The Selkie Bride: building a book from scratch
For my next storytelling project knew I wanted to make a book from scratch – write it,
illustrate it and bind it and design the cover and I also knew I wanted it to be a homage
of sorts to my previous home of Ferryden – a small historic fishing village on
the east coast of Scotland. In my illustrations I include the wee fisher
cottages lining the shore with the washing lines strung out over the Esk estuary,
as well as the majestic Stevenson lighthouse a mile out of the village which sits
at the headland of Scurdie Ness, towering over the lava rocks which form many
rockpools. The setting really could be any north eastern fishing village in
Scotland, but I clearly saw Ferryden in my mind when writing the story.
The lighthouse keeper's cottage in my illustration however
has a distinct west highland look, and certainly not typical of an east coast
cottage at the time. I based it on the traditional kind of ‘blackhouse’ you see
in the Western Isles, like the one in this photo, which I took on the Isle of
South Uist a few years ago.
The Silver Darlings
Ferryden and other fishing villages would have been bristling with herring drifters – or fifies as they were known in Scotland - during the ‘silver darlings’ era. This was when the North Sea was plundered for herring in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Scottish harbours were jammed with the elegant double masted vessels at this time. I wanted to set a story roughly during this time, but not focus on it too much, it would only be vaguely apparent in the background.
Another reason for setting the story during this period is
that I wanted to base my story on a series of objects which I inherited from my
grandfather who was something of a collector. One of his most treasured items
was a stunning model of a fifie – much beloved by his grandchildren who would
often sneak into his room to take a peek at the masterfully made ship. One of
my characters, Mr Fergusson the lighthouse keeper is loosely based on my grandfather,
who collects ships in bottles – another treasure I inherited from the old man.
Land of the Seal People
The story itself is based on the traditional oral culture of
the Scottish Travellers, from whom a wealth of stories, song and lore has been collected
and preserved since the 1950s by the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh –
thanks to the efforts of Hamish Henderson and the like. I am particularly enchanted
by the selkie stories, which are a prominent genre of tales traditionally told on
the West Highland coast and the Western and Northern Isles. To my mind the
renowned Duncan Williamson – a traveller himself - was the master of these
tales, a whole collection of selkie stories in particular was published in one
book, The Land of the Seal People, amongst his many other story
collections.
For those who are not familiar with the concept, selkies are
supernatural beings who can take the form of both human and seal. Although
there is a strong tradition of selkie tales in Scotland, they are also a
feature of Irish and Faroese folklore.
I wanted my story to be told in a similar way to Duncan’s, as
if someone was taking notes from someone speaking the story. My story is
by no means a literary masterpiece, nor do I want it to be. Rather, I wanted to
explore the main motifs of selkie stories: one common thread being of someone lost
at sea, only to return years later but wearing a strange brown seal coat. Another
one would be that miserly or mean people change their ways after an encounter
with the selkie people, or that at the core of selkie tales is often a message
against harming seals, for they could be a selkie and therefore possibly a long
lost loved one. Often a human man or woman meets and falls in love with a
selkie and have children on land only to return to their beloved home under the
sea at the end.
There is usually a wise woman in traditional Scottish tales, often referred to as a ‘henwife’ as opposed to a witch because of the negative connotations (that’s a whole other story in itself) so I had a wise woman in the form of the lighthouse keepers wife, Mrs Fergusson. As I had been doing a lot of research into Scottish ethnobotany, I decided she should be the healer and keeper of the herblore she passes onto the main character, who is a young girl – but not her sons because herbs and healing were the ancient practices of women. She makes a pot of magic soup made from seaweed and with a bit of the magic of yarrow flower, cast into the pot with an incantation.
If I had to pick any particular selkie tales which inspired
my own story it would be two: The Lighthouse Keeper, in which a selkie is
nursed back to health and pays the kindness back and this tale told beautifully
here by Orcadian storyteller Tom Muir - it’s about a hunter who harms a seal
and learns a lesson, selkie style:
At the centre of the story is a young dreamy girl, a bit
like myself growing up who finds an injured selkie, in the form of a seal,
saves him, befriends and eventually marries him in his human form. She has no
mother and a distant father, which is definitely a nod to the gorgeous feature
animation Song of the Sea, by Irish animation studio, Cartoon Saloon.
A tale told in objects
Cyanotype dreams
As well as illustrations, the book also contains cyanotypes
of photographs I took of the area around Ferryden and Scurdie Ness and I have dispersed
these throughout the pages. For those not familiar with cyanotype process, it
is basically the earliest form of photography and I go into more depth with it
here.
I decided to take the cyanotype idea a step further and use
one as the cover of my book. I had a photograph of the Scurdie Ness lighthouse
and bay so I exposed it as a cyanotype onto a piece of white cotton – roughly A3
size – using a UV exposure unit. Once the cyanotype was dry I stretched around
some card to form the cover of the book. I used a traditional hard spine method
of book binding, which you can find here.
I was really pleased with the result and I am planning a
second digital version of the book, which will also be hand bound.
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| Back cover |
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| front cover |
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| I used a hard spine method |
An alternative cover
In addition to this I had a notion to do an alternative book
cover for my story, but I wanted to paint it in oils. I was inspired by one of
my previous painting tutors, Andy Cranston who frequently paints on old books. However, unlike his book art, I did not
want my painted book to be hung on a wall as a 2D piece, rather a functional cover to be picked
up and explored and in fact more of a 3D object. On the inside cover I made an image transfer of a photo I had 'cyanotyped' and sealed it with clear wood varnish and then button polish. I loved
how grainy, and ‘sea worn’ the result was that as a result I abandoned my original idea of
painting over the top of it and sticking pages in.
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| The inside of my alternative book cover This project took a great deal of writing, planning and illustrating as well as the accumulation of new skills learnt - particularly bookbinding. The end result was well worth the endless planning and alterations - there is definitely something addictive about making books.  |
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