4.0
The People of the Sea
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe People of the Sea Reviews
4.0
Nessa
Created about 1 year agoShare
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Kirstie Tilbury
Created over 2 years agoShare
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Olivia
Created over 4 years agoShare
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Nat Keighley
Created about 5 years agoShare
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“This one is rather difficult to define – it is neither a study in folklore, a straightforward collection of myths and legends, a memoir, a travel narrative nor a nature book. It’s mostly a mix of all of these things, sprinkled with what I assume might be some fiction too (you can’t be certain, but with a book that refuses to be defined, the author is free to do pretty much what he or she wants to enhance the narrative).
Thomson acquires an interest in selchies – mythical creatures that take the form of grey seals and can transform into humans – at an early age, and that interest (named an obsession by himself) stays with him throughout his adult life. He undertakes to seek out the stories of selchies that for many years were told and believed on the remote sea coasts of the Scottish Isles and the west of Ireland, and the result of his travels is this book.
The stories he discovers are full of magic, both in telling and in content. Thomson skilfully recreates real settings and landscapes that transport you and draw you fully into the legends that accompany them – you start to feel a sense of awe for the seal, even if your rational mind knows it is just a seal, nothing more. You also feel affection for the people that live in this book. The characters telling the stories are unique and a dying kind – the younger generations are seduced and enlightened by the modern world, removing themselves more and more from the stories and traditions of their origins. A young girl calls the myths lies, but Thomson says gently that he cares not whether they are lies or truths, he just “likes to hear them; that’s all.” Which is, to some extent, the truth that forms the basis of our love for stories.
If you are at all into folklore, this one is for you. It’s a slow book, and it won’t provide you with much background information – it’s not in the least academic, and for all the memoirish elements it does have, this book is not about the author either. The stories are front and centre and are really the entire point of this book. I enjoyed it immensely.
/NK”
Holly R
Created about 6 years agoShare
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About David Thomson
David Thomson was born in India of Scottish parents in 1914. On returning to England, much of his childhood was spent in the country, in Derbyshire, and at Nairn where his grandparents lived. While still a student at Oxford he took on work as a tutor with an Anglo-Irish family in County Roscommon, where he eventually stayed for almost ten years. Later, he joined the BBC and wrote and produced many distinguished radio programmes, including The Irish Storyteller series and a number of documentaries on animal folklore. He left the BBC in 1970 in order to write full time. He died in 1988.
Other books by David Thomson
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