Scotland's Storybook: stories in English (1.1 - Education Scotland

speed. The hunter held on tight to the stranger, until eventually the horse
slowed down and stopped.
The stranger turned around to the hunter and said, ‘Here we are. You can get
off the horse now.’
The hunter clambered down from the back of the great horse, but to his
amazement there was no one there but the two of them. They stood at the top
of a high cliff, and the stranger pointed towards the edge and said, ‘Look down
there.’
The selkie hunter stepped towards the edge and peered over to see what it
was that the stranger was pointing at; but he could see nothing. The cold, grey
sea churned below them, but there was no sign of a ship or land or anything,
just the deep, cold sea. Suddenly, the hunter felt two strong arms clasp around
him as the stranger leant forward and pushed him over the edge of the cliff.
They fell, the stranger still holding him firmly in his grasp as the air rushed past
them. The selkie hunter was terrified; he was sure that he was going to die. The
two of them plunged deep into the water, which closed over their heads far
above them. The hunter tried to struggle, panicking as he expected the water to
choke him at any moment, but to his amazement he found himself able to
breathe as easily as if he had been on land. Down and down they went, every bit
as fast as when they had fallen from the cliff top, down to the bottom of the sea.
The selkie hunter saw a great door appear from out of the depths and it opened
to allow them to enter a great hall. There inside the terrified hunter saw that it
was full of selkies, all weeping and sorrowing like the end of the world had
come. The hunter turned to the stranger to ask him what all this meant, but to
his horror he no longer saw a tall handsome stranger, but a selkie staring back at
him. He walked forward, through the great hall and past all the grieving selkies,
and he knew that these must be the selkie folk that he had heard of in the old
stories. He turned his head and saw that there was a large mirror hanging on the
wall, but it wasn’t his own reflection that looked back at him, but the face of a
selkie. He looked at his hands, but they were gone; in their place was a pair of
flippers with long nails. This was almost too much for the poor man to bear, but
the stranger patted him on the shoulder, as if to comfort the poor man. All the
selkie folk had such sad eyes, but there was compassion in them for the poor
man who stood transformed amongst them. Then the stranger stepped forward
and held out a great knife for the hunter to look at.
‘Do you recognise this knife?’
The selkie hunter felt his blood run cold, for there before him was his lost
knife. He could no longer look the selkie man in the eye, and he turned his gaze
to the floor.
‘Yes,’ he said, in nothing more than a whisper, ‘that is my knife.’
62