English Folk Tales of Coast and Sea E-Book

Lisa Schneidau

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Folk Tales
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 259

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

"This delightful book is filled with fascinating and enchanting folklore and histories of both coast and sea. Even if you are not a coastal dweller, you will find magic and wonder in some of England's oldest and strangest tales. A lovely read." - Annie Worsley England is a maritime nation. Our folklore and history are scattered with tall tales of the high seas, mysteries of the unknown world beneath the ocean surface, and the coast where human life meets the salt sea. This book is a collection of traditional folk tales from the coasts and seas of England, retold with a contemporary twist by Lisa Schneidau. Within these pages you'll find magic and monsters, sailor heroes and ghost ships, and even mermaids and shapeshifters. Immerse yourself in these sea stories and let the current of England's mysterious ocean world sweep you away.

Leseprobe

For my brother Karl Schneidau,who was usually first to see the seawith love

First published 2024

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Text © Lisa Schneidau, 2024

Cover illustrations © David Wyatt, 2024

Line Drawing illustrations © Lisa Schneidau and Holly Schneidau, 2024

The right of Lisa Schneidau to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 424 6

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Typesetting and origination by The History Press.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

CONTENTS

About the Author

Praise for English Folk Tales of Coast and Sea

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1   Song of the Siren

The Droll of the Mermaid

Sea-Morgans and Mud

The Mermaid’s Omen

The Mermaid of Zennor

2   Saints and Sinners

The Holy Island

Snakes and Ammonites

Chips

The Parson and the Clerk

3   Fishing for Fortune

The Fairest of All Others

Robin Hood Turns Fisherman

The King of the Herrings

Stargazey Pie

4   A Desperate Business

The Hawkhurst Gang

Red Rags

The Smugglers and the Squire

Bessie Catchpole

Smuggler’s Leap

5   Ravening Monsters

Sea Serpents and Sea Snakes

The Giant of Grabbist

The Laidly Worm of Spindlestone Heughs

How Filey Brigg Came to Be

6   Pirates and Plunder

The Wrecker and the Ghost Ship

The Ravens and the Wrecker

A Common Cause

The Pirates of Lundy

Francis Drake the Magician

7   The Hungry Sea

A Gaggle of Ghosts

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Unlucky for Some

The Omens of Birds

8   Battling the Tide

King Canute

Lost to the Sea

The Press Gang

Grace Darling

Other Worlds

Story Sources and Further Reading

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Schneidau is a professional storyteller. She tells traditional and contemporary stories that inspire, provoke curiosity, and build stronger connections between people and nature.

Lisa trained as an ecologist. She has worked with wildlife charities all over Britain to restore nature in the landscape, in roles including farm advisor, river surveyor, political lobbyist and conservation director. She lives on Dartmoor.

Lisa is the author of the following The History Press titles:

Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland (2018)

Woodland Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland (2020)

River Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland (2022)

PRAISE FORENGLISH FOLK TALES OF COAST AND SEA

‘Lisa Schneidau has an environmentalist’s eye and a storyteller’s heart, weaving together both precision and passion in this utterly engaging new collection of seafaring stories. Schneidau has dived deep into the ocean of folk tales and legends from every corner of coastal England, pulling up a treasure hoard of shimmering stories that deserve to be shared widely. A few of the tales I was aware of, but many were brand new to me – a testament to her diligence and delight in researching the source material. As someone who lives by the sea, this feels like a book to be dipped into often and enjoyed as much as the salty sea itself.’

Martin Maudsley, storyteller and author.

‘This delightful book is filled with fascinating and enchanting folklore and histories of both coast and sea. Even if you are not a coastal dweller, you will find magic and wonder in some of England’s oldest and strangest tales. A lovely read.’

Annie Worsely, author and blogger.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Where possible, I have drawn on multiple story sources for every traditional story retold here. I’m grateful to the folklorists and authors whose research has heavily influenced this book, especially Katherine Briggs, Sophia Kingshill, Ruth Tongue and Jennifer Westwood.

My thanks to the ever generous and wondrous storytelling community; the audiences and school classes who have listened and shared the stories and given feedback; and all the storytellers who have collected and shared these tales in the telling down the generations. I hope I have honoured their stories well here and added something useful to the tradition.

