Daughter of the Angry Waves

Her father was a god.

Her father was Manannan Mac Lir; the feared and hated god of the angry waves. So the art and craft of the changelings were not unknown to her. Indeed, she had made those arts her own especial study over many aeons of unrecorded time.

Her own true form was more fantastical than the one in which she appeared on the shore that morning.

In reality, she was a creature of myth. Of dreams. Or of nightmares.

On that day, she appeared as a beautiful young woman. More attractive than the average girl, perhaps; but still convincingly human.

She wanted to see what she had been missing in the human world, so she spent several days, wandering round the villages near the sea, talking to the people she met there. She talked to them about their lives and listened to their hopes and dreams. She soon realised that the people of the villages on the coast had a very hard life. They tried to live off the sea, as best they could. But a lot of the time, the sea lived off them.

Every year, more and more fishermen were being killed as they worked and every year there were more and more families left behind to keen and to mourn. She soon understood that the sufferings of the people was caused by her own dear father; Manannan.

They told her that; every night, in the sounds of the crashing waves washing and rewashing the shore: they could hear the dark and mocking laughter of the god. They could hear him…and they hated him.

But she loved her father; as you love yours, as I love mine: so she decided to go home and convince him to end the people’s suffering.

She was just about to step back into the sea, when she saw a young fisherman. No-one special, or magnificent; just a callow young fisherman. And she fell in love with him, there and then.

In that instant, she forgot all about her father and the suffering he’d caused. She forgot about her immortal life amidst the angry waves and her place in the Kingdom of her Father and the craft of the changelings that had given her the form she now stood in.

She could see and think only of the fisherman.

They got married and had seven strong, capable sons. The sea-god’s daughter and her fisherman lived happily for many years together, raising their family. And when the sons were old enough, the father took them out on his boat and they soon became the best fishermen on the coast.

Then one day, the wife was sitting on the cliffs overlooking the shore; watching her husband and her sons at their work. As she watched, a spear-shaft of sunlight pierced the clouds above the water; and in the sky-wound, she saw a vision of her father, Manannan. She could hear in the crashing of the waves; washing and rewashing the shore: the snatch of an ancient song her father had sung to her in childhood.

And what have you to fear, my child
Upon an inkblot swell?

In that moment, she remembered who she had been; the daughter of Manannan, Princess of the Angry Waves: and she felt an all-powerful need to go…back to the Kingdom of her Father. She remembered the art and craft of the changelings which she herself had studied over many aeons of unrecorded time. She remembered…that this was not her true form.

She looked out at her family, to the men she had loved…and saw them for what they truly were: human, mortal…and unworthy. She walked down to the edge; where the crashing waves were washing and rewashing the shore: stepped into the water, dropped her human form and went home.