ends, going slightly insane while waiting for the summer that she will have the chance to earn a skin of her own.
The character is only part selkie, but as her ancestress was one of the selkies that never managed to find a skin after it being stolen I could very easily imagine Marsali singing this... or any other captured selkie maiden. This very likely will end up on the site where I am archiving all the materials related to "Selkies' Skins" and the story of Kirsty's family.
I originally uploaded this to my DeviantArt account.
Kirstine "Kirsty" Makay and "Selkies' Skins" (c) AmehanaRainStarDrago (AKA Teresa Garcia).
Caught Between Wave and Cave
I feel it calling always,
The deep-brined sea,
I hear her in my blood
No matter how far I be.
Lady Mara of the Bitter Sea
Lonesome Guardian of the Deep
Mariner’s souls and loves Reep
Selkies’ Skins bound to thee,
When I’m out on the waves
I hear another call:
The burbling streams,
The trickles in the caves.
Mother of the waters of land,
Thy sister stretches out her hand
Taking me softly above and below
Where the parting winds ever blow…
I could be in the desert
And from the path divert
To aid a new spring’s birth
The Lady easing the dearth.
Caught always between them,
I’ll always hear the water’s call.
Mara and the Lady of the Waters
They call me a healing gem.
I am a selkie and I am a witchy lass
More than the join of water and grass.
Where is my place upon the earth?
Where is heart’s home for soul’s birth?
~~~ This poem was submitted to Ollie Lambert's Poetry Contest and actually was one of the three winners. I have no idea how many contestant there were.
The Three Winners
The deep-brined sea,
I hear her in my blood
No matter how far I be.
Lady Mara of the Bitter Sea
Lonesome Guardian of the Deep
Mariner’s souls and loves Reep
Selkies’ Skins bound to thee,
When I’m out on the waves
I hear another call:
The burbling streams,
The trickles in the caves.
Mother of the waters of land,
Thy sister stretches out her hand
Taking me softly above and below
Where the parting winds ever blow…
I could be in the desert
And from the path divert
To aid a new spring’s birth
The Lady easing the dearth.
Caught always between them,
I’ll always hear the water’s call.
Mara and the Lady of the Waters
They call me a healing gem.
I am a selkie and I am a witchy lass
More than the join of water and grass.
Where is my place upon the earth?
Where is heart’s home for soul’s birth?
~~~ This poem was submitted to Ollie Lambert's Poetry Contest and actually was one of the three winners. I have no idea how many contestant there were.
The Three Winners
The Sirens of the Briny Deep
Time and place hath no ken
Upon or below sea’s waves when
Outside of mortal land mariners wend
And sea and sky no longer bend.
Beware sea witch upon the sea
The sirens of the briny deep
Do not all take the form of fin and cheek
For those that homeward wending seek.
Well ye fare and fare ye well
Riding sea and breasting swell
Avast, avast, and mind the cry
From under sea and sundered sky.
Upon or below sea’s waves when
Outside of mortal land mariners wend
And sea and sky no longer bend.
Beware sea witch upon the sea
The sirens of the briny deep
Do not all take the form of fin and cheek
For those that homeward wending seek.
Well ye fare and fare ye well
Riding sea and breasting swell
Avast, avast, and mind the cry
From under sea and sundered sky.
Song of the Rocks that Drown
Rest weary Maiden
And Wander no more.
Lie still in the waters
Before yon glome’d door.
What good the fur
Dead at your waist,
Once silken and flashing
Now drained to waste?
Come lie in our arms
Of undying stone
Where mariners and mermen
Molder back unto bone.
And Wander no more.
Lie still in the waters
Before yon glome’d door.
What good the fur
Dead at your waist,
Once silken and flashing
Now drained to waste?
Come lie in our arms
Of undying stone
Where mariners and mermen
Molder back unto bone.
Selkie Husband's Tears
Seven tears for my selkie love
Seven tears to call you home
Even if the nine waves us part
If ye live, return ye to this heart.
Traditionally in folklore it is a human female that summons a male selkie lover by shedding seven tears into the sea. The idea of Finnol having his own spin on that magic and the possibility of it working for both genders was one that would not leave me alone until I had used it in the story.
