Tradition / Region: Scottish Highland folklore
Alternate Names: Maiden of the Waves
Category: Mermaid, Salmon
The Myth
In the waters off the Highlands lives the Keask, a sea maiden with the body of a beautiful woman and the tail of a great salmon. When she is beneath the sea her hair is dark green, but when she rises into the air it turns bright gold. She wears ornaments said to come from hidden chambers beneath the earth.
The Keask can sometimes be caught by mortals. If seized, she will grant three wishes in exchange for her freedom. Like other sea maidens, she can cast off her outer fish skin and take human form. In this shape she may wed a mortal man and live among his people. Yet if she ever recovers the skin that was taken from her, she returns to the sea. Even so, she does not forget her children, and is said to guide them in storms or lead them to good fishing.
One tale tells of a Keask who swallowed a man whole. His beloved lured the creature ashore by playing the harp, and the man escaped. The Keask then seized the harpist instead. To defeat her and free the captive, the hero had to destroy her hidden life. This life was not in her body but in a separable soul concealed far away: an egg inside a fish, the fish inside a duck, the duck inside a ram, buried beneath a house in a forest on an island in the middle of a lake. When the egg was destroyed, the Keask lost her power and the prisoner was freed.
Thus the Keask is remembered as both a bride from the sea and a dangerous being whose life and power lie hidden beyond her body.
Gallery
Sources
Bestiary.us contributors. (