Kopakonan and Other Mermaids: Upcoming Publication

In my novel slated for May publication, a Congregation--group of sainthood investigators--delve into the possible sainthood of a mermaid, Saint Margaret. 

They discover that she (possibly) fled Bamburgh Castle for the Faroe Islands. Is that likely at all? For someone, human or mermaid, to head from Northumbria's east coast to the Faroe Islands around 500 C.E. (A.D.)? 

Yes! Saint Brendan the Navigator performed this task about that time. 

I discovered that the Faroe Islands produced one of many selkie tales common to Northern Europe: a seal woman sheds her seal skin when she comes ashore. That skin is stolen by her husband-to-be. She stays with him for many years, but as soon as she finds the skin again, she dons it and departs. In the Faroe Island version, the human husband later kills Kopakonan's seal husband and children, and she curses his descendants. 

I used the idea of a mermaid's curse in my first published short story: "The Birthright."

The investigators in my new story have to square the vengeance part of the tale with the saint's supposed merciful character. They are helped by (1) medieval saints being somewhat more belligerent than modern saints; (2) the Lady Margaret apologists who live on the island. 

The statue of Kopakonan on Kalsoy Island (above) was erected in 2014. 

The second tale comes much later and is largely ignored by my fictional investigators. But it is a real tale--in the sense that I was able to get a digital copy of the 1882 chapbook version of the tale from WorldCat during my research. Thanks, WorldCat! 

The story is of one John Robinson, a young sailor who ends up in the sea when his ship wrecks. A mermaid saves him but only because he catches hold of her girdle and "got the first word with her." The chapbook states, "Never, never let a Mermaid get in the first word!" She gives him the means to get to shore, but she later returns, gets in the first word, and claims him. 

The mermaid here is similar to the mermaids in Pirates of the Caribbean and elsewhere: less vainly self-centered and more entirely amoral. 

A much nicer tale from Cornwall reports a young male member of the church choir who joins a mermaid in her watery home--and appears later to be living happily with her in a cave. 

But that tale proves the rule: mermaids are incalculable, like keeping lions as pets. They might cozy up to you. They might eat off your face.