The wild Atlantic waves crash and break on the silver sands. The scene is eternal. It has not changed in centuries. Oh, her moods and colours and movements may vary, but her final destination remains the same.

This place is beautiful, desolate and deserted. The haunting, plaintive cry of the seabirds, the roar of the rolling waves and the howl of the incessant wind are the accompaniment to this unending dance.

Deserted?

No. A lone figure sits amidst the grassy dunes, still as a statue. He stares to the sea, hour after hour, day after day, year after year. His body is hunched but seems impervious to the biting chill,

His face is lined, sadness etched into each of these lines. His eyes are piercingly blue as they scan the mighty ocean. He is waiting, watching, but what for?

It is Hogmanay.

~~~~~~

Twenty-five years earlier.

It is the millennium. The dawn of a new century. Across the island, ceilidhs are being held, celebratory bonfires lit, and a feeling of optimism has gripped this remote island community in the far North of the British Isles. The modern world has been slow to make its presence felt here. Many young people have left for the bright lights of Aberdeen, Glasgow, and even London. The ones who remain are deeply attached to their island way of life. They have no wish to leave.

Earlier on, before midnight struck, on Hogmanay, the tradition of telling tales of the past was held.

This year, Morag told the tale to the islanders gathered in the pub, a converted Blackhouse complete with peat fire and thick stone walls. In her lilting tongue, she told the tale of the Selkies, the Maighdeann-roin.

Selkie is Scots for seal. These creatures could transform from shy seals to beautiful females who could come ashore, shed their skin, and have relationships with humans.

Legend has it that many did come ashore. Local men would be entranced by their beauty; they would make love in the dunes or on the shore by the waves. The selkie would shed her seal skin and reveal her nakedness, her perfect breasts, her long, shapely legs, her hair cascading down her back. Their faces were beautiful with eyes that saw into your soul and lips that kissed with a sweetness that would never be forgotten.

When the young men fell into a deep sleep after making love to this dream, this fantasy female, the Selkie would don her seal skin and slip back under the waves, to her life in the sea.

Some, however, were cursed, trapped into marriage. One young man did not fall asleep; the Selkie did. He hid her seal skin and she could not return to the sea. He loved her dearly, and she loved him. They married and had a child. Legend says the child found the hidden seal skin. It was beautiful, soft as a whisper. He asked his mother what it was. She loved her husband and child, but the Song of the Sea was too strong, and that night, she left her home, husband, and child. She donned the skin and entered the sea, never to be seen again.

As Morag ended her tale, the hushed silence was broken by the clock chiming midnight. A new century was here. The music and dancing began.

One young man, Donald, quietly slipped away. Morag’s words followed him. He had heard the tale once before as a small boy. Again, it was Hogmanay in his grandmother's Croft. The adults thought he was asleep in the rugs in the nook by the fire. He wasn't. The memories flooded back. Legend had it that the young man was one of his ancestors. The thought would not leave him. He left the village and headed across the machair to the shore. The millennium bonfire was still burning, the glow illuminating the beach, which was now devoid of people. Donald could not get the story out of his head. This was the year 2000, the era, the start of the noughties, the Millennium Dome, Coldplay, Devolution, a watered-down independence, Tony Blair; it wasn't the world of Myths and Legends. Was it?

Donald sat on a flat rock staring into the embers of the fire, brooding. He loved his island life. He had his house near the beach. His long-term partner had left last year. The lure of life in the city proving stronger than their love. He wasn't as sad as he should have been. He liked living alone. He worked from home, too. He designed computer games. Truth was, he was a solitary person. Oh yes, he had friends and family, but he often went days without seeing anyone.

A movement on the shoreline caught his eye, a shadow, a whisper. He rubbed his eyes. How many drams had he consumed? His imagination was running riot. Standing by the waves was a naked female. She was staring at him with a smile on her lips.

“Donald McLeod. You came as was foretold “.

She walked, glided, flew; he couldn't be certain, to his side. She held something in her arms; it was soft and sleek. She laid it on the sand and bade him remove his clothes and join her. If this was the whisky talking, Donald didn't care. A beautiful creature with perfect breasts and legs leading to heaven, with the face of an angel, wanting him to get naked with her, didn't happen every day. If it were a dream, he'd make the most of it!

He lay down on the smooth, silken fabric. He did not feel cold, despite it being Ne’er Day in the Islands.

He turned to the bewitching beauty at his side

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“I am Fenella. You know me. We have met in dreams. I am of the maighdeann-roin. I will come to you. It was foretold that this would be our first meeting. When the old century dies and the new one is born. Do not try to hold me. I am not of your world.” Her words were spoken in an enchanting lilt, a melody, a song of the sea.

Instinctively, they turned to each other. They stroked and caressed with a gentle touch, exploring each other with a newness and wonder and reverence. Yet a voice in Donald’s head, was it the whisky?, said this would not be their first coupling. Her kisses were sweet, her skin tasted faintly salty, her eyes were a shade of green like no other. Her silver hair flowed over her exquisite body.

When they came together, the world stopped, time stopped. He would never be the same again.

He fell into a deep sleep. When he wakened, he was alone. She had returned to the sea. All trace gone.

Had he imagined it all? He was fully clothed. He made to leave when he spotted something lying on the sand.

The most perfect white shell. It seemed to whisper her name when he held it to his ear.

He stood and scanned the waves, but she had gone.

~~~~~~

Fenella often came to Donald that year. She would enter his dreams. He would rise from his bed and go to the shore where she waited for him.

He was sorely tempted to steal her skin and keep her for himself on land, but he had promised.

It was the first Hogmanay of the new century. Donald was not with the revellers. He waited on the sands. The full moon cast a silvery light on the unusually still sea and sands.

Fenella emerged from the water, carrying her precious seal skin. She looked different. As she came closer, he realised. She was with child; his child. Love and wonder filled him, and his tears flowed freely as they embraced and made love to the waves, the song of the sea, the song Donald listened to from his treasured shell.

Dawn on the first day of the year came. Again, Donald woke alone.

Fenella would never return.

~~~~~~

The present, 2024

Donald grieved. He never gave up hope. He went to the shore every day. His treasured shell never left him. He would call her name, the only answer the cry of the sea birds.

Again, it was Hogmanay. Donald sat amongst the dunes, as he had done every year. His dreams of Fenella had never returned , but last night he dreamt of a silver seal with bewitching green eyes.

But were they? They changed to piercing blue. The old year passed into history, and the new one was born. Still, he sat and waited and watched. His face was lined with sorrow, although he was not yet fifty years of age. He knew he would never see another changing of the years. Another dream had told him his time on earth was nearing its end.

His heart was broken and could beat no longer.

He closed his eyes for the last time when a sound, a melody, made him open them. There on the shore stood a figure. Not naked, clothed in silver, carrying a seal skin. Had he died? Was he hallucinating? The figure approached him, familiar but different—the same beautiful face, silver cascading hair, but piercing blue eyes; his eyes.

Immediately, he knew this was the child he and Fenella had conceived, his daughter.

Twenty-five years.

She smiled and spoke gently to him.

“I am Iona, your daughter. The time has come for us to meet. Fenella never left you; she died when I was born. The price she paid for loving you.”

She softly kissed his brow. His eyes closed for the last time. A smile on his lips, a tear on his cheek.

Gently, Iona wrapped him in the silken seal skin and carried her father home.