Seven tears to call you home
Even if the nine waves us part
If ye live, return ye to this heart.
Traditionally in folklore it is a human female that summons a male selkie lover by shedding seven tears into the sea. The idea of Finnol having his own spin on that magic and the possibility of it working for both genders was one that would not leave me alone until I had used it in the story.
Song of the The Water Keepers
By the starlit night and the lunar rays
Through the dawning and the haze
In the borderland of the three
The keepers chosen came to be.
First by blood, then by tear
Saline life did swift appear
Within the basin of the mare,
Then with bone of crystal to inlay.
A piece of each creation within the sea
Imbued they then by three times three
That breath of life might always blow
No matter the form that keepers borrow.
Sang they long through moonlit nights
Embedding water from depths to heights
Inside the keepers of their sundered altars
Gifting with sharpest fang and softest furs.
This is where the Mara line did begin
From whence the river maid did swim
Which holds the soft and holds the rough
And pulls the pup by yonder scruff.
Arise ye waters by crystal, blood and tear
Reset, reborn thou must surely be
By the power of the Original Sea
Lest the lives of all that live be shear’d.
From "Book of Seals: Pearls of Sea and Stone"
Through the dawning and the haze
In the borderland of the three
The keepers chosen came to be.
First by blood, then by tear
Saline life did swift appear
Within the basin of the mare,
Then with bone of crystal to inlay.
A piece of each creation within the sea
Imbued they then by three times three
That breath of life might always blow
No matter the form that keepers borrow.
Sang they long through moonlit nights
Embedding water from depths to heights
Inside the keepers of their sundered altars
Gifting with sharpest fang and softest furs.
This is where the Mara line did begin
From whence the river maid did swim
Which holds the soft and holds the rough
And pulls the pup by yonder scruff.
Arise ye waters by crystal, blood and tear
Reset, reborn thou must surely be
By the power of the Original Sea
Lest the lives of all that live be shear’d.
From "Book of Seals: Pearls of Sea and Stone"
The Shinefish's Uses
Liver and gall, or intestinal wall
When suffering Lack and vision falls.
Eye for eating and eye for treating
When scales suffer dimming pall.
Heart is courage and to incite
Whilst in a paste, sluggish appetite.
Eggs, if present there be inside
Fertility treatments several abide.
Glowing skin prepared just right
When needing to encourage might,
With brakenweed and scallson sting
Mixed with the stingmanta’s wing...
When suffering Lack and vision falls.
Eye for eating and eye for treating
When scales suffer dimming pall.
Heart is courage and to incite
Whilst in a paste, sluggish appetite.
Eggs, if present there be inside
Fertility treatments several abide.
Glowing skin prepared just right
When needing to encourage might,
With brakenweed and scallson sting
Mixed with the stingmanta’s wing...
Artenhame Incantaion
“From Caer Carrick and guarded shore
To sparkling sea and stone girt door.
By Earth and Firth, Sky and Flame,
Woe and Mirth, To Artanhame.”
To sparkling sea and stone girt door.
By Earth and Firth, Sky and Flame,
Woe and Mirth, To Artanhame.”
Song of the Selkie Priestess
When the water is
roiling
I hear your call coiling
Up from the shifting deeps
Singing me home
Fill me with the depths of the sea
Washing away what sorrows me
Fair Lady Mara of the Spear
Lend me your strength
That I can come near
Fill me with the depths of the sea
Washing away what sorrows me
Gentle Lady of the Sacred Well
Below and above the Refuge Hill
Hear the song of the selkie...
Fill me with the depths of the sea
Washing away what sorrows me
I hear your call coiling
Up from the shifting deeps
Singing me home
Fill me with the depths of the sea
Washing away what sorrows me
Fair Lady Mara of the Spear
Lend me your strength
That I can come near
Fill me with the depths of the sea
Washing away what sorrows me
Gentle Lady of the Sacred Well
Below and above the Refuge Hill
Hear the song of the selkie...
Fill me with the depths of the sea
Washing away what sorrows me
