Her hair was green as seaweed and her skin was blue and pale

[sovay]

Because I was all underslept and enthused earlier, I forgot to mention that in addition to the fantastic conversation and books (that I would most likely have remembered I can't afford if I hadn't had the example of happy book-buyers around me to tempt me from the paths of righteousness and shelf space), I now own a beautiful print that nineweaving, rushthatspeaks, gaudior, and eredien all got for me at Vericon. It's The Calling, by LA Williams. I am informed that each person independently saw the picture and thought I might like it:



It has a mermaid. It has trees and water. (It has a shofar . . .) These are people who know me. Thank you.

I have too little art in my apartment. Right now I have a large framed print of John William Waterhouse's A Mermaid hanging over my bed (it's one of my favorite paintings; I love the study, too, and I'm even fond of The Merman) and another of Michael Parkes' The Creation on the opposite wall, but that's it for my bedroom. And in the other room, there's another mermaid and a fantasia on Anasazi petroglyphs, and a calendar of gargoyles. The blankness has been remarked upon. But slowly I am filling up the white space on my walls, and then I can start worrying about how to move all of the pictures when I move out . . .

Does anyone know the name of a children's picture book in which a mermaid is swept by a storm over the dykes in Holland and is discovered, stranded, by the local families? I read it in elementary school and have never seen it since: I believe that her name is Seanora ("swept out to sea, swept out to sea") and that she does eventually return to the sea, although not after she has told stories about her life under the waves to the young boy who has befriended her; he may help her, but I wouldn't swear to that point. She has pale-green hair, which his family insists on covering so the neighbors won't stare, and they try to teach her to milk and spin and sew like a normal girl, not nibble on seaweed and stare out forlornly at the weaves. I've been thinking about this book on and off for days. I think it's based on a folktale, but may not follow the same trajectory.

The sea-connection made me remember: check out papersky's "A Candlemass Poem" currently up at Lone Star Stories. It's beautiful.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad you like the print. We all walked into the room, and said sovay! So I bid and we got it. And eredien nearly got kited away with it, carrying it home.

Roots!

Nine

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

(It has a shofar . . .)

Now I can't stop imagining that somewhere along the shore off to the right, Mike is leading a slightly rowdy synagogue congregation in Tashlich.

[ombriel.livejournal.com]

It's funny you bring up that Dutch mermaid tale, because I just heard a remarkably similar British version on Friday. The Mermaid's name is Asenora, and she is taken from the sea, made to live a human life, and becomes St. Senora. Sue Monk Kidd just came out with a book called _The Mermaid Chair_ that revolves around the legend. I don't know about the children's book you describe, but I was struck by similarities between the stories. I'm trying to track down the tale type.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

You could have seen it in your parents' or grandparents' copy of Tales Told In Holland, which was put out by Random House in the Thirties and again in the Fifties, had a Delft-blue cover and in particular as pertains to this tale, an illustration of a mermaid on a rock, with a green and blue tail, sitting forlornly on very green grass, being discovered by a little Dutch boy in dark Dutch trousers and a red jacket and those caricature Dutch shoes.


That's where I know it from, anyway.