THE SEA-SPELL 



OLD magical writers speak of the elemental 

 affinity which is the veiled door in each of us. 

 Find that door, and you will be on the secret 

 road to the soul, they say in effect. Some 

 are children of fire, and some of air, some are 

 of earth, and some of water. They even re- 

 solve mortal strength and weakness, our virtue 

 and our evil, into the movement of these 

 elements. This virtue, it is of fire : this quality, 

 it is of air : this frailty, it is of water. How- 

 soever this may be, some of us are assuredly 

 of that ancient clan in whose blood, as an old 

 legend has it, is the water of the sea. Many 

 legends, many poems, many sayings tell of the 

 Chloinn-na-Mhara, the children of the sea. I 

 have heard them from fishermen, from inland- 

 shepherds, from moorlanders in inland solitudes 

 where the only visitors from the mysterious 

 far-off deep are the wandering sea-mews or 

 the cloud that has climbed out of the south. 



-58 



