Sea Babies

This is a tale of the sea told to children as a bedtime story. I first heard it on a tape of children's stories called Elsie Piddock Skips In Her Sleep by Ellin Greene. The tale is called Sea-Babies.

Now, shut your eyes and listen while I tell you about my sea baby. I couldn't tell you when it happened, it was certainly a long time after the flood, and I know I was only about ten years old and had never left the Norfolk village on the sea coast where I was born.
My father was a fisherman and a tiller of the land and my mother kept the house and spun the wool and linen for the clothes. Our cottage stood near the edge of the cliff and at high tide the sea came right up to the foot, but at low tide it ran so far back that it seemed almost to far to follow it.
Peolpe said that once long ago the sea had not come in so close and that the cliff had gone out many miles farther and on the far end of the cliff had stood another village. But after the flood all that part of the cliff was drowned under the sea and the village along with it. And there, said the people, the village still lay, far out to sea under the waves and on stormy nights they said you could hear the church bells ringing in the church tower below the water.
Ahhh, don't you start laughing at me now, we knew it was true I tell you, and one day something happened to prove it. A big storm blew up over our part of the land, the biggest storm that any of us could remember, so big that we thought the flood had come again. The sky was as black as night all day long and the wind blew so hard that it drove a strong man backwards. And the rain poured down so that you only had to hold a pitcher out of the window for a second and when you took it in, it was flowing over. And the thunder groweled and crackled so, that we had to make signs to each other for talking was no use. And the lightening flashed so bright that my mother could thread her needle by it, that was a storm, that was! My mother was frightened but my father who was weather wise watched the sky and said from time to time "I think that will come out alright". And so it did.
The lightening and thunder flashed and rolled themselves away into the distance, the rain stopped, the wind died down,the sky cleared up for a beautiful evening, and the sun turned all the vast wet sands into a sheet of gold as far as the eye could see, yes and farther!
For a wonder had happened during the storm. The sea had been driven back so far that it had vanished out of sight and sands were layed bare that no living man or woman had viewed before. And there, far, far across the golden beach lay a tiny village shining in the setting sun. It was the drowned village of long ago come back to the light of day.
Everybody gathered on the shore to look at it, and suddenely I began to run towards it and all the other children followed me. At first our parents called "Come back, come back, the sea may come rolling in before you can get there". But we were to eager to see the village for ourselves, and in the end the big folk felt the same about it and they came running after the children across the sands.
As we drew nearer the little houses became plainer, looking like blocks of gold in the evening light, and the little streets appeared like golden brooks, and the church spire in the middle was like a point of fire.
For all my little legs, I was the first to reach the village, I had had a start of the others and could always run fast as a child and never tire. We had long stopped running of course, for the village was so far out that our breath would not last. But I was still walking rapidly when I reached the village and turned a corner, as I did so, I heard one of the big folk cry "Oh look! Yonder lies the sea". I glanced ahead and saw on the far horizon beyond the village, the shining line of the sea that had gone so far away. Then I heard another grown up cry "Take care, take care, who knows when it may begin to roll back again. We have come far and oh suppose the sea shall over take us before we can reach home". Then peeping round my corner I saw everybody take fright and turn tail, running as hard as they could across the mile or so of sand they had just crossed.
But nobody had noticed me or thought of me. No doubt my own parents thought I was one of the band of running children, so they left me alone there with all the little village to myself. What a lovely time I had, going into the houses, up and down the streets and through the church. Everything was left as it had been, and seemed ready for someone to come to. The floweres were blooming in the garden, the fruit was hanging on the trees, the tables were spread for the next meal, a pot was standing by the kettle on the hearth in one house, and in another there were toys upon the floor.
And when I began to go upstairs to the other rooms, I found in every bed someone asleep. Grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and fathers, young men and young women, boys and girls, all so fast asleep that there was no waking them. And at last, in a litle room at the top of a house I found a baby in a cradle, wide awake.
