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Loading... The People of the Sea: Celtic Tales of the Seal-folk (Canongate Classics)by David Thomson
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  Shanra | Jul 6, 2009 |   no reviews | add a review
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Raised among Scottish fishermen and storytellers, David Thomson was obsessed from childhood by the Celtic seal legend, the body of tales and songs about the "selchie," or gray Atlantic seal. In the early 1950's he took a journey to seek the legend out, in the Hebrides, on the east coast of Scotland, on the west coast of Ireland-places where magic co-exists with reality and pre-Christian traditions and beliefs somehow endure.
He gives us here the fruits of his search as he found it, and tells us something of the men, women, and children from whom he heard the stories. He also tells of his own encounters with seals, and the dreamlike hold that these have had on him. The result is, in the words of his friend Seamus Heaney, a poetic achievement-a work of "intuitive understanding, perfect grace, and perfect pitch."
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:54 -0400)
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Basic Reason for Finishing: It’s about so much more than selkie legends!
Texture: It’s all warm and lovely and homely and wonderful.
Full review here.
Book Rereadability: Oh, yes. This is so pretty. It’s definitely a book I’d reread (once TBR is under more control)!
Author Rereadability: If all his books have this same atmosphere, I want the lot!
Recommendation: Anyone who’s interested in Celtic (sea) folklore, seals, earlier ways of life, folklore in general, the way of a folklorist… David Thomson as a person… This is a must-read if you’re interested in any of the above. (And if you’re not, read it anyway because the whole thing is beautifully told.) (