Author’s Note 

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Bersaba of Poldhu was created in the spirit of pre-Enlightenment folklore, fairytale and mythology. 

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After I had thoroughly researched how the Enlightenment changed these genres from free-flowing streams of solipsistic reality into an “explicitly bourgeois socialization process” (Jack Zipes, Fairy Tale theorist), I wanted to create a folktale that embodied my settling for the pre-enlightenment style. I would make it my mission to re-claim narrative for its original purpose and reject the totalitarian, re purposing of Folktales in the Enlightenment. 

  

I would write a folktale without the purpose of civilising or moralising a generation, with freedom and without labels or logic. In that vein, a set of folktales that really inspired me was the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, collected by Antoine de la Sale in 1486. 

 
 

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Chapter One
 

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The furious, cold, blue erupts and sprays into a dirty white foam, coating the sand struck curves where she kisses the Cornish shores… 

Meanwhile, specks of sand scratch the bearded face of Costentyn, a solitary fishermen standing on the cliff face against the thrashing spite of a fierce storm. In the cold wraps and turns of the Cornish Sea he noticed a jade-coloured, glisten between the foaming breaks. His eyes follow it tightly as it tosses and rallies its way up to the Cornish shoreline. 

As soon as he sees it beach, he abandons his look out spot and runs down over the dunes. He wades through the gathered broths of foam. At first, he thinks it’s the storm misting his site. But as Costentyn strode closer it focused into reality. What lay before him, whimpering in a concussed haze was half woman, half fish. He hauled her out the water, the great scaled tail was difficult to grip with its layers of fishy slime and the weight was enormous. 

It took Costentyn a couple of hours to get it up into a sheltered alcove of the dunes, where he fell to his knees, gazing briefly at the astounding creature that lay before him. Long curls of wiry dark hair framed her face and fell graciously across the dark skin curving around her plump breasts. Her tummy button was peculiar, she had an ordinary one like you and I, but when Costentyn looked closer, he saw two decorative moon crescents that circled it. Costentyn puzzled at the spectacle a while longer before falling into the palm of the sandy alcove and into a deep sleep. 

The hissing wind clapped his ears and woke him briskly, but the early morning still felt far from day, the storm hungover the town, a fierce wind blew Costetyn’s smock and the fog made it difficult to understand what had happened. 

The woman had gone, nowhere to be seen, he must’ve hit his head trying to get home and dreamt this vivid reality, he thought to himself. He wasn’t worried either way as he was too desperate to flee the storm and get back to his cottage in dunes. 

As Costentyn got to the flattened grassland at the end of the dunes he stubbed his foot and then slid, falling flat on his face. As he rolled over, a slimy gloop trailed his cheek and he opened his eyes to the tessellating, jade scales of an enormous fish. He leaped up, terrified. And as the wind lapsed, the imagined tail revealed its material reality. 

Costentyn fell to the sand, clawing the grains. Terrified to touch the two-meter scaled flesh tail in front of him. He sat for hours, so long that the storm passed. He observed carefully, it frightened him. It was so enormous, glistening in what was now the clear sunlight, the moisture that enveloped it was viscous and lucid, an extracellular fluid, not unlike saliva. The cold winter air seemed to make the scales shiver individually. Writhing in its cold tones the layer shook like congealed jelly. 

Eventually the night began to approach and Costentyn felt he had no option, so he prodded the shivering form with his index finger. To his surprise the gelatine sucked his finger in then began to crawl up to his outer knuckle, too enamoured by the spectacle, Costentyn forgot to experience the fear, but quickly he snapped out of his entrancement, pulled his fin- ger away and made a dart for the outer dunes. But as he was clambering up, he heard a small call. Like a puppy’s moan. He froze and turned, then as he scanned down from the thick top of the scaled form to the finely laced scales building up its fin, he noticed the curved edge of the fin pawing at the ground. 

