Unhappily Ever After E-Book

Tom Phillips

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

Seitenzahl: 251

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

'And they all lived happily ever after…' or so we are told in folk and fairy stories when we are young – but then we grow up and realise that life isn't all roses and happy endings. Life is hard, life is brutal, life is raw and we just have to pick our way through it the best we can. These traditional folk tales for adults explores the unhappily ever afters we so rarely see in stories. Each tale is expanded and the world built around them, bringing them to life, each posing a different moral question. It's not all serious, but take heed of the lessons they teach, and use them to avoid an unhappy ever after of your own...

Leseprobe

First published 2025

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, Gl50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Text © T.T. Phillips, 2025

Illustrations © Ele Marr, 2025

The right of T.T. Phillips 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 83705 006 2

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

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

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CONTENTS

Foreword

The Fisherman and the Selkie

The Ghost in the Car Park

The Man Who Went to Find His Luck

The Soldier and Death

The Sailor and the Mermaid

FOREWORD

Thank you for buying my book. This is the third book I have had the honour of writing for The History Press and a bit of a departure from my previous format. My first two books were aimed at children, being collections of folk tales, rewritten for that audience. My background as a primary school teacher and the last sixteen years as a professional storyteller have stood me in good stead to write challenging and fun stories for this age group – that have also been enjoyed just as much by adult readers – but, with this book, I wanted very much to stretch myself.

Since I was a child, I have always had a fascination with traditional stories and folklore, and I found the ones that always stayed with me the most were those with unhappy endings. I quickly got bored with the Disneyfied cliché of ‘happily ever after’, so these stories, in which the main characters don’t necessarily get all they hoped for and desired, spoke to me. They seemed to be a more fitting reflection on real life and – as I hit my teenage years and started to encounter exclusion and bullying, like many of us do – I found solace in the fact that even these folk tale characters couldn’t get it right all of the time.

The most influential of all those stories I heard as a child was one that features in this book, The Soldier and Death. I first encountered this story on television as a child thanks to Jim Henson’s fantastic ’80s series The StoryTeller. This story of bravery, cunning, and derring-do that explained why death is so important in this world, but also gave a sombre end with no happy ending for the soldier (spoilers, sorry), hit me for six. I have since revisited it many times, revelling in the marvellous performance by the late John Hurt, and the brilliant puppet designs by Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop. This was also the first story I told in my storytelling career at a storytelling group in Nottingham. I told stories to my class as a teacher, but this was my first time telling in front of an audience of adults, so it holds that special place in my heart.

Throughout my career as a storyteller, I have collected many traditional tales with unhappy endings and have lived with them in my head, going around and around, forever finding new meaning depending on when and where I have told them. After a family holiday one year I began to write down my version of the first story of this book, The Fisherman and the Selkie. This was a story I first came across on my teacher training back in the mid-2000s, and have loved ever since. The recent trip to the Norfolk coastline set my mind racing. I was somewhat obsessed with pirates, sea shanties and nautical stories for a while before I put fingers to keyboard and began writing this story down. It was originally planned to be part of a book telling traditional seaside folk stories intertwined with my lifelong obsession with the coast, having been born and raised in the most landlocked county in Britain, Leicestershire. The call of the sea has always been strong within me, driven by family holidays as a child to the beautiful Pembrokeshire coastline.

I soon realised I would have a problem getting this book into print through The History Press as they like their folk tale book authors to have a connection to the tales they write. For instance, I wrote Leicestershire Folk Tales for Children and am, myself, Leicestershire born and raised, and followed up by writing Forest Folk Tales for Children whilst running a museum and country park at the heart of the National Forest. So, I began repurposing the book. I wanted to write folk tales in a more immersive and expansive way. I have been trying to write a middle school fantasy novel for many years and enjoy a longer form of storytelling – something you can’t really do with traditional folk tale books. The stories tend to be shorter and more to the point. So, I broached the idea to the publishers, who were somewhat hesitant at first. I explained the premise again and settled on the theme of ‘unhappily ever after’ before they decided to give it a shot.

