Line 8. “Mail”; scales. How could the snakes dry their mail?
Line 10. “Unshut.” Do fish have eyelids? Is a whale a fish? Does a whale have eyelids? Do most people think of a whale as a fish?
Line 18. “Sate” is an old form for “sat.” Can you find other old or unusual words or expressions? Why does the poet use them?
Line 25. “Merman.” The literature of the ancients contained frequent allusions to mermaids, who were strange creatures with heads of beautiful, long-haired maidens, but with scaly bodies and the tails of fish. In pictures they are usually represented as sitting upon reefs holding a mirror in one hand and combing their long locks with the other. Holmes, in The Chambered Nautilus, speaks of the “cold sea-maids” who “rise to sun their streaming hair.” Mermen were not so often spoken of, but there are some allusions to them. In later times the mermaids were considered more as fairies, and there were many stories of human children being taken to live with the mermaids, and of the latter coming upon land to live like men and women. There was, too, a belief that sea-folk had no souls, and that a person who went to live with them would lose his soul. The beautiful picture on page 181 shows the forsaken family.
Line 10, from the bottom. “Leaded panes.” The small panes of stained glass in the church windows are set in narrow leaden frames.
Page 185, line 4. “Heaths” and “broom”. The English and Scotch heathers are little bushy shrubs that cover the hills and fields. They bear beautiful little bell-like pink or white flowers. The trailing arbutus, the blueberry and the wintergreen are some of our native plants belonging to the same family. The broom plant is another low shrub that bears rather large yellow blossoms, shaped like the flowers of peas and beans. The old-time country-folk used bundles of these shrubs for brooms.
Line 10. There have been several allusions to tides. If the children do not understand the subject, be sure to explain how different a shore looks at high and at low tide. The change is most noticeable where the water is shallow, for then long stretches of sea-bottom may be uncovered at low tide.
III. The Story. Bring out by questions these facts which constitute the “plot,” or incidents:
1. A merman, who has a family of children (five, the artist says, page 181), has been deserted by his human wife.
2. The father and children are on shore trying to persuade the mother to return. The father feels that all must go back.