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ABOUT THIS BOOK

PUBLISHER: Canongate Books

FORMAT: Paperback

ISBN: 9780857861856

RRP: £10.00

PAGES: 304

PUBLICATION DATE:
August 18, 2011

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The People of the Sea: Celtic Tales of the Seal-Folk

Seamus Heaney

Stewart Sanderson

David Thomson

David Thomson visited the remote sea coasts of the Scottish Isles and the West of Ireland on journeys in search of the legends of the selchies – mythological creatures who transform from seals into humans. A magical world emerged, in which men are rescued by seals in stormy seas, take seal-women for their wives and have their children suckled by seal-mothers. Mysterious and fascinating, these stories retain their spell-binding charm through Thomson’s beautiful prose. The People of the Sea is a timeless and haunting book, rich in rewards and surprises.

Reviews of The People of the Sea: Celtic Tales of the Seal-Folk

Readers will be carried away on successive waves of pleasure … these stories have an irresistible holistic beauty — Seamus Heaney A splendid resurrection of a life that has almost vanished * Daily Telegraph * I know of few books which so ably open a window on the Gaelic scene today or which so faithfully reflect the mind, vigour and courtesy of its people … Pounds on the imagination like surf on a reef * The Observer *

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Seamus Heaney

David Thomson was born in India of Scottish parents in 1914. On returning to England, much of his childhood was spent in the country, in Derbyshire, and at Nairn where his grandparents lived. While still a student at Oxford he took on work as a tutor with an Anglo-Irish family in County Roscommon, where he eventually stayed for almost ten years. Later, he joined the BBC and wrote and produced many distinguished radio programmes, including The Irish Storyteller series and a number of documentaries on animal folklore. He left the BBC in 1970 in order to write full time. He died in 1988.