Since then, I have embarked on an eight-month mission to write this book. Despite missing the deadline by a few weeks, thanks to a rather enjoyable Christmas, I have completed it and really hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. I have tried to challenge myself by writing each one in a different style, from traditional storytelling to a pastiche of nineteenth-century Gothic horror to trying to channel the wonderful writing style of one of my all-time favourite writers: the late, great Terry Pratchett. As any writer will tell you, they never feel their work is perfect and there are always things they would like to change, as is the case for me with this, but this is what I am unleashing on the world, and I hope you are kind with it. Writing anything and putting it out to the world is scary, wondering if people will like it, what the reviews will be like, whether it will sell well. The joy of writing is soon forgotten and replaced by worry, much like having a child and watching them finally go out on their own. All I ask is that if you read this book and enjoy it, please write a review wherever you bought it from to let others know this book is worth their time and money and, in the process, support small authors like me. Then, go and check out the other folk tale books from The History Press, all written by storytellers like myself.

For those looking for a reference section, I have toyed with the idea of this. However, while I have referenced sources and people where I can, these stories have become ingrained within me, and I would struggle to cite all the places I have found versions of them. My memory is just not that good. Keep the stories with you and enjoy finding the different versions of each out there in the wild, being told, captured in a book, or turned into a film or TV series. The influence of these stories is far and wide and far outstrips any reference list I could write.

For reading to the end of this waffle you are amazing, and I thank you. I want to also thank my long-suffering wife. As a secondary school English teacher, she is always my first port of call and my proofreader. I couldn’t have done this without you, Sam, thank you.

Anyway, enough with the foreword, let’s get into it and hear about those unfortunate folk in those stories that all end with an ‘unhappily ever after’.

THE FISHERMANAND THE SELKIE

This title story to this folk tale collection is very old. It was one of the first I heard during my career as a teacher, with a simplified version being used as a text in a traditional tales block of work. I was struck straight away by the ending and loved the nods to far more adult themes. Since then, I have tracked the story down and read and heard many different versions, but each time the central theme was the same. The story revolves around a theme of coercion and control on a very subtle basis, asking the question of whether this is ever justified, even if the outcome is a happy one.

Selkies are mythical folkloric creatures found in Scottish and Scandinavian cultures. These are gentle creatures of the deep, not to be confused with their more vicious, malicious cousins, the finn folke. They are also closely related to their more famous cousins that dwell in the warmer seas to the south, the mermaids – but more about those in a later story.

Throughout this book, I have tried to change my writing style to give each one a different feel. For this first story, I found it only fitting to use a descriptive, atmospheric tone throughout. The rugged setting of this story seemed to fit with this style. Although I never explicitly tell the reader the location for this, leaving it purposefully vague, I aimed to paint a picture of a place that people may recognise from the landscape, the trades, the food and drink and the weather. I also used traditional names from the setting. The names themselves all have meanings that reflect the character. However, the main character, the fisherman, is left nameless on purpose, giving the reader a chance to place themselves in his shoes and decide themselves if his actions and motives were justified.

He lived alone, just him and the waves, changing with the seasons. The winter brought the anger and the wrath, the summer the contentment. The fisherman led a simple life, but a mostly happy one. His cottage sat two miles from the nearest port, clinging like a limpet to the cliff. The whitewashed walls guarded the fisherman from all the sea could throw at him whilst he hid inside them. Nets hung by the cottage in the postage-stamp walled garden, carefully placed stone encircling the ledge that the fisherman’s world stood upon.

When the tide was against him, he sat and mended his nets, repairing holes from the rocks that grasped at them deep below the North Sea. But he preferred to be out there, out on the rise and fall, nothing but wood between him and the endless cold depths teeming with life and the great unknown. It was salt water that ran through his veins, not blood, topped up by whisky of an evening to help him sleep, for the land was too still and he craved the sway of the waves, the unbalance that drink brought to him.

He hadn’t chosen the solitary life; it crept upon him like fungal growth on a soldier’s damp foot. He didn’t want this single life, but this is the life he now had, and he had accepted it. Besides, he had not the time to worry about a wife or a family. The sea was his mistress. If he was not fishing or mending nets, he was sorting his catch and taking it to the port to sell. The fisherman’s catches were renowned for being the best around. He could read the sea better than any man and knew where the best fish were hiding. He would sort the wheat from the chaff, keeping the smaller fish – those he had not let free on the water – for himself. These, along with the bounty he foraged from the land’s border with the sea – the mussels, whelks, seaweeds, and samphire, to name but a few – kept him well-fed. The rest of the catch brought him a handsome return, which he would then put back into the boat, to the repairs, to the fishing nets and his cliffside safe haven.

