In summer the sun slants across the garden, but the drawing-room smells of rose and of potpourri and is always cool. In the drawing-room you do not forget about the sea.

From Chapter 1 of The People of the Sea by David Thomson

This book was not written recently and it shows (in a good way).

The People of the Sea is a form of a travelogue, or perhaps I should say it’s a collection of stories about seals and/or seal people. But despite this being a journey around Scotland and Ireland to collect stories, and despite this being inspired by an event in his childhood, this is not an introspective travel book. There is no purpose to the journey other than “I want to collect stories about seals and see them” and the reflections on similarities between seals and humans will be made by the reader, not the author.

Given all the memoir-nonfiction hybrids that I’ve seen, where the author’s experience is centered (or it’s a more academic work), this is a really refreshing change.

Each chapter of The People of the Sea starts with a deftly sketched picture of where Thomson is and who he’s with, and then the conversation just takes over. We hear about tales, some recent, some not so recent, about people and seals, why killing seals may not be great, and even stories that go beyond “seals may have human form” to “I met a seal in human form”. It’s all written down in the speaking style of that area, which makes it a bit harder to understand but extremely immersive and very lyrical.

At the end of the book, Thomson shares some songs and interesting tidbits that he read about the seals. Some of the songs come with scores, so if you can read music, you can play them and hear what they are supposed to sound like.

If you are interested in folklore and about the tales of seals and selchies, this is a book that you should be reading. I think Thomson did a really good job preserving the stories as they were told and this will be a great addition to any collection of folklore.