9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Before she knew it, the tide had turned [br]and Solanna had lost her sealskin.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And not only that, now she had [br]arms and legs and feet like a girl.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She looked around frantically[br]for her sealskin,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
couldn't see it anywhere [br]for an age,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and then, looking out to sea, [br]she saw it, bobbing on a big breaker

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
before it went under [br]and disappeared.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She tried to swim after it, [br]but not being a seal anymore,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
she couldn't get past the waves[br]and was thrown back on the sand.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She started to cry loud [br]pitiful wails for her mother,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
hitting her new legs and stamping [br]her new feet

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and waving her long, [br]terrible human arms

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and then she saw her mother [br]skim across the waves

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
with four salmon between her teeth.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
"Mummy!"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Solanna roared into the wind [br]and tide, but it was useless.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It was as her mother had told her.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now, she was a seal maiden.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Alone and naked in a terrible body [br]that her mother would never recognise.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Even her voice [br]didn't sound like her own.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She watched her mother disappear [br]around the edge of the cliff

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and wondered, would [br]she ever see her again?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It was dark when the fisherman [br]found the sealmaiden.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She lay on the sand asleep [br]with seaweed in her hair

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the sea in her dreams.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
He gathered her up and carried her[br]to his house along the shore

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and dressed her and fed her [br]and tried to make her talk.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The seal maiden wept and sang [br]and slept through days

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and nights that seemed to go on forever.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The fisherman watched and waited.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
He had heard of creatures [br]like her before,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
creatures that come up out of the sea

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and are stranded here among us, [br]lost and miserable.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
He was kind to the creature and [br]taught her all he could about the earth.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
At night, he could hear waves crash [br]and roll in her heart, louder than the waves down at the shore. The sound of the tide in her made him sad for he knew that this little seal maiden ached to be among her own kind.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But he was powerless to help her, not knowing where her sealskin was or how he might find it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
He noticed the only thing that brought her out of herself was music so he played his fiddle for her and sometimes she would sing for him all the songs she had learned under the waves.