It was late spring. The sea had turned from its angry winter brown to its settled springtime green. The fisherman had enjoyed a rare night on land due to the turning of the tide, the unfinished net repairs, and an extended day at market selling a particularly large haul from the now-calmer waters. His head had hit the pillow after the whisky made it dance, and he slept a dreamless sleep. The moon was bright and fat and round that night, its silver light bathing the shoreline, showing the secret nooks and crags to whoever was looking, casting long shadows across the rocky beach below. The fisherman never had need for curtains. Those bits of cloth delayed you from rising in the morning. If the sun was up, so too should you be, he thought, for it was rude to not greet the sun in the morning. It was the least you could do for it. However, this night, as the sun was still very much in bed and the moon was very much out and in charge, the light it reflected from its celestial neighbour was so bright it roused the fisherman, his eyes believing it was the turning of the night and the breaking of the dawn. When he peered out the window to see it was just the sleeping satellite staring down at him, he looked at the clock that ticked its tock on the wall opposite his bed. It told him it was the early hours of morning. It was too late to go back to sleep, he thought, for the sun was but a few hours from its return and, once he had woken, he was seldom able to return to his slumber. He put the kettle on – what else was there to do?

As he stood on the stone threshold of his cottage, brew in hand, he breathed in the salt air and marvelled at the warmth of the coming morning. He closed his eyes and smiled at the promise of summer. It was then, with the absence of sight heightening his senses, he heard the music. Pipes – ancient pipes, the type his ancestors played – drifted over the warm breath of the night and roused within him a long-buried pride. He opened his eyes and looked down to the bay in which his boat was moored, and was greeted by a most unusual sight. On one rock sat the shape of a person, playing the pipes whilst, in front of them, a group of people danced. Their hair was as black as coal and flowed through the air behind them like the waves of the sea. The moonlight bounced off their plump, pale skin and, even from that height, the fisherman could tell these were all women, with curves that could drive a man to madness. Although he had come to terms with being alone, it did not mean his urges had left him entirely, and the fisherman found his feet carrying him down the well-trodden path towards the bay below.

Once there, the fisherman moved like a shadow. No noise came from his feet, his form flowing from rock to rock, getting ever closer to the piper and her dancers. When he found the perfect place to spy upon the delectable sight before him, he froze and drank in the vision of beauty. The women span on tiptoes, twirling light as a feather cast from a gull’s wing in a strong breeze. Their hair was always flowing, always following, tracing their movements in the silver lunar light. It was then, several reels in, that the fisherman caught sight of them: the seal skins. They lay cast upon the rock beside the piper, silky smooth and soft with downy fur. His eyes flitted between the skins and the dancers, and a memory began to resurface, as a long-forgotten wreck is revealed during a neap tide.

He sat on his mother’s knee; the smell of salt and fish guts ever present but somehow infinitely comforting. His head sank onto his mother’s ample chest, which muffled the wind and rain outside that battered that very same cottage he lived in now. His mother’s heartbeat pounded through her ribs, her voice reverberating through her very being, and the boy listened and the boy learnt. He learnt of the ways of the sea. Not the ways his father taught him, but the hidden ways, and of the people and the creatures the fisherman don’t see but know they are there.

‘There be several types of people that call the depths their home, my boy,’ the fisherman’s mother explained in a soft, loving voice. ‘There are, of course, the mermaids… and mermen, of course! These creatures look as us humans do, from their heads to their middles, by which point their skin gives way to the most beautiful, delicate scales that cover a large tail. They live many leagues away where the water is warmer all the year-round.’

The boy nestled in closer, listening to every word. ‘Then there are the finn folk. Beware the finn folk, me lad, for they will do thee harm sooner than look at ye! Mermaids may sing to ye, lure ye to the rocks – but not all of them, only those scorned by men. Nay, the finn folk does’nae care for how good a man’s heart be, they will drag ye down to the depths and force the air from ye lungs with the sea water just for the hell of it!’

