Goodman o' Bellerose

Many years after the death of Jean-Luc Bellarose, the Bellerose empire of wealth and luxury began to crumble. The curse cast upon the Bellerose bloodline led to recklessness on behalf of the Bellerose men. None of them had a head for logic and the deal made with the devil by Jean-Luc gave them terrible luck in their lives.

There is, however, one member of the Bellerose family that escaped this treacherous fate of failure, Nicolas Bellerose, better known as Goodman o' Bellerose. He fled his family after the death of his father, Jean-Luc Bellerose. He was determined to stay single due to the horrors love caused his father and the rest of his family. He was unaware that his mother was a Melusina that cursed the entire Bellerose bloodline. He simply thought she left Jean-Luc to raise their children on his own, leaving the family in ruins in doing so.

Nicolas moved to a small town in western France, Brittany. He moved there in hopes of escaping the curse put on his family. He lived a humble life and told no one of his royal roots. The Goodman was a handsome man and managed a very profitable farm in his region of France. He managed to not be found out as royal, despite his last name.

However, he was not immune to the town gossip; many women took issue with his stubbornness in remaining single. To them, he was the town's most eligible bachelor — someone as good-looking as him with such a stable income, how dare he commit the sin of celibacy! His insistence on remaining single was a crime against humanity in the eyes of these women.

The Goodman remained unfazed by this gossip and went about his life. This caused the gossip to fade quickly. When his friends genuinely asked him why he would never wish to take a wife, he proceeded to tell them,

"There are plenty of trials and tribulations in life. A wife would simply add to the list. If that old fool Adam hadn't been tricked by his wife Eve, he might still be in the Garden of Eden."

An old woman overheard him.

"Be careful with your words, boy. You talk like that and you're gonna end up jinxing yourself," warned the woman.

Nicolas brushed her off and went on discussing nonsense with his friends.

Time went on and one day, while going for a stroll on the beach, the Goodman saw a number of selkies sunbathing naked with their seal-skins carelessly strewn about. Something came over him, and he began to creep up to the group, enchanted by their beauty. Overcome by instinct, he bolted for the seal-skins.

Many of the selkies frantically picked up their seal skins and were able to safely retreat to the sea but the Goodman was able to pick one sealskin up that belonged to a beautiful seal-maiden. She forgot to grab her skin before diving back into the safety of the sea.

Grinning, the Goodman retrieved the seal-skin and began to make his way home. The selkie began to follow him, weeping sorrowfully, begging for her seal skin back. She broke down, wailing and holding her arms out, pleading for the man to return her skin back to her. "Oh handsome man, if you have any mercy in your soul. please return to me my seal-skin. I cannot live amongst my own without it."

The Goodman was not generally a tenderhearted person, but he took pity on the seal-maiden. However, the emotion of pity was accompanied by that of an even more tender emotion: love. The heart that had yet to love a mortal woman was enchanted by the beauty of this seal-maiden, and he wished her to be his wife.

The Goodman eventually got the selkie to reluctantly consent to be his wife. She didn’t really have much choice because he refused to give her the seal-skin back, and she couldn’t return home without it.

So they got married, and the selkie turned out to be a wonderful wife. She was thrifty, frugal, and kind. She bore him seven children, four boys, and three girls, and they were the most beautiful children in the town. The family seemed content and happy. However, looks can be deceiving. The selkie wife longed to return to the sea, her true home.

One day, while her husband was out fishing with some of their children, she searched all over their home for her seal skin. Her youngest daughter Lucy found her frantically looking all over the house.

"What are you looking for, Mama?"

The selkie wife's head snapped up to meet her daughter's gaze. "I'm looking for a beautiful seal skin so I can fix the hole in your shoe, sweetheart," lied the selkie with a smile.

"I've seen that before," said the daughter. "When you were gone last week, and Daddy thought I was asleep, I saw him pull it out and look at it for a little bit. He put it back above the bed where I couldn't see it anymore," revealed the daughter.

The selkie clapped for joy and quickly retrieved her skin. However, she did not leave before bidding farewell to her daughter, "Goodbye, my sweetheart. I love you very much but I was never meant to be your mother. I belong elsewhere." She kissed her on the head and made her way out the door.

She ran towards the sea, throwing her skin on in the process. She was sad to leave her daughter but overjoyed to return to her people.

While in the ocean, she found her husband on the boat with the rest of her kids. She jumped out of the water, shouting at him.

"Farewell, Goodman o' Bellerose. I liked you because you were good to me, but I love my husband from the sea more!"

The once happy family never saw the selkie again. The Goodman was miserable for the remainder of his life, failing to escape the Bellerose curse after all.

Author's Note:

This is a reimagined retelling of a selkie tale titled "The Goodman o' Wastness." This tale follows the basic structure of many selkie tales: a man steals the seal-skin of a selkie, forcing her to be his wife. She bears the man's children, and she is unhappy with her life on land. The selkie wife longs for her true home, the sea. When he is out she frantically searches for her skin, which she finds, and then she rejoins her kind in the sea, going back where she is meant to be. She of course loves the children that she has during her time on land, but that love does not overtake the longing she feels every day towards the sea and others of her kind.

Essentially the only thing I changed about this story was the main character's name and origins. I intertwined the Bellerose plot with this story, connecting it to the previous story in my storybook, "Melusina and the Duke," without compromising the integrity of the original tale at all. It is in this first story post origins that we see the mermaid suffer due to the actions of one of the Bellerose men. Her freedom is taken from her and used as a tool to manipulate her into marriage. The curse put on the Bellerose men does not only harm them but many of the mermaids that fall victim to the side effects of this curse.

Picture Information:

"The kiss of the siren" by Gustav Wertheimer (Austrian, 1847-1904), Web Source.

Bibliography:

"The Goodman o' Wastness," by Sigurd Towrie. Web Source.