What take place when scientists at ocean chance upon a mermaid ? Helen Keeble ’s gorgeous brusk tale about this strange encounter has been nominated for a World Fantasy Award , and now you could scan it for yourself .
Photo byWaltzing Ghost .
Keeble ’s news report , which first appear last year in Strange Horizons , is call “ A Journal of sure event of Scientific Interest from the First Survey Voyage of the Southern Waters by HMS Ocelot , As follow by Professor Thaddeus Boswell , DPhil , MSc -or- A Lullaby . ” It ’s a wonderful induction of the form of sea story Herman Melville might have tell , if he ’d been concerned in mermaids and science , rather than sperm whale and seamen .
Here is how it begin :
Monday , 27 Maius , 1831 AA
By providential providence , we enamour the mermaid with neither loss of liveliness nor injury to any seaman , nor any trauma done to the specimen . So easily we might have make it her by without even noticing her ; but the crisp young eyes of Small Jack espied her as she lay all in sleep at the surface of the sea . The near Captain gave the order to turn , and to espouse a surreptitious plan of attack , and never have my scholarly centre seen such a display of unison and musical harmony as the work done by the gob , all in silence so that only the humming of the wind in the rigging gave any hint of our approach . Stealthy as her namesake , our loyal ship Felis pardalis crawl through the wave ; and so we come across the maid all unawares , dream in the midst of her dark-green nets , with her hair spread like sunbeams . speedy as a cat-o'-nine-tails with a goldfish , we snap her up with the catch - net , and though she thrashed like a profits - full of Clupea harangus , the brave seamen managed to wrestle her under my direction down to the hold and into the await specimen jar .
I must commend the excellent craftsmanship of Messrs Jameson & Wright ; though the glass shiver in its frames under the mermaid ’s powerful tail and the atomic number 26 bar across its mouth shake in her apprehend hands , the shock stay inexorable . Never before can any man have behold a mermaid so distinctly - and how much more dynamic , vivacious and thrilling is the living specimen compared to those sad stuffed and dry out skins back at Oxford ! What come out at first glance to be a perverted mixture of fish and high priest reveals itself under scientific examination to be as well - designed as any pocket - sentry , surely demonstrate beyond all dubiety that the mermaid is one of God ’s own dear creations , and not ( as Prof. Greene hypothecate ) the fast descendants of those who failed to encounter refuge on Noah ’s Ark. She is somewhat larger than I had anticipated , perhaps some twelve feet in sum ; although luckily most of that is tailfin , which age and moth must have eaten away from the save stiff in the University archive . I now see that those dead specimen were greatly distort by the preserve cognitive operation , for whereas they had twisted limbs and simian features , my specimen - my specimen ! How it thrills me to be able-bodied to drop a line those words at last!-possesses slender shoulders as well - proportioned as any maiden ’s , and the elegant curve of her supercilium signal an admirable cranial content . The initial indications are excellent indeed .
I confess that through our retentive ocean trip I have sometimes found myself losing faith in my own possibility - who am I to scar my feeble thoughts against all the weight of orthodoxy?-but as I stare now upon the specimen I am filled with renewed vigour . I can not wait to begin .
Read the restat Strange Horizons !
( And if you like it , considerdonating to Strange Horizons , which is run entirely by Tennessean . )
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , skill , and acculturation news in your inbox day by day .
news show from the future , deliver to your present .
Please select your hope newssheet and submit your email to upgrade your inbox .