His mother’s voice spoke with a wisdom of ages, the stories and knowledge passed from folk to folk through the tales they told. This was magic; a strong kind of magic that could hold fast even the most restless of men or women and drive home even the harshest of truths, and all would listen.

‘And then there be the selkies, me boy.’ Her voice softened now after the harsh tones she used to drive home the fear you must feel of the finn folk. ‘Yes, the selkies. These are beautiful creatures that live just off our coasts. You have spied them many times before but not realised.’

The boy’s young ears pricked up. Had he really seen some of the fae folk of the ocean and not known about it?

‘They look as all can see to be seals, common or garden seals, their heads bobbing gently above the waves, watching the land folk go about their business. But –’ the fisherman’s mothers voice lowered, ‘– these are no ordinary seals! For when the moon is bright and full, the women of the group come to shore, shed their seal skins and dance in the silver moonlight all night long.’

The fisherman’s young mind spun. Could this be possible?

‘They cast off their skins, but put them back on and return to the sea before dawn. Without them,’ explained his mother, ‘they cannae withstand the cold of the depths, and would be forever stranded on shore.’

It was then, whilst the fisherman was half-drowned in thought, that she caught his eye. The woman with the green eyes; green like the sea, and twice as deep. From the shadows he saw her, lighter on her feet than all of them and twice as beautiful. The fisherman fell instantly in love. It was such a cliché, he would tell you that himself, something reserved for legends and old fishwives’ stories. But there he was, tumbling head-over-heels for a woman he had only just seen, had never spoken to, and who did not even know he existed. The fisherman had to have her for his own, to hold her, to lay with her and be whole with her.

He had tried to court a woman before, but respectable young women are hard to find in small fishing ports, for they tend to move away to work when they are able. Occasionally the fisherman would stay late after the market to have an ale or five at the tavern. He would never have to buy himself a drink. The locals knew him well and thought he undersold his fish, so they were happy to repay him with a pint or two. He would hope that a young woman might happen upon the tavern, and he may begin talking to her, with one thing leading to another, but the only woman he found in that bar was the landlady. She, although bright and bubbly on the outside, was a tumultuous bubbling inferno below the surface, ready to crack together the heads of anyone who stepped out of line or simply looked at her ample chest in the wrong way. What way was the wrong way, you may ask? Suffice to say, any way seemed to be the wrong way, so customers preferred looking directly at their own feet rather than her, in case they were mistook to have had a mis-look. Needless to say, the visual of feminine loveliness before him now was several oceans away from what he was used to.

Visions of the life he could have raced through the fisherman’s mind. A life of contentment, of warmth, of someone waiting for him on those long, wet, hard trips at sea, waiting with the fire blazing and a fresh-cooked meal waiting for him, of the warmth of a body next to him at night, of the gentle embrace of the woman he loved and of nights of passion. This merged into thoughts of children. He’d never wanted children; never seen the point until now. He imagined what his children with this selkie woman would look like. The dark hair. Would they have her green eyes or his brown? Would they share his love of the sea? Would they be tall or short, lively or thoughtful, boys or girls, or a mix? ‘What, multiple children?’ he thought. This all came like a tidal wave washing away his sanity and, in that moment of blindness, he found himself creeping forward between the rocks, to the feet of the piper and the collection of seal skins.

Behind the piper he hid, the skins in reach. In the shadowy darkness he carefully looked over the skins. The one nearest to him, as luck would have it, shared a dashing white streak down it with the vision of beauty he had fallen for. Her white streak morphed in and out of her jet-black hair as she danced, a streak kissed by the moon itself. That was her seal skin. He felt it in his bones. Out reached his hand, creeping over the rock, and it fell upon the soft skin, his fingers flowing through the down. Back he dragged it, any noise drowned out by the melancholy drone of the pipes. He slipped away then, back amongst the rocks he knew so well. Finding a hidden place beyond the high tide line, he pushed the skin within, placing a large stone over the entrance. The skin was hidden, was safe, was his.