Thanks to David Wyatt for his beautiful cover artwork, and to Nicola Guy at The History Press for all her support in bringing the book together.

Thanks in particular to Annelies Acda, Cornish National Music Archive, Simon Dell, Earl Fontainelle, Moira Houghton, Sara Hurley, Caroline Preston, Holly Schneidau, Karl Schneidau, Beccy Swaine, Jo Swift, Tina Thomas and Nikki Walsh; and to Tony Whitehead, who has provided support, encouragement and inspiration throughout.

INTRODUCTION

So the first land we made, it is called the Deadman

Then Ram Head off Plymouth, Start, Portland and Wight

We sailed then by Beachy, by Fairlight and Dungeness

And then bore away for the South Foreland light

We’ll rant and we’ll roar, like true British sailors

We’ll rant and we’ll roar, all on the salt seas

Until we strike soundings in the channel of old England

From Ushant to Scilly ’tis thirty-five leagues

Traditional English folk song

There’s a picture of my brother and I on the seafront at Lyme Regis in Dorset. I am about 3 years old, running ahead in a swimming costume. My little legs are rolls of bronzed puppy fat. What’s left of the ice cream in my hand is plastered all over my face. I’m looking pretty determined, wherever I’m going, and my big brother Karl looks the picture of happiness.

The photo was taken in 1974. We Buckinghamshire landlubbers went to the south coast every year, and we loved Lyme. Past the ice cream shop and the amusement arcade (both of which are still there), I didn’t know at the time that I was being introduced to thousands, if not millions, of years of English marine stories.

We learned of the local pioneer and palaeontologist Mary Anning. A century and a half earlier, she found fossils at Lyme Regis that advanced our knowledge of evolution and ancient creatures. We kicked around the bottom of the cliffs, looking for our own fossil treasures, and clambered over the walls that stopped the beach from eroding. We skipped along the Cobb, tried not to slip on the rocks, popped all the bladder wrack we could find, and wondered at the sea anemones waving their pink tentacles in the rock pools. We fished for darting prawns and yellow periwinkles, and Grandma boiled them up for a feast when we got back to the cottage (the smell of vinegar and prawns still takes me back there). At night, we gazed out from our Enid Blyton-esque Faraway House and saw the lights of great tankers far out in Lyme Bay. They seemed very different to the ancient ships and wrecks we had heard stories about.

Lyme Regis is one version of the English coastline and, fifty years on, this little girl has been lucky enough to experience many others. England’s 2,748 miles of coastline includes the pebbles and pier of Brighton, the sublime beauty of the Farne Islands, the unforgiving rocks of north Devon, miles of broad sand in Norfolk, the endless mud of the Severn estuary in Somerset, tiny coves and crashing waves in Cornwall, the white cliffs at Dover, the sand and mudflats of Morecambe Bay and the bustling ports of Southampton, Hull and Liverpool, not to mention the Thames estuary. Although nobody in England lives more than 70 miles from the sea, those who live on the coast somehow have quite different perspectives from those inland. They breathe the salt air, and live side by side with the endless possibility of the ocean.

I trained as an ecologist, encouraged to look for nature in any place and to question why it’s there and how it’s influenced by human activity. Now I work as a storyteller, I find myself looking at England’s coasts and seas with very different eyes. Here at the edge of our country, where the land meets the great unknown ocean, is a place of dissolution, adventure and extremes. That goes for people as well as nature, and it’s reflected in our culture and traditions.

Folk tales are the local stories that become part of our heritage, handed on from person to person, often through telling in the oral tradition rather than writing. They talk of human experience, wisdom and interaction with our environment: little snippets of life where things happen, with a beginning, a middle and an end. We don’t know how old many of our folk tales actually are, or who first told them, but they might be hundreds or even thousands of years old. New folk tales are still being created, and we have no idea which ones will stand the test of time, or how otherworldly and imaginative they may become.

Here are fifty-two folk tales from the coasts and seas of England. I am in the good company of other storytellers from Wales (Peter Stevenson), Scotland (Tom Muir) and Ireland (Colin Urwin) who have written separate volumes with The History Press on marine folk tales for their respective countries. My own volume includes a couple of stories from the Isle of Man, an independent island, to ensure its colourful folklore is represented between us.

