|
Author
|
Comment
|
anndowner
Registered User
(8/12/02 7:02:41 am)
|
help tracking down source of merfolk tale
Hello, all. I wonder whether you can help trace the source of a Celtic tale in which there is a maid and her faithful dog, a flooded village at the bottom of a lake, and the maid and dog are transformed into a mermaid and otter, respectively. I thought it came from either a book of mermaid folktales or a two-volume collection of tales from the British isles, but a search of my remembered sources hasn't turned this one up.
Thanks.
|
anndowner
Registered User
(8/12/02 7:26:15 am)
|
P.S.
One source I remember checking was "Sea Enchantresses."
|
anndowner
Registered User
(8/12/02 7:32:11 am)
|
p.p.s.
And the two-volume collection might have been Mary Katherine Briggs, Dictionary of Folk-Tales of the British Isles.
|
Helen
Registered User
(8/12/02 8:10:24 am)
|
Mmm ...
Dear Ann:
This sounds tantalizingly familiar ... I'll hunt around in my books to see what I can find. By the way, would you happen to be the author of, or a fan of _The Spellkey Trilogy_, or is the name a lucky coincidence? I love those books ... they're among the best, most subtle works to be set in the realm of the fairy tale that I've ever come across. The allusions are subtle, but wonderfully perceptible ... Now I'm off on with happy visions of Iilie visiting the isle that is her namesake...
Best,
Helen
|
anndowner
Registered User
(8/12/02 8:47:11 am)
|
Found it!
Oh, thanks for the kind words about my books. I am that Ann Downer. (There are two of us, the other also a writer, of medical books.) Glad to know someone's read them!
I have in the meantime found the legend on Google--don't know why I couldn't find it before. It's Irish, not Scots (the otter threw me off there) from the Book of the Dun Cow. It's the legend story of a maid Liban who in some versions is turned into a salmon and in others becomes an Irish merrow, or mermaid, and a drowned village, and a dog turned into an otter.
|