He then crept back to the path that led from the cottage to where the selkies danced, before rising up and walking towards them as though walking to the inn at the port. The piper ceased abruptly, the drone not getting the message to stop for several seconds. The dancing stopped. For a brief moment, the group of naked women froze and looked upon the fisherman in horror before they scrambled for their seal skins, slipping them on as we slip on socks, and launched themselves, on their bellies, in seal form, towards the safety of the sea. All of them, the piper, too… all except one. The fisherman was right. He had hidden the right skin. The distraught selkie scratched around on her hands and knees where the skins had been, desperately seeking hers, glancing back over her shoulder, aware of the fisherman approaching ever closer.

‘Do you need help?’ offered the fisherman, a cracked, weathered, but kindly smile on his face.

The selkie spoke, a broken speech, stuttered and slow. ‘My skin. My skin, was here, now gone. Help find my skin.’ All the time she kept searching, looking back and forth from the fisherman to the rocks and back.

The fisherman’s eyes caught the selkie’s and he smiled. ‘Here, take my hand. We will look for it together. I understand.’

The selkie placed her delicate, soft trust in his outstretched hand and he led her down amongst the rocks to search. After some time, the selkie had still not found her skin. Now the moon was returning to its daytime home below the horizon and the sun had begun its steady march towards the horizon of the land. The black of the night sky had turned to dusty grey, and dawn was announcing itself to the world.

‘I must go, go in sea, family, family!’ The selkie pointed to the ocean, vast and endless, cold and wild, and the fisherman understood but said not a word about her skin. ‘No skin, no in water, cold.’

‘Come with me,’ replied the fisherman, taking her hand once more. ‘Come back to my house. The fire is burning. It is warm and I have clothes for you to wear.’

‘What clothes?’ Confusion crept across the selkie’s face. Her seal skin was her clothes. She needed not the bits of cloth humans on the land needed to stay warm, so knew not of clothes.

‘Come, come, I will show you.’ The fisherman led the naked woman carefully up the cliff path to his cottage. They entered the door and, quickly, the fisherman lifted a blanket off a chair and wrapped it around the selkie’s slim, bare figure, covering her skin for the first time with something other than her seal skin. It was scratchy and soft, warm and drafty, all at the same time. It wasn’t the comfort and safety of her skin, but it was calming and comforting.

‘Thank you,’ she said softly.

The fisherman sat her down on the chair the blanket came from, in front of the fire, before stoking the ash to expose the embers. He placed some more logs upon them and bellowed air to the heart of the heat, causing flames to start licking up the chimney. The selkie’s eyes grew wide with astonishment and wonder.

‘What that?’ Her voice was full of childlike wonder at the magic of the fire in front of her. She then felt the warmth on her exposed legs, creeping up, wrapping her whole body in comfort. She smiled.

The fisherman, searching for the most appropriate clothing he had for a woman, which was hard among his heavy-duty, rugged fishing clothes, paused, raised his gaze and stared at the vision before him. Bathed in firelight, her skin a delicate orange now, her green eyes sparkling with the firelight, her jet-black hair resting on her shoulder, silver streak melting into the tangle, this selkie woman was truly mesmerising.

‘What that?’ she repeated, pointing to the fire.

The fisherman snapped out of his daydream, and answered suddenly, ‘Oh, it’s a fire. It is very hot and keeps us warm. Do you like it?’

‘Yes, I like.’ The selkie woman smiled, her eyes still fixed upon the dancing flames. Everything in this strange world on land was new and exciting. She had forgotten the pull of the sea and the pain of being separated from her skin. Right there and then, with the feel of a blanket, the fire, the walls around her, the golden sunlight flowing through the window, she forgot for a moment her home beneath the waves, the cold and the dark. She forgot the towering, swaying kelp forests, and the fish, large and small. She forgot the struggle to stay alive, to fight for food and stay away from danger. This house, these stone walls with their fire and safety, was a million miles away from that world, whilst still being but a stone’s throw from it. This new world was mesmerising, safe and happy. As the fisherman began to dress her with clothes for the first time, she watched as he was forever careful to avert his gaze from her body, being respectful and gentlemanly. This confused the selkie as this was not how the animalistic, passionate selkie men acted, focused only on one thing. This is the reason the selkie women lived in groups without the men. But this man, this fisherman, was kind and gentle. The selkie felt something she had not felt before and it confused her greatly, but she enjoyed this feeling very much.