These are my own versions of traditional folk tales. I have chosen stories that I particularly enjoy, that cover the wide geography of England’s coasts, and that I feel resonate with our natural history and our heritage. I have told many of these tales to different audiences, indoors and out in nature, sharing ideas and emotions that the stories provoke. They are stories for all ages, although some are darker than others, and the teller will need to decide which stories to share with very young ones.

I have hunted out stories from many different sources: folklore archives and collections; natural history literature; and, of course, listening to storytellers. Some tales are well known, others more obscure. Like all storytellers, I am grateful to those who have collected and told these stories all down the generations, known and unknown. Wherever possible, I have tried to pursue a story back to its oldest referenced source. A list of story sources and further reading is provided.

The folk tales in this book are presented in chapters according to their subject. More than any other stories of our environment, I have found that England’s marine and coastal folk tales often deal with death as a matter of fact part of life. Many are embellished true stories of extraordinary events in desperate times. The challenges presented in these stories are sometimes human-created (such as smuggling, inequality, taxes and war), and sometimes nature-created (storms and mists). Yet many of these folk tales also speak to the wonder of the more than human natural world on our coasts and out at sea, and here we find shapeshifting birds, mermaids, magical fish and sea-dragons. I will leave it up to you to decide how much these characters represent the interface between humans and nature – the magic of life where nature cannot speak for itself – and how much they might be real!

Folk tales have many loose ends and inconclusive endings, as they represent fragments of experience that have been handed down to us by luck or chance. They might be short or abrupt. They also represent the messy business of the human condition, which may or may not include happy endings. Working with folk tales involves listening and letting the stories work on you – not deciding what you would like to be told.

This book has been written as a resource to be used for storytelling about our natural world. My aim is to bring our folk tale heritage to a wider audience. The stories provoke curiosity about England’s relationship with our coasts and seas through the centuries, our marine wildlife and our own wild oceanic imaginings.

There’s another important reason for sharing these stories. England’s relationship with the sea is changing rapidly, as the planet warms and climate chaos increases. Our marine wildlife is in crisis from over-exploitation and pollution. The next few decades will bring coastal challenges beyond any we have ever known. I believe the old tales hold wisdom for us: about the resourcefulness of the English people in times of change; about the values that will help to see us through difficult days; and about the wonders of nature that we must not take for granted. In a time when so much of human discourse isn’t based on anything real at all, our folk tales are a good way to reconnect with the emotions and realities of place.

So, even better than reading the stories, do tell them to others – in your own words, not mine. That is the way that stories change, and grow, and stay alive year on year.

I hope you have as much fun reading and telling these stories as I have had in working with them. Let the tide nibble at your toes now. The sea and its stories are waiting.

1

SONG OF THE SIREN

One Friday morn as we’d set sail,

And our ship not far from land,

We there did espy a fair mermaid,

With a comb and a glass in her hand…

Child Ballad no. 289 ‘The Mermaid’

On a July night in 1825 or 1826, when the full moon was high in the sky over Bude, young Robert Hawker was bored. So he swam out to a rock a little way from the shore, wrapped an oilskin round his legs, plaited a wig for himself out of seaweed, and began to flash light from the moon with a small hand mirror. Presently he began to croon, and then keened to the heavens with a high-pitched wail.

The good people of Bude ran out to see this wonder of the sea. ‘It’s a merry-maid!’ they whispered to one another. Soon, and most mysteriously, the sea-siren jumped off the rocks, into the sea, and was gone from sight.

The next evening, the crowds were there before the mermaid, but eventually she reappeared, combing her tresses and singing a desolate song. Military telescopes were fetched to observe the entrancing creature.

This continued for several nights, until one keen watcher observed the mermaid was shivering with cold. The singing died away, then they heard the mermaid bellow ‘God Save The King!’ in a fine baritone; then the creature disappeared into the water, never to be seen again.

Not all mermaid stories are as obvious or eccentric as this little Baring-Gould anecdote. Many people who have spent time on the coasts and beaches of England will swear they have seen an actual mermaid (a creature with a human body and the tail of a fish), or a fish-creature, or a wild man who lives in the sea.

