Story Drama

Story Drama

The Mermaid Wife-   a tale from the Shetland Islands

 

Physical: Sharks  Verbal: Gibberish. Vowels only- Tell your partner  two things about yourself, introduce your partner to someone else using vowels and gibberish only. Concentration: Count circle/ Fizz Buzz/

A story is told of an inhabitant of Unst, who, in walking on the sandy margin of a voe, saw a number of mermen and mermaids dancing by moonlight, and several sealskins strewed beside them on the ground. At his approach they immediately fled to secure their garbs, and, taking upon themselves the form of seals, plunged immediately into the sea. But as the Shetlander perceived that one skin lay close to his feet,

 Show the moment where he found the skin. Bring to life. What did he do ? What were his thoughts?

 he snatched it up, bore it swiftly away, and placed it in concealment.

Where did he hide it. Show me.

On returning to the shore he met the fairest damsel that was ever gazed upon by mortal eyes, lamenting the robbery, by which she had become an exile from her submarine friends, and a tenant of the upper world. Vainly she implored the restitution of her property. The man had drunk deeply of love, and was inexorable; but he offered her protection beneath his roof as his betrothed spouse.

Paired Improvisation. A +B. Desired outcomes of each?

The merlady, perceiving that she must become an inhabitant of the earth, found that she could not do better than accept of the offer.
This strange attachment subsisted for many years, and the couple had several children. The Shetlander's love for his merwife was unbounded, but his affection was coldly returned.

Show moments in their life with their children where he tried to help her and she was not able to accept and lost something in the process. Do you think that the children had a happy life if their mother   did not like their dad .(9 am Happy moment.12am difficult moment. 3 pm  Happy moment. End with happy moment)  

 The lady would often steal alone to the desert strand, and, on a signal being given, a large seal would make his appearance, with whom she would hold, in an unknown tongue, an anxious conference.

What was the gossip bout the woman among the villagers. When they got together at the feast of Michaelemas to pay the rent there would be talk…Odd numbers are  – and even are + in attitude.

Why would she be talking to the seal man? What does /he want?

Years had thus glided away, when it happened that one of the children, in the course of his play, found concealed beneath a stack of corn a seal's skin; and, delighted with the prize, he ran with it to his mother. Her eyes glistened with rapture -- she gazed upon it as her own -- as the means by which she could pass through the ocean that led to her native home. She burst forth into an ecstasy of joy, which was only moderated when she beheld her children, whom she was now about to leave;

How did she explain her departure to the children. TIR as mermaid and children in +/- roles as children.

and, after hastily embracing them, she fled with all speed towards the seaside.

Show the view from the children’s perspective. Then the merlady’s. Group statue. Teacher  touches shoulder of each classmate.

The husband immediately returned, learned the discovery that had taken place, ran to overtake his wife, but only arrived in time to see her transformation of shape completed -- to see her, in the form of a seal, bound from the ledge of a rock into the sea. The large animal of the same kind with whom she had held a secret converse soon appeared, and evidently congratulated her, in the most tender manner, on her escape. But before she dived to unknown depths, she cast a parting glance at the wretched Shetlander, whose despairing looks excited in her breast a few transient feelings of commiseration.

What do you think she said to him as she sank to the depths of the sea?

"Farewell!" said she to him "and may all good attend you. I loved you very well when I resided upon earth, but I always loved my first husband much better."
That night the fisherman had a dream and an angel came to him. What did the angel say? DO this as a ritual  “you will be Ok “- Each person writes one thing on a sheet and passes it on. We then make a shape to express that word. We then in a circle say out word and make our shape in community. Music may be added.

 How do you think the story ended? In small  groups Show the Man among the villagers, his family  ,mermaid- a year later.

• Uist is the northernmost of the Shetland Islands.
• Note by Douglas: A voe is a deep inlet, or creek.
• Source: George Douglas, Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales (London: Walter Scott Publishing Co., 1901), pp. 153-155.
• Douglas's source: W. W. Gibbings, Folk-Lore and Legends, Scotland (London, 1889).