Storybook Plan

For my storybook, I plan on writing over the drama of the folktales in many different mermaid variations. Including mermaids, selkies, and melusines. 

Some sources I could use are:

Popular Romances of the West of England collected and edited by Robert Hunt. Specifically the "Romances of the Mermaids" section. This source applies to the original mermaids.

Orkneyjar, a website on the heritage of the Orkney Islands.  This source applies to a variation of mermaids, selkies.

Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts edited and/or translated by D. L. Ashliman. Specifically, the subsection focusing on Water Spirit Legends. This source applies to a variation of mermaids, melusines.

Some specific stories I could use are:

Mermaid stories:

"The Mermaid's Rock."

"The Mermaid Wife."

Selkie stories:

"The Goodman O' Wasteness."

"One Spared to the Sea."

"The Selkie Wife."

Melusine stories:

"Legend of Melusina."

"The Legend of Beautiful Melusina," the Ancestress of Luxembourg Counts.

Some of the main ideas I wish to discuss through my storybook project are the themes of longing for a true home. Control, the lack of it that many of the mermaids have over their own lives and how men exercise it to keep them as their wives. Obligation, which many of the mermaids feel towards the children they bear on land, but even stronger to the sea, which they take pride in being a creature of. And finally, freedom, which many of them receive upon abandoning their families on land and returning to the sea. I may refine this a bit or add more to it as my storybook develops.

Some storytelling ideas I had were to connect each of the different variations by making a male protagonist that somehow falls for one of each species. I also thought of maybe connecting through a lineage instead of a single protagonist, perhaps a man meets a normal mermaid, she bears him children, and she leaves him to return to the sea. Then one of his son's falls for a different mermaid variation, or simply interacts with one. This is just a way to connect all the stories in a way that gives me a little bit more freedom to play around with the overall plot of the storybook, allowing me to not have to plan for potholes that could accompany a single protagonist. 

Another idea would be to make it more of an anthology, showcasing the lust many different men display towards mermaids through these dramatic stories, trying to maintain a sense of similarity in the stories of the different variations through emphasizing the themes. 

(A Mermaid by John William Waterhouse, Source: Wikimedia)