Mermaids and their equivalents are a worldwide folklore motif, perhaps influenced by early Greek stories of sirens. Sometimes they appear in stories at times of great danger or bad omen, but sometimes they will offer protection or gifts to humankind. One early Celtic text describes a mermaid cast up by the sea in AD 887 that was 160ft long with both fingers and nose measuring 7ft long. Among the earliest images of a mermaid in England is in the Norman chapel of Durham Castle, dated to 1078.

Mermaid folk tales and ballads are found all over the British Isles, but are particularly common in the south-west of England. A sea-morgan is a related sea creature, of Celtic and Breton origin, that lures people to their death in the sea. Both mermaids and sea-morgans are quite different to the selkie (seal-people) stories of Celtic and Norse origin, mostly found in Scotland and Ireland.

There is something seductive about mermaids, real or otherwise, that makes us want to dissolve into them; something about the merging of human and fish that conveys a magical allure. They speak of the deep mystery of the ocean, and the mortal dangers of living more with the sea than with the land.

THE DROLL OF THE MERMAID

The story of Lutey and the Mermaid is one of the classic Cornish folk tales. When William Bottrell recorded it in 1870, he heard it from one of the last Cornish droll-tellers.

‘Uncle’ Anthony James was blind and relied on his dog and a young lad to guide him about with his stories and his fiddle. He related tall tales (or drolls) of the Lutey family of Cury, who were famously conjurers and white witches after one of their ancestors found a stranded mermaid on the shore.

Robert Hunt recorded a different take on the story in his Popular Romances of the West of England in 1881, probably also sourced from Bottrell, ending with the warning ‘Sceptical people are never lovable people.’ I have combined both Bottrell’s and Hunt’s versions into my own take on the story.

This folk tale is often told in a way that mocks Lutey as a country simpleton enchanted by beauty. I think there’s a little more to the story than that. Liz Greene, mythologist and astrologer, has mused that Lutey is under a classic Neptunian spell from the mermaid, one of the sacred female water spirits of the ancients.

Mermaids offer the promise of redemption and perfection, becoming one with the divine, all submerged in the mysterious depths of the ocean. Yet there is healing available to those who dare to dream. Lutey and his family are given that great gift as well.

Many years ago, a man called Lutey lived with his wife, Ann Betty, in a little stone cottage near the shore at Cury (that used to be known as Corantyn), on the Lizard. Their children were grown up and gone, and so the two of them survived from a bit of Lutey’s fishing, and a bit of his wife’s growing crops and storing, and a bit of taking whatever plunder washed up on the shore from any boats coming to grief on the rocks at Lizard Point.

It was a simple life, and they made the best of it. But after the practical work of the day was done, Lutey loved to wander the sands and think deeply about life, gazing on the rolling ocean and dreaming about what might lie beyond.

That particular year had been hard on the whole village. Disease was rife, and Lutey’s wife was recovering from a bad illness. One summer’s evening, Lutey had finished cutting the turf and wandered down to the beach towards a little cove. It was a shimmering evening, as the light played tricks on the deep blue water far away. The tide was out and the sands were scattered with pools and rocks, their barnacles and limpets sealed tight against the heat. Gulls cried overheard and the peep of the oystercatcher punctuated the sky – but here was a different sound. It was a sad cry, half-sobbing, a child in distress. This was not a bird of any kind, and it came from the shore in front of him.

Lutey crept towards the sound, his feet silent on wet sand. There was a tall rock in front of him, and he peered around it to the large rock pool behind.

There in the water was a vision of sweetness. She had flowing pale hair that spread out on the water of the pool and mingled with the seaweed. Her shell-like skin gleamed in the sun as her face tilted towards the ocean with longing, her eyes mournful and swollen from crying.

Lutey hardly dared to breathe. A merry-maid! He had heard stories, of course, and he had heard them singing in the moonlight far away, but he had never seen one this close!

The mermaid sensed Lutey’s gaze, gave a little cry and dived into the water to hide.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ crooned Lutey in a low voice to the mass of hair and bladder wrack and glittering silver scales under the water. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. Truth is, I’m just as frightened as you are. Come out, you’re safe.’

Gradually, the mermaid emerged from the pool into the air again, crying bitterly, and sat on the rocky edge with her tail-fin still tucked in the water.

‘Now then, maid,’ said Lutey, ‘I don’t know if you can understand my mumblings, but I’d dearly like to know why you’re crying.’

