Sebastian Hayes

There was once a woman married to a king but he died before she had born him any children. The cousin of the dead king seized the throne and commanded her to spend the rest of her days in a house by a lonely seashore. Each night, when she watched the gulls flying back to their island out to sea, she said to her companions how much better was the life of a gull than her own.

One day, as she was sitting alone on the beach, a large gull alighted in front of her. ‘If you leave your window open this night,’ it said to her, ‘I will come and take you away from here.’ But the woman was afraid and bolted her window.

The next day the same gull came again and settled down in front of her. ‘I will come again for you this night, but if you close your window you will not see me again for a whole year.’ But the woman was afraid and bolted her window.

The next day no gull came to settle in front of her, and Lorella, for that was her name, regretted bitterly what she had done. That night she dressed herself in her finest clothes, decked her bedroom with lilies, and lay down to sleep with the window wide open. But no one came, not that night, nor the next, nor any night for a whole year.

In the end she lost count of the days, but still she dressed herself each night in her finest clothes, combed her hair and surrounded her bed with lilies, and lay down to sleep with the window wide open. One night  she was awakened by a tall, fair-haired man dressed in a cloak of white feathers. ‘I am the King of the Gulls,’ he said and she looked up at him with wonder.

‘By night I have the shape of a man like all my people, but by day I am a gull. As you have waited faithfully  for a whole year, this night I will  take you away from here if that is what you wish. But you must know that once gone from here, you will never see dry land again, except the bare rock where I and my people live.’ ‘It is no matter,’ said Lorella, ‘for I long to be away from this world where everyone I care for is now dead.’

So the Gull King told her to lie on his cape of feathers, and when she awoke she heard the billows roaring and the cries of thousands of birds roosting, and all around her was the ocean, without sight of land. Then the Gull King alighted on the island and led her into a great cavern where there were many people, both men and women, all dressed in white and surpassingly beautiful. And the Gull King showed her to his people, and told them that she was to be their Queen.

At first Lorella was pleased with her new life, for there was feasting and dancing every night and singers and jugglers and story-tellers and all manner of entertainments. But each day the gull-people assumed their bird forms and flew away towards land. ‘I have gained nothing by coming here,’ Lorella complained to her husband, ‘and have only exchanged one prison for another.’  ‘But you yourself chose to come here,’ said the Gull-King, ‘and for all my power I cannot give you the ability to change your form within your present life. And we ourselves may not stay here during the day on pain of death.’

A year later Lorella gave birth to a girl-child, but took no pleasure in it because it was born half a gull and half a human being. ‘This is a child of sorrow’, she said to her husband, ‘and ill luck will follow it all its life. I shall call it Amouetta which in your language means halfling, since it neither belongs wholly to your world nor to mine. And everyone will look upon it as a monster.’ ‘Not so,’ replied the Gull King gently, ‘for although I cannot give this child the power to change her form, I have an ointment here which will turn her into a gull completely or into a human being. It shall be as you wish.’ ‘Oh, change her into a human being,’ cried Lorella, ‘for then at least she will be able to keep me company during the day.’ ‘It shall be as you wish,’ said the Gull King.

And he sent Amouetta to sleep and rubbed her  body with the ointment so that she turned into a human baby. But when he reached the feet there was no ointment left so that, although lovely to look at in face and body, Amouetta all her life had the webbed feet of a gull, and instead of toes she had claws. ‘What have you done?’ cried Lorella in despair. ‘The child is more of a monster than ever.’ ‘What has been done is done,’ said the Gull King sadly, ‘and now there can be no further changing.’

Lorella was nevertheless pleased to have the company of her daughter, and taught her to read and sew and sing, and all things that a human being needs to learn. And she found that Amouetta was a quick pupil and a pleasant companion, but each time she caught sight of her feet Lorella became exceedingly vexed. She made Amouetta wrap up her gull’s feet in bandages during the day, though Amouetta could never understand the reason.

And the time came when Amouetta had grown to be a young woman, and Lorella said to her husband that it was no life for Amouetta on the Island of Gulls, and that she must go to dry land and mix with her own kind and marry like everyone else. But the Gull King said that no good would come of this because of her webbed feet and that one of his own people would marry her. ‘But I do not want my daughter to live as I do, a prisoner on the Island of Gulls, never seeing my husband except by night,’ cried Lorella.

And from that day on Lorella secretly began collecting up feathers left on the island by the gulls and with them she fashioned two boats, one for herself and one for her daughter. When the boats were ready she gave Amouetta a sleeping-potion that would make her forget all her life up to that moment, laid her down in one of the boats, and stitched her clothes onto the feathers while she was sound asleep. Then she herself lay down in the second boat, attached herself as well as she could, and cut the moorings of the two boats. The waves took the boat with Amouetta asleep in it far from the island, and a current carried it safely towards land. But the other boat was dashed against the rocks, and Lorella was drowned.

The boat of feathers bore the sleeping Amouetta to a little bay, where a poor fisherman lived with his wife. When he saw the boat of feathers he called to  his wife to come and see the strange thing that the sea had cast up on the beach. And when the fisherman’s wife saw a beautiful young girl lying there fast asleep in the boat of feathers she said at once to her husband that since she could not have any children, this girl must have been sent to them in answer to their prayers. Then  the fisherman and his wife carefully undid the stitches and carried the sleeping girl into the house.

For seven days Amouetta lay without moving and each night the fisherman’s wife washed her and changed her bedclothes, and spoke to her as if she were talking to  her own child. In her sleep Amouetta murmured strange words half in their language and half in one the fisherman’s wife did not understand. But she grasped that the girl’s name was Amouetta. One night she showed Amouetta’s gull’s feet to her husband but he said it was no matter. And during all this time, when he was out at sea, the fisherman noticed a great gull circling above his boat, and every time he followed it he was led to waters that were exceedingly abundant in fish.

On the eighth day Amouetta awoke and looked around her with astonishment. Then the fisherman’s wife saw that she had no memory of her previous life and so she and her husband pretended that she was their real daughter who had been lost at sea and nearly drowned. Amouetta at once took to her new life in the little cove, and since it was summer used to go out in the early morning to bathe and at evening she would wave from the beach when she saw her adoptive father’s boat returning to land. And when she saw thousands of gulls flying out to sea at evening she asked her father where they were going. ‘They are going to the Island of Gulls,’ he said ‘where they spend the night’. ‘And have you ever been to the Island of Gulls?’ asked Amouetta. ‘No,’ replied the fisherman, ‘for although once upon a time it is said human beings did visit it, there is no one alive today who has ever been there or even knows where it is. They say that anyone who sees the Island of Gulls will be cured of all his sickness and trouble.’  ‘Is that so?’ said Amouetta.

‘But why do you not have feet like mine?’ she asked her new mother one day, catching sight of her washing herself. The fisherman’s wife did not know what to answer. Then Amouetta understood that she was different from other people, and whenever people came to the little cove to buy fish she made haste to cover her feet with bandages. But when no one was there she ran about as before, as she saw that her parents did not take any heed of her gull’s feet. She learned from her father how to mend nets, and became very skilful at this work. She liked to stretch out torn nets between two pines that overhung the beach, and while she worked she often sang strange songs to herself in a language the fisherman did not know and whose meaning Amouetta said she did not know herself or where she had learned them. And the fisherman’s wife marvelled at the beautiful voice she had. In this way seven years passed in happiness.

The King who had seized the throne and exiled Lorella had a son, Peter, who was still unmarried. Although a brave warrior and a fine horseman, his great interest in life was music and he always said that if he married his wife would have to be a skilled musician and singer. One day Peter announced that he was going to give a great feast to which he invited all the girls in the kingdom who considered themselves good singers, and he promised to marry the girl who was esteemed the best, no matter what her origins.

It so happened that when the festival began the fisherman was in the capital with Amouetta, having taken her there for the first time to show her the marvels of the great city. And since Amouetta was herself fond of music he took her to  the singing contest which was open to the public.

For three days the King’s minstrel played many well-known melodies on his

harp, and young women sang to them. But although several had good voices, the judges were not satisfied, saying that no girl had distinguished herself above the others. Then Peter commanded the minstrel to play an air of his own devising to which the singers must put their own words. But the minstrel played an air that was so strange that no girl dared sing to it. Then Peter dismissed the contestants and told them to prepare a song during the night and return the following day.

During the evening Amouetta and her father came across the King’s minstrel in the gardens sitting on a bench in the palace gardens and out of curiosity Amouetta asked him where he had learned the last air he had played, since it sounded strangely familiar to her. But the minstrel said he doubted very much that she had ever heard it, for the melody had come to him in a dream, and he had never played it in public before. He had no idea what country it came from nor what the words meant, but he added that he always called it, he knew not why, ‘The Lament of the Gull King for his Lost Daughter’.

While Amouetta was in conversation with the minstrel, Peter, the King’s son, came upon them unawares and overheard something of what they were saying. He was at once struck by the beauty of the young girl, and asked her if she came from a foreign land and that was why she recognized the song. Amouetta blushed and tried to move away, but Peter, smiling, blocked her path and repeated his question.

In the end Amouetta admitted that the song seemed familiar. ‘And yet,’ she added, ‘I too must have heard it in a dream for until yesterday I never left the little cove where I live with my father and mother.’ ‘But since you recognize the melody’ said Peter, ‘if you hear it again, you will perhaps be able to recall the words also,’ and he ordered the minstrel to go and fetch his harp at once.

At first when the minstrel began to play Amouetta kept her mouth firmly shut, but suddenly without thinking she began to sing in a quiet voice, using words belonging to an unknown tongue but which fitted the melody exactly. When she had come to the end Peter complimented her on her voice and said he hoped to see her the next day at the contest.

When, the following day, Peter commanded the minstrel to play the strange air, still no one dared to sing to it for they all said that the music was unlike anything they had ever heard before and must come from a distant land. This displeased Peter greatly, and he told them that they were not true singers if they could not sing to a new melody. And he added, looking straight at the fisherman and Amouetta, that there was in this very hall an untrained singer who could do better than any of them. And he commanded Amouetta to come forward. Everyone noted the extreme beauty of the young girl, also her poor clothes and awkward manners.

At first, when the minstrel once again played the air, Amouetta stood there foolishly with her mouth firmly closed, and many people in the audience frowned, thinking that the unknown girl no more knew how to sing to this air than the others. At this moment there was a sharp repeated sound from high above and everyone looked up in surprise. On the ledge outside the great window of the hall was a large gull that was tapping at the glass with its beak. Several people in the audience laughed, saying that this must be a new singer come to take part in the contest. But Peter, becoming suddenly angry, called for silence and once the gull had flown away, he asked  the minstrel to play for the last time.

And then everyone was astonished because the unknown girl in the poor dress began to sing in words that were strange to them but which they had seemingly heard before, as if they were in a language that at one time everyone knew but had since then forgotten. And when Amouetta had finished singing, no one moved for a long time in the immense hall, and many in the company were weeping, so strange and sad was the song she had sung. And the judges announced at once that the unknown girl in the poor dress alone deserved the prize and Peter said in front of everyone that he would make her his wife as he had promised.

But even as he spoke, Amouetta and her father stole out of the hall and were lost in the crowd, and that very night they returned to their home in the little cove by the seashore for Amouetta was sure within herself that no good would come of this marriage and her father was of the same opinion.

When Peter discovered that Amouetta had disappeared he had the city searched, but his agents found no trace of her anywhere. And from that time onwards he lost interest in music and gave himself up to more manly pursuits which pleased his mother. But all the high-born women his mother found for him he refused, saying that since he could not have the woman of his choice, he would have no other.

One day, several years later, Amouetta was gathering kindling in a pinewood overlooking the cove, when she came across a clearing facing the sea and a log-hut in it that had not been there before. A peasant happened to be passed by with a donkey and, in answer to her question, he said he did not know who was living there. ‘But,’ he added, ‘for sure it must be some great lord to judge by the respect shown to him. The rumour is that he is a warrior mortally ill of a battle wound in his chest and he has come here because it is said that from this cliff edge it is sometimes possible to see the Island of Gulls.’

Amouetta felt pity for the wounded man, stole up to the door of the hut which was slightly ajar and since there was no one in sight, pushed it open. A man lay stretched out on the bed beneath the window and, to judge by his appearance, he did indeed seem to be on the point of death. Amouetta sat down on a stool beside the bed, and began to sing in a soft voice a song in the strange language like the one she had sung in the capital.

As she sang, the man awoke and turned to face her. At once she stopped her singing and for a long time neither of them said a word. Then Peter reached out and seized Amouetta by the wrist, and said that providence had brought them together again for a purpose and that he would never be cured of his wound unless she agreed to marry him.

‘If I agree,’ said Amouetta at length, ‘it will be on one condition that will appear strange to you. You must never ask me to reveal my feet to you and even when we are man and wife I shall keep them wrapped up in bandages.’ Peter smiled at this, saying that this was a very easy request to grant, thinking to himself that Amouetta had some trifling defect which she greatly exaggerated and which in time she would forget about. ‘Very well,’ replied Amouetta, ‘but I warn you that if ever you break your promise, some calamity will befall you.’

After this Peter quickly recovered from his wound and married Amouetta in great pomp and circumstance despite the disapproval of his mother. And soon afterwards the old king died leaving Peter to be ruler of the country. And Peter regained his old love of music and made the court a  place of music and dancing though his wife never sang or danced in public.

Peter had a small castle built on the promontory in place of the log-hut so that his wife could go there to visit the fisherman and his wife whom he naturally believed to be her real parents. While staying at the castle during the following summer, Amouetta rose very early in the morning and went down  to the little cove to bathe, just as in the days when she lived with the fisherman and his wife. One day, when Peter was walking along the beach with Amouetta later in the morning, he remarked to her that, to judge by the traces in the sand, there must, apart from her, have been a large bird that came down from the castle to have an early morning swim. At this Amouetta went very pale and for several days afterwards she stopped swimming.

But one morning it was so hot that Amouetta could not sleep and when dawn broke she could not resist going down to the beach. Peter, awakened by  his wife, himself got up, dressed and followed after her, keeping well out of sight. Amouetta had already taken off her garments and the bandages from one foot when she heard the warning cry of a gull and, looking up, caught sight of her husband hiding behind a pine tree, staring straight at her.

‘So you have broken your vow!’ she cried angrily. ‘But do not think that I have anything to be ashamed of!’ And with this she tore the bandages off the other foot as well and stood there naked with both feet uncovered for him to see. Peter came forward, begged his wife’s pardon and protested that his love for her was as great as ever, but in his heart of hearts he was horrified to think that the Queen of the whole country was such a monster.

From that moment on the character of the King changed and he became given to sudden fits of anger and violence. The next time they were at the castle he went up to a little room at the top of a tallest tower and at evening when the gulls flew back in their thousands he amused himself by shooting at them with his crossbow and every time he brought one of them down covered in blood he laughed heartily. One day in the early afternoon when he had drunk even more than usual he tore a great battle-axe down from one of the walls and the servants scattered in terror. He went straight to his wife’s bedchamber where she was resting, shouting out that he had come to cut off those ugly feet of hers.

Amouetta leapt out of the window and ran down to the little beach hoping to take refuge with the fisherman and his wife. But Peter followed her, whirling his battle-axe above his head, and in her flight Amouetta tripped over one of the nets lying on the beach. Peter had by now nearly caught up with her and he shouted out once again that he would cut off her ugly feet. Gripping his battle-axe with both hands, he held it high above his head but in doing so he uncovered his chest, and a great gull came swooping down out of the sky and pierced him in the heart with its yellow beak, so that he fell to the ground covered in blood.

Amouetta was taken from the beach in a faint but the secret of her gull’s feet was now known. When Peter eventually died because the gull’s beak had opened up his old wound, his mother had Amouetta charged with being a witch, and she was condemned to spend the rest of her days in the little room at the top of the  highest  tower in the little castle overlooking the beach. But although she could see from the tower the cottage where she had once lived, she never caught sight of the fisherman and his wife as they had both died broken-hearted because of what had happened. And not long afterwards the King’s minstrel died also.

Amouetta spent her days standing at the window and staring mournfully out to sea and on very clear days she fancied she could make out in the early morning mist the shape of a great rock which must be the famous Island of Gulls that no living person had ever seen. And every time she saw the gulls flying back to their island home at nightfall, she said out loud how much better was the life of a gull than her own. One day, as she was standing there gazing out to sea, a large gull alighted on the window ledge in front of her. ‘If you leave your window open tonight,’ he said, ‘I will come and take you away from here.’  That night  she left her window wide open and was awakened by a tall, fair-haired man dressed in a cloak of white feathers. ‘I am the King of the Gulls,’ he said and she looked up at him with wonder.

‘By night I have the shape of a man like all of my people, but by day I am a gull. I will take you away from here if that is what you wish. But you must know that once gone from here, you will never see dry land again, except the bare rock where I and my people live.’ ‘It is no matter,’ said Amouetta, ‘for I long to be away from this place where everyone I care for is now dead.’

Then the Gull King told her to lie on his cape of feathers, and when she awoke she heard the billows roaring and the cries of thousands of birds roosting, and all around her was the ocean, without sight of land. Then the Gull King alighted on the island and led her into a great cavern where there were many people, both men and women, all dressed in white and surpassingly beautiful.

As soon as the company saw them enter there was great rejoicing and a minstrel struck up a melody on his harp that was much the same as the strange air to which Amouetta had sung so many years ago, except that it no longer sounded sad but exceedingly gay and light-hearted. And when he had finished Amouetta asked the name of the song, and he told her that in her language it would be known as ‘The Homecoming of the Gull King’s daughter’. ‘Would you like me to play it again?’ he asked. ‘Yes, yes,’ said Amouetta. And as soon as he struck up once more she burst into song putting words to the melody, but this time she understood the meaning as well, and saw that the song recounted all her previous life on the Island of Gulls and that the Gull King was her very own father. And from that moment onwards Amouetta became, like the others, a human being completely by night and a gull completely during the day.

Note : This story was given as a performance at the Poetry Cafe Betterton Street, Covent Garden, on Jan 20  2010. Many thanks to the Poetry Cafe for making the site available and to Roxane Nash for singing the Hebrideean Gaelic folksong Eilann Scalpaigh chosen by the composer John Baird.

This  is the first of a number of storytelling performances that will be given during the course of the year at the same venue, most stories having appeared in The Foundling and Other Stories (Brimstone Press, 2003).