Animal Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland by Sharon Jacksties

Author:Sharon Jacksties
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press

The Otter King

King Cormac had four children, but his only son had died as a child. His daughters roamed the realm together as they pleased, a delight to their father and a joy to the people.

It was the custom after Beltane, May Eve, for the king to journey throughout the land in the summer months. The weather being exceptionally fine for the season, and the queen being in failing health, it was decided that for once they would set off earlier. It was not this break with tradition that concerned Cormac, but leaving his girls unattended on May Eve – that unchancy time when the veil between this and the Other World is thin. The day before his departure, he took his troubled thoughts on a walk around the great lake that lay beneath his fort.

In the slanting sunlight he saw a great ring of ripples and wondered what creature could be large enough to make it. When a huge round head appeared in their midst, it seemed for a moment that he was looking at an immense eye on the surface of the water. The head was too large even for a bull seal that occasionally swam upstream into the lake chasing salmon. It was then that Cormac remembered the stories of the Otter King. The monstrous head drew nearer and he knew the tales to be true as king stared at king, blue eyes to black and black back to blue. Then, sinuous as a snake, King Otter threw back his head and yawned. Cormac glimpsed the voracious crimson throat fringed with its dagger-sharp teeth before it dived. On returning to the court, he summoned his daughters and forbade them ever to swim in the lake.

Spring had come early and was warmer than some summers.

The girls soon tired of their usual games – playing hopscotch backwards over lark’s nests, swapping gull’s eggs on the sea cliffs and rolling cuckoo’s eggs down weasel’s burrows. Beltane dawned already hot; the sky stretched tight with the heat of August. Copper clouds thickened and even the cuckoos fell silent. How Cormac’s daughters longed to swim. They remembered their father’s command, but what was the harm in swimming where they had swum so often before? When it was dark, they slipped away without telling the servants where they were going.

As they reached the centre of the lake, the storm broke and the water was instantly churned into waves that slapped at them from all directions. Tiring fast, they struck out for the shore that they could now only see in the lightning flashes. The youngest sister was not strong enough to keep up and became separated from her sisters. For a moment she was reassured by the sensation of a body swimming alongside her, but suddenly there came a foetid smell of fish as she felt the back of her neck being stabbed by sharp rows like a huge and savage comb. Still clasping her neck, an immense weight was bearing her down beneath the surface, where she felt her body pierced as if by a blade of fire.

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