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Article: The world of the selkies.(The People of the Sea: Celtic Tales of the Seal-Folk)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Quadrant
- Article date:
- April 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Quadrant Magazine Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The People of the Sea: Celtic Tales of the Seal-Folk, by David Thomson; Canongate Classics, 2001, $30.40.
THIS BOOK was first published in 1954; this is its third edition since then. It is deservedly a classic--a most gorgeously written, elusively elegiac, delicate evocation of a vanished way of life, and an almost vanished way of thinking and being in the world. More than that, though, it is a mysterious, numinous presence that inhabits it, both attractive and frightening, grand and gentle, like the spirit of the sea itself, and the peoples that live by and with it.
David Thomson, who was born in 1914 in India, of Scottish parents, was sent during his ...