The mermaid wiped her face clear and looked Lutey straight in the eyes. He gave a start at that, for her eyes were deep sapphire blue, the colour of the wide ocean beyond the rocks: water you could lose yourself in.

She sighed. ‘I’m stranded,’ she said. ‘Only three hours ago, I left my husband and children happily snoozing, surrounded by sea flowers, basking in the sunlit waters. I had a mind to catch their supper, and I was also curious about the human places here on the coast. So I swam a little too far in, and I was so taken up with chasing the shrimps and dancing with the sea wrack, that I didn’t notice I was stranded until it was too late!’ She fell to snivelling again, building up to proper crying.

Lutey hurriedly interrupted. ‘Surely you can wait until the tide comes back in again, then go to join them? I can keep you company in the meantime.’

‘No, that won’t work,’ she said between sobs. ‘My husband will wake up soon, hungry, and look for his supper. If I don’t bring him the food he needs, he’s sure to eat up some of our pretty children … I still haven’t recovered from last time it happened!’

‘Surely he wouldn’t do that!’ said Lutey.

‘He’s very jealous too, goodness knows what he would do to me,’ she insisted. ‘Please, help me get back to the sea!’

Now Lutey was in a fix. He had heard many stories about mermaids. People said that you should never offend a mermaid, for if they were angry there was no knowing what they’d do. But people also said it was dangerous to get too close to a mermaid.

Now he was here with an actual live mermaid, Lutey could see that people didn’t understand. This creature wasn’t dangerous or angry. She was sweet and sensitive and vulnerable. She was more beautiful than any mortal woman he had ever seen. What was the harm in helping?

‘Carry me to the sea,’ she pleaded. ‘It will only be a few minutes of your time, and I will give you fine gifts. I’ll give you anything you wish for.’ Her eyes were huge now, emerald-green pools glittering in the evening sunlight.

Lutey reached forward, put one arm around her shining silver scales and another round her waist. He lifted the mermaid up, finding her surprisingly heavy. The mermaid immediately put her arms around his neck and snuggled into his warmth.

‘What is it that you wish for? Is it to be gold, silver or jewels?’

Now Lutey’s mind was blank for any idea of gifts, for his mind was full of her. He looked back and saw his little stone cottage in the distance, and with difficulty recalled his life with his wife and the people of the village.

‘Gold and silver aren’t much use to us here,’ said Lutey slowly. ‘But good health, that’s a different matter … the power to charm away disease and difficulty would be a fine thing.’

She looked at him pointedly. ‘You’re a good man,’ she said. ‘It shall be done, and you and your family will be provided for all your days. But I will give you another gift.’

She held out a gleaming comb made of pearl. ‘Take this,’ she said, ‘it will prove to you that you have not been dreaming. Whenever you need me, comb the sea three times with this, and I will come to your help. Now – take me to the sea.’

He carried the mermaid down the beach towards the tide, walking with some difficulty as the sand got wetter and his burden got heavier. Soon the waves were washing over his shoes and he began to wade out to sea, but he didn’t let go of the mermaid.

‘Lutey,’ she whispered in his ear, ‘come with me. Come with me to our place under the sea.’

Lutey’s mind was swirling into eddies, looping and drifting with the tide, but he did not reply; he gazed out to the waves as he waded deeper, still holding her tight.

The water was up to his knees now. She whispered again, using deliberate words as if chanting a spell. ‘Lutey. It is so beautiful in our place under the sea. There are all the things you would wish for: fine food, the best of rum, and many sparkling sea-women just like me. There are sea creatures of all colours, wondrous to behold. I will make you gills so you can breathe with us and live with us, be like us, the sea-people, at one with the deep ocean.’

The water was up to his waist now. Lutey’s eyes were glazed and his mind addled, as the water lapped around him and the sea currents tugged at his legs, and still he would not let go of the mermaid.

Then, among the alarm cries of the gulls, a different sound, distant at first, but insistent and louder: a familiar noise. It was Lutey’s dog, standing on the shore, barking and barking for all it was worth.

Lutey blinked, and tried to drop the mermaid, but she clung on to him. ‘Lutey–’

‘No … maid, I will NOT come with you!’ Lutey wrenched an arm free and reached down to his belt for his knife. ‘I’ll have none of your enchantments or your cunning. Go back to the sea!’ As Lutey managed to brandish his sailor’s knife in the air, the mermaid let go and her golden hair spread out in the water again.