Costentyn fell out of himself, he became completely unaware of himself and his surroundings, unanchored from it all. He looked out to the sea and took five deep breaths, he closed his eyes and re-calibrated, going through his body, making sure it was all part of reality. He wiggled his fingertips and as he slowly opened his eyes onto the seaweed entwinned sand, then he turned. But the tail was there, and it was moaning like a small puppy, digging little holes with its fin. 

Costentyn began to slowly walk away but the dull moan grew with every step. Costentyn didn’t feel he could leave it there and so formed a plan. The fishing cabins were in a lock up on the outside of the dunes, he would run home and get his keys and truck then drive back and get a big trawler net from the cabins, he could then use that to trap the tail. He could put it in his bath and return the net before high tide when the fishermen would be back there. 

The plan was faultless and Costentyn executed it without hiccup. Once home he sat back on his worn driftwood pew, pressed up against the Cornish dry stone walls of his cottage, it was cold and he knew he should lay a fire but his body was empty, he had hardly slept and been wading through oceans and storms, plus the weight of Tail was so heavy. A basking shark had once hit the side of his small lugger off the coast of Porthcurno and the weight he could feel through the rocking of the boat was very similar to the weight of the tail, his arms were limp and he eventually fell into a deep sleep, only waking in the freezing dawn, when he carried himself up to his bed and still fully clothed, kicked his wellies off and climbed under the woollen blankets. 

 
 

  

 

Chapter Two 

  

  

Costentyn woke, feeling refreshed and rested, the sun was halfway through its cycle and Costentyn, astounded as he hadn’t slept so long since adolescence rose and went down his tight, wooden staircase. He lit a fire and went across the room to fill his kettle from the steel tap next to the door. He hung it above the fire and rested back into the rich brown of his pew, the St. Senara church had replaced all the woodwork after a worm infestation and Costentyn had managed to salvage this pew from the debris. It was a truly beautiful pew, rich in deep brown to burnt orange, the worn edges of the soft wood allowed for shadows to elegantly fade tones into one another and what remained of the carvings was effortlessly curvilinear and the movements of the carver could also be seen in the mark making. To take the cold off the stone slabs and soil, Costentyn had laid wraps of burgundy, rust, and brown colours wools on the floor, so worn now, the fibres had blended into the warm wraps of each other. As the light of the fire flickered off the pew and the wool, the tones danced in the wealth of their range. 

The kettle began to whistle and Costentyn poured the hot water into a wooden whittled cup then returned upstairs to bed, to let the fire warm the house. As he sat listening to the relentless wails of his watery mistress, he circled his finger round the rim of the cup. Thoughts turned to high tide; he began calculating when he predicted it to be when his peace was interrupted. 

Huge thunderous wallops echoed, he feared for the fragile wooden interior, imaging a seal pup must’ve become disorientated and hauled himself up the wrong direction of the beach. But the thuds were getting louder, surely a seal pup wouldn’t think to climb the stairs? But then it came, the ‘orgling’ cry that flooded his settled mind with crashing memories of the night before. 

Fear clasped the wooden cup tightly when the door creaked open, and lilac, green scales of a glistening tail fin wrapped around a splintered stalk of driftwood. The orgling humbled sympathetically, as if it was trying not to alarm Costentyn. As it slowly, lolloped in the room it edged back into the corner, although the room was small this was appreciated as it eased any feeling of threat. It sat, plump side down, rolls of emerald, glistening scales sitting into each other. The awe began again, until eventually Costentyn began to orgle. 

At first, he orgled so silently, embarrassed of himself but then as he heard a gentle murmuring rise, he started to orgle louder, affectionately. Then Tail moved closer, but its rotund, singular form meant its movements were so thrustful and erratic, it frightened Costentyn, who jumped back in his sheets and felt the cold crags of his bedroom wall press into his muscular pale back. 

The thin, ribbed fins of Tail curled in and drooped, saddened by Costentyn’s distance. Having sensed Tail’s disappointment, Costentyn crawled forward and lay flat on his tummy, his head rested in the diagonal corner closest to Tail. He began to hum and murmur an old sea shanty that he once sang to his childhood dog. 

