Excerpt from “The Fisherman and the Merman,” in George Douglas, Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales (New York: Dover, 1901), available at https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sfft/sfft57.htm.

Chapter 11

Excerpt from “The Silkie Wife” in Patrick Kennedy, Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts (New York: Macmillan, 1891), available at https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/lfic/lfic028.htm.

Chapter 34

Excerpt from “The Mermaid Wife,” in Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries (London: Whittaker, Treacher, 1870), available at https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tfm/tfm063.htm.

Chapter 38

Excerpt from “The Mermaid Wife,” in Charles John Tibbits, Folk-lore and Legends: Scotland (London: W. W. Gibbings, 1889), available at https://www.worldoftales.com/European_folktales/Scottish_folktale_16.html#gsc.tab=0.

Chapter 53

Quotation from “The Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie,” by Capt. F. W. L. Thomas, in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1855): 86–9, available at https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_001/1_086_089.pdf.

Song Lyrics

“Chuir Iad Mise Dh’eilean Leam Fhìn” (They sent me to an island by myself): Traditional Gaelic song, perhaps connected with Uist. Additional source notes can be found at The Session, https://thesession.org/tunes/4468.

“The Sealwoman’s Sea-Joy” (Ionn-da, ionn-do): This song is popular among choirs and has been variously attributed to Icelandic, Scandinavian, and Scottish cultures. The version I know is transcribed in David Thomson’s The People of the Sea, first published in 1954, in which he ponders whether the seals themselves wrote the song and taught it to the islanders on Uist.

Also available by Melanie Golding

Also available by Melanie Golding

Little Darlings

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Melanie Golding graduated, with distinction, from the MA program in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Her occupations have been varied, including farmhand, factory worker, childminder, and music teacher. Throughout all of this, because and in spite of it, there was always the writing. In recent years she has won and been shortlisted in several local and national short story competitions. Her first novel, Little Darlings, has been optioned for screen for Free Range Films.