– a collection of sea stories – imagined, remembered and carried

Scéalta na Mara forms the first act of Book of the Sea – an art book in two parts.

The book itself explores an imagined island group and its people, weaving together narrative and visual art, with the second act focusing on the present day.

Scéalta na Mara (Act I) focuses on the past. It sets the foundation. The artistic goal is the creation of a new folklore about an island group that was shaped by the sea and by the eagles that inhabited the shoreline.

Inspired by sea and island legends as well as by Celtic and Norse mythology, the goal for the development of this book is twofold — to weave art and story and to blend the imagined with the inherited.

If you would like to contribute to the process, you are very welcome. The project is very much in the early stages, so all ideas are welcome!

Contributing authors and sources will be fully credited and referenced throughout.

Some thoughts…What are some of the ways that that the sea influences folklore, legend and language? How does it inspire a culture and a community?

Please feel free to be as creative as you would like. It is from imagination that the greatest stories take flight.

Thank you for participating.

Sincerely,

Eabha

Tapadh Leat!

Responses

(shared with permission)

I am interested to learn more about Alna’s discoveries on Eilean Teine, which I believe translates as Fire Island. Could there have been a beacon there at one time, one that was kept lit by the islanders? My little piece of research tells me that before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were often guided by fires built on hilltops. (Cait)

Thoughts in Return 

(from journal entries)

Saltwater Reflections

Ambling through spaces and places, whose histories are re-imagined, it is the artist shaking up the old, repositioning the lens and building a story inspired by purposeful drifting to create and explore new worlds.

The beauty of the journey is that the familiar is refurbished while we engage aesthetically with what is seen and felt. It is a reminder that knowledge and beauty are best experienced through exploring the stories echoing within before they are lovingly given wings.

Abandoned Mines

An archipelago of silver lakes, phosphoresecent rain puddles stretch like stepping stones along the cliff edge. Thinly traced lines link old mining villages of the Copper Coast.

Fringing steep precipices above the Atlantic, we nervously edge past mine shafts and crumbling walls.

Rumours of an ancient church keep us searching for imprints upon stones tumbling towards the sea.

Imagined lakes

Of copper and silver

Scattered fragments

Frozen in time

Shallow tunnels

To vanished worlds

Whisper in colour

As light drowns earth

(the second entry from a walk along the Copper Coast, County Waterford, Ireland, where a metal mining industry flourished in the mid 19th century)

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_{© Eabha Rois, 2026}