Tail unfurled himself from its twisted slump and unroll toward Costentyn, who gradually gestured his arm out towards Tail. As the sea shanty came to an end they were only inches apart. Tail let out the slightest orgle and Costentyn touched the thin fibres of Tail’s fin. Lilac and light green dashes and spirals echoed and rumbled through the viscous layer of Tail. 

Costentyn stroked the squishy pale blubber before beckoning Tail closer. Like a huge heffalump, Tail crashed into the side of the bed. Costentyn held Tail at the by the middle and heaved it up, onto the bed. 

Costentyn, sat with his legs dangling over each corner of the bed, whilst tail plumped in the middle. They explored each other, tapping and teasing, at first curiously, but then it grew into play, Costentyn giggled to himself as Tail tapped his knees with each tail fin and Tail let out a low chuckling grumble when Costentyn’s prod wobbled his tummy scales. 

Eventually the two relaxed down and embraced, Costentyn lay on his side, hugging Tail, who when laying flat, returned to his great length and rested its fin on Costentyn’s shoulder. They lay like this for some time, thoughtless as one is when content with a long-time lover. 

An hour had passed when Costentyn’s tummy began to join the rumbling and murmuring. He climbed out of bed and went down to have some bread, using an old rag to flick the slime off before slicing it. He closed his eyes and felt the warm licks of the fire on his face, then orgled up to Tail who clumsily lolloped down the wooden staircase and plonked in front of the fire by a crouched Costentyn. 

 

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Chapter Three 

  

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It had been three days since Costentyn had last been fishing, just before spotting the mermaid. In that time Tail and Costentyn had begun to live as one, sleeping in a congealed embrace, playing in front of the fire and even once, wandering along the beach together. 

They had been isolated, amongst the dunes in the dry-stone cottage, Costentyn had built for himself many years ago. 

Until today, when a bruised and completely naked woman came across the sandhills, she had lengths of matted brown hair and sun kissed skin, she also had the strangest belly button, like two crescents circling a full moon. She wandered toward the cottage, the brown clumps of hair blowing across her face, but her eyes didn’t deviate, she appeared to have encountered horrors and was on a straight path to this cottage. When she got close, she began to ease her pace, she noticed a flicker of light and leaped back, around the corner. 

Traumatised from the last three days the young woman peered cautiously, she looked in and saw the fin of a huge lilac and green tail feeding bread to a broad shouldered, bearded, fisherman, the two were wrapped in a deep brown and red woollen throw, in each other’s worlds. 

The man smiled into the flaky, thin ribs of the tail fin and a post card fire glowed behind them. The woman was filled with comforting memories of days gone by, she thought back to when she had a tail, when they met on the very beach she washed back up on, Poldhu Cove. Then the crashing memories of the fisherman who pulled her out of the mouth of her watery home. 

In a flash of realisation, it struck her, this was that very fisherman, and that is her god damn tail! She couldn’t believe it, in the fury she forgot about the horrors instilled in her by the men of land and burst through the door. 

“I am Bersaba and that is my Tail!” 

Costentyn dropped the bread right out of his mouth and turned to face her. He couldn’t believe it, it was her, the woman from his dream that night on the dunes. It was real, but how had the two separated? He wandered. 

“We were inseparable for years and I see you in the throws of another! Treacherous tail!” 

Tail curled the ends of his fins and bashfully faced the woollen rugs on the floor. Costentyn and Bersaba both looked at their naughty lover and a symmetrical feeling of warmth shooted up through them. 

Costentyn, full of sympathy and love, walked over to her and included her in his brown and burgundy, woollen wraps, he took her over to the fire before Tail rolled over to them and they began an embrace. The layers of greens and lilacs enveloped them, for hours they lay by the fire, exploring the beautiful wonders of one another, before feasting on bread and wooden cups of hot water. 

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The End.