She turned to him, her eyes dark. ‘Nine years, my love! Nine of your human years, and I will return for you.’ There was a flick of a silver tail, then she was gone.

Lutey’s heart was pounding in his chest as he half-swam, half-waded back to shore, spitting out gulpfuls of salt water. The faithful dog followed Lutey up from the shore until he reached a little cave at the back of the beach. This was the place where Lutey stored a few smuggled treats, including brandy. He found the bottle he was looking for, tugged at the cork and drank deep of the contents, as the brandy warmed his belly and soothed his senses.

Ann Betty Lutey was worried. Her husband hadn’t come home, and she had watched for him all night. When the dawn broke, she wandered down to the beach, to the little cave she wasn’t supposed to know about.

There was her beloved husband, fast asleep against some old sails and snoring. Ann Betty aimed a swift kick at his buttock.

Lutey stirred. ‘What … Who are you … where am I? Am I at the bottom of the sea, my beauty?’

Another kick. ‘I’m your wife, as you know full well, and you’ve not called me beauty in twenty-five years,’ she said. ‘Get up, you old scoundrel, you’ve got some explaining to do over breakfast.’

Lutey followed his wife sheepishly along the beach to their little cottage, and over a hearty breakfast – which made him feel much better – he told her everything he could remember.

‘She even gave me a pearly comb to prove it wasn’t a dream … look!’ He brought it out of his pocket triumphantly.

‘That’s no comb,’ said Ann Betty. ‘That’s an old shark’s jaw full of teeth. You old fool.’

Nevertheless, the story was a good one. Although Ann Betty was sworn to secrecy for fear of Lutey looking foolish, the story of the mermaid and the gifts she had given to Lutey spread through the little village of Cury like seeping seawater. There was no doubt that, since the mermaid was found, Ann Betty was feeling in better health than she had done for months.

A couple of days later, there was a knock at the door. It was an old woman carrying a young child. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard you’ve got the gift of healing in this house. My granddaughter has been running a high fever for a day and a night. Can you cure her?’

Lutey discovered that his wish had been granted. He could heal the sick and undo evil magic, and no matter where he went in Cornwall or beyond, he was hailed as a hero. He never charged for helping people, and somehow his family were always well clothed and well fed.

Nine years later, Lutey had completely forgotten about the mermaid. Life was good. One night in high summer, he and a friend went out one evening in Lutey’s little fishing boat, and they went for the edge of the shore just beyond the rocks.

There wasn’t a breath of wind that night, and the sea was almost still, caressed by tiny ripples, as the men chatted. Then, as if from nowhere, a wind whipped up along the water. The little boat was soon lurching dangerously on high waves, both men trying to keep afloat – yet the sky was still clear.

A huge wave rolled towards them then, crested with sea foam, and in the middle of the sea foam rode the mermaid, her arms outstretched and her sparkling eyes fixed on Lutey.

As if bewitched, Lutey stood up in the rocking boat and turned towards the deep ocean. ‘It’s time,’ he said, and took one step off the edge of the boat, despite his friend’s attempts to stop him.

Lutey’s friend peered down into the water, and for a moment he saw Lutey and the mermaid in each other’s arms, her silver scales sparkling and their hair mingling in the water. Then they were gone. The water was still again, and Lutey’s friend was left alone in his little boat under the summer moon.

Lutey was never seen again in the village of Cury. His children and grandchildren held and used the same healing powers, as they do to this day.

But every nine years, a member of the Lutey family is always lost at sea.

SEA-MORGANS AND MUD

The Somerset coast is of a different character altogether, compared with the rest of south-west England. It is part of the great Severn Estuary, or ‘Severn Sea’, which boasts a tidal range of 13m – the second highest tidal range in the world – along with the famous Severn Bore. From the cliffs off Exmoor to the rocky shore at Kilve, round Bridgwater Bay to Weston-super-Mare and up towards Clevedon, with some beautiful beaches but mostly mud, this part of the English coastline has a character that is oozing, endless and slow. But it’s deceptive: this is a dangerous place, and the muddy estuary water holds strong currents. Walk too far out at low tide, and you can easily disappear in the quicksand.