The Sea Beast

Rituals, Truths and Untruths

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

My first Sclamenfahh, the first I remember anyway, my father smiled brightly as he put the plate in my lap.

“Eat up child,” he said, “give thanks, and don’t waste.”

The Sclamenfahh in my village was celebration and feast ,the way we marked the passing of a year and the name of the sea beast a dozen men would sail out to net.

Our village, really a cluster of smaller villages on the north coast, was home to more people than I could count. I really believed it was the whole world.

I believed the Sclamenfahh was the most fearsome sea beast in that whole world, a monster with fins.