Macalester College DigitalCommons@Macalester College English Honors Projects English Department Spring 5-1-2015 A Song Only Dead Men Know Cassidy Foust Macalester College,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/english_honors Recommended Citation Foust, Cassidy, "A Song Only Dead Men Know" (2015). English Honors Projects. Paper 32. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/english_honors/32 This Honors Project - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the English Department at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. 1 A Song Only Dead Men Know Cassidy Foust 2 One In old maps, the sea drips off at the edge of the parchment in what is supposed to be the end of the world. Mapmakers would draw monsters here: great sea beasts and serpents with mouths tall as a ship’s mast; winged harpies, their talons raised; beautiful sirens, selkies, and mermaids, their soft lips parted in deadly song. These were always Marin’s favorites, these wicked women, these horrible temptresses. Her grandfather, a grizzled old man who had once served as a mapmaker to the King of England himself, would set her down on his knee and unfurl long parchments of map, teaching her the names of all the waterways as her fingers traced the faded ink. “That’s the Irish Sea,” he would say, “It swirls down towards Europe right past the Salinges.” “Have you ever seen a selkie, Granddad?” Marin would ask, thumbing over the creature’s hair as if she could draw it into life.