Feb '19 / March '19 Lite Challenge: The Seal Woman

[AtTheShoreline]

For this challenge (my first one!) I'll do a map of the village where the folktale of the seal woman is set. This is a tale I have heard my mother tell several times but it wasn't until I started googling yesterday that I found out it's a Faroese folktale. Apparently, there's even a name for the village it's set in, the version I've heard has always been in "in a village, a bit like this one". For those interested I found it online here.

A five sentence summary (spoiler warning): It's about a seal that takes off her seal skin to dance as a human and it gets stolen, forcing her to remain human. The person who stole her skin marries her and she lives as a human for a years. She manages to regain her skin and returns to the sea. Her human husband later kills two of her seal pups and her seal husband despite her warning. She curses the village so that people will die until there are so many of them that they can reach around the whole island if they link hands.

Style idea: I'm thinking about doing this in a very two-dimensional style, partially inspired by the Bayeux tapestry. This will mean all people and animals drawn in profile, houses showing only one side, boats directly from the side and the scale of things might get weird to show details. As I've always associated the story with viking times I'll also take some inspiration from that.

Things to be shown in the map: Obviously, I need to include seals and a village. I'm still unsure how to distinguish the ill-fated farm house. Other than that, I'll do some mountains, a river with a waterfall, fishing boats and probably some farmers.

Here's a picture of the sketch I'm working with:
### Latest WIP ###
sealwoman-sketch.JPG

[Llannagh]

Nice! This looks already pretty medieval-ly. I used to read a book about the Bayeux Tapestry when I was a kid, so I have a fairly good idea about what to expect. It is definitely a nice choice for a style!

That folktale sounds pretty damn dark. Then again, being from Germany, I shouldn't point fingers, since the Brothers Grimm are also pretty... grim.
I personally like the finnish tales, though I do not know many of them. One of my favorite bands is Amorphis, btw. They used to base their lyrics on the finnish national epic Kalevala and now have a poet write their lyrics who is heavily influenced by the Kalevala and the Kanteletar. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

Really looking forward to see how this'll work out! Best of luck!

[Kellerica]

I'd never heard this story before, thanks for bringing it to my attention! Interesting tale.

You have some cool ideas for this one. I look forward to seeing it come together!

Edit: Ninja'd by Llannagh! And I'm pretty sure you are right on Amorphis. I was planning to maybe do something Kalevala inspired for this challenge, although I'm not sure. I'm kinda torn between that and going with something from the Pentamerone...

[Llannagh]

I am officially a Ninja now! Nice! Good luck to you aswell Kellerica! I am thinking of participating aswell with something local from where I live... but enough with spamming AtTheShorlines post!

[AtTheShoreline]

Nice! This looks already pretty medieval-ly. I used to read a book about the Bayeux Tapestry when I was a kid, so I have a fairly good idea about what to expect. It is definitely a nice choice for a style!

That folktale sounds pretty damn dark. Then again, being from Germany, I shouldn't point fingers, since the Brothers Grimm are also pretty... grim.
I personally like the finnish tales, though I do not know many of them. One of my favorite bands is Amorphis, btw. They used to base their lyrics on the finnish national epic Kalevala and now have a poet write their lyrics who is heavily influenced by the Kalevala and the Kanteletar. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

Really looking forward to see how this'll work out! Best of luck!

Thank you! I relly like the style of the Bayeux tapestry, especially the boats and the weird trees.

Yep, it is a very dark tale indeed! I actually know annoyingly little about Finnish folk tales and Kalevala, I'm much more familiar with norse legends and Eddan. But some of the ones I've read are indeed fascinating! Basing the lyrics on Kalevala sounds amazing, I trust your and Kellerica's information on this much more than mine, so no correction from my part

I'd never heard this story before, thanks for bringing it to my attention! Interesting tale.

You have some cool ideas for this one. I look forward to seeing it come together!

Edit: Ninja'd by Llannagh! And I'm pretty sure you are right on Amorphis. I was planning to maybe do something Kalevala inspired for this challenge, although I'm not sure. I'm kinda torn between that and going with something from the Pentamerone...

Glad to spread this interesting story I'm definitely not unbiased in this but doing something from Kalevala sounds great!

[Bogie]

This sounds very cool, and you are off to a real good start with your first challenge!
Thanks for joining us and getting the challenge started.

[AtTheShoreline]

This sounds very cool, and you are off to a real good start with your first challenge!
Thanks for joining us and getting the challenge started.

Thank, you! I'm very excited to see if my ideas will work in practice.

[PaperGriffin]

Nice start and I really like that waterfall.

The folk tale reminds me of Selkies from Scottish mythology. I never knew there was a Finnish version of the myth, so I learned a new thing today

[AtTheShoreline]

Nice start and I really like that waterfall.

The folk tale reminds me of Selkies from Scottish mythology. I never knew there was a Finnish version of the myth, so I learned a new thing today

Thank you! Actually, it's not Finnish but Faroese (sorry if that wasn't clear), so there probably is a connection to the selkies of Scotland.

[Kellerica]

That is the cool thing about folklore stories - they travel and evolve and get adapted and mutated along the way. And the story obviously had made its way to Finland too, if your mother told it to you. Or is she or are you originally from Faroe islands?