Life in the Orkney Islands, like any small group of islands, is dominated by the sea. In the past it was an all present force that shaped your life, or took it if it was angry. That mostly depended on the time of year, as the sea is ruled by spirits; in summer the Mother of the Sea gives life to all marine creatures and calms the waves but in winter it is ruled by Teran, a male spirit who causes the storms that wreck ships. They fight for supremacy at the equinox, causing the storms that rage at that time of the year. Whirlpools in the south of the islands are caused by the struggles of a witch, clasped in the deadly embrace of her drowned lover and by two giant women who turn a magical mill that grinds the salt for the sea.
The islands themselves are made from the teeth of a sea monster so huge that it was wrapped right around the world, until it was killed by an unlikely hero who had been dismissed by his family as lazy and worthless. Magical islands, usually invisible to mortal eyes, float on the surface of the sea and are the summer home of the fin folk, who will carry away mortal women if they are unwise enough to turn their backs to the sea. The great city of Finfolkaheem, with buildings of coral and crystal, lies at the bottom of the sea and was once seen by a man from the island of Sanday who was carried away by a mermaid who had fallen in love with him.
They danced in a hall whose beautiful curtains were made from the shimmering Northern Lights, until he was retrieved by a local witch. Seals are not always what they seem either, for they contain people whose beauty surpasses any human. These selkie folk can take off their seal skins and dance in the moonlight at certain times of the tide. Men have carried off the skins of selkie maidens, forcing them to live on land until the selkie can find their stolen skins and return to their watery realm.
Humans play their part in these stories too: both alive and dead. Witches can raise storms, or sell fine winds to sailors, while the ghosts of the drowned long for their bodies to be found and buried in the kirkyard.
These folk tales are written as I would tell them as a storyteller; linked with stories from my own family to give it the feeling of an evening of traditional tales by an Orkney fireside.
In storyteller Tom Muir takes the reader on a magical journey where he reveals how the islands were created from the teeth of a monster, how a giant built lochs and hills in his greed for fertile land, and how the waves are controlled by the hand of a goddess.