She was the sweetest baby I had ever seen, her eyes were as blue as the sea that had covered them so long, her skin as white as the foam, and her little round head as gold as the sands in the evening sunlight. When she saw me, she sat up in her cradle and cooed with delight. I knelt down beside her, held out my arms and she cuddled into them with a little gleeful chuckle. I carried her about the room, dancing her up and down in my arms, calling her my baby, my pretty sea baby and showing her the things in the room and out of the window.
But as we were looking out of the window at a birds nest in a tree, I seemed to see the shining light of water on the horizon begin to move. The sea is coming in I thought, I must hurry back before it catches us. And I flew out of the house with the sea baby in my arms and ran as hard as I could out of the village and followed the crowd of golden footsteps on the sand, anxious to get home soon.
When I had to pause to get my breath, I ventured to glance over my shoulder and there behind me lay the little village still glinting in the sun. On I ran again and after a while was forced to stop a second time, once more I glanced behind me and this time the village was not to be seen. It had disappeared beneath the tide of the sea which was rolling in behind me. Then how I scampered over the rest of the way. I reached home just as the tiny wavelets which run in front of the big waves began to lap my ankels and I scrambled up the cliff with the sea baby in my arms and got in doors panting for breath.
Nobody was at home, for as it happened they were all out looking for me. So I took my baby upstairs and put her to bed in my own bed and got her some warm milk, but she turned from the milk and wouldn't drink it. She only seemed to want to laugh and play with me, so I did for a while and then I told her she must go to sleep. But she only laughed some more and went on playing, "Shut your eyes baby" I said to her "Hush, hush, hush, hush", just as my own mother said to me. But the baby didn't seem to understand and went on laughing. Then I said "You're a very naughty baby" as my mother sometimes used to say to me, but she didn't mind that either and just went on laughing. So in the end I had to laugh too and play with her.
My mother heard us when she came into the house and she ran up to find me, delighted that I was safe. What was her suprise to find the baby with me, she asked where it had come from and I told her. And she called my father and he stood scratching his head as most men do when they aren't quite sure about a thing. "I want to keep it for my own, mother", I said. "Well, we can't turn it out, now it's in" said my mother, but you'll have to look after it your self, mind.
I wanted nothing better, I'd always wanted to nurse things. Whether it was a log of wood or a kitten or my mother's shawl rolled into a dumpy bundle. And now I had a little live baby of my own to nurse. How I did enjoy myself that week, I did everything for it, dressed and undressed it, washed it and combed it's hair, and played and danced with it, and talked with it and walked with it. And I tried to give it it's meals, but it wouldn't eat and I tried to put it to sleep, but it wouldn't shut it's eyes, no not for anything I could do, though I sang to it and rocked it and told it little stories. It didn't worry me much for I knew no better, but it worried my mother and I heard her say to my father "There's something queer about that child, I don't know, I'm sure".
On the seventh night after the storm, I woke up suddenely from my dreams as I lay in bed with my baby beside me. It was very late, my parents had long gone to bed themselves and what had wakened me I didn't know for I heard no sound at all. The moon was very bright and filled the square of my window pane with silverlight, and through the air outside I saw something swimming. I thought at first it was a white cloud, but as it reached my open window, I saw it was a lady moving along the air as though she were swimming in water. And the strange thing was that her eyes were fast shut so that as her white arms moved out and in she seemed to be swimming not only in the air but in her sleep. She swam straight through my open window to the bedside and there she came to rest, setting her feet down on the floor like a swimmer setting her feet upon the sands under her body. The lady leaned over my bed with her shut eyes and took my wide awake baby in her arms "Hush, hush, hush, hush", she said.
And the sound of her voice was not like my mother's voice when she said it, but like the waves washing the shore on a still night, such a peaceful sound. The sort of sound that might have been the first sound made in the world or else the last. You couldn't help wanting to sleep as you heard her say it. I felt my head begin to nod and as it grew heavier and heavier I noticed that my sea babies eye lids were beginning to droop too. Before I could see anymore I fell asleep and when I awoke in the morning my baby was gone.
Where to? Oh you musn't ask me that, I only know she must have gone where all babies go when they go to sleep. Now go to sleep, Hush, hush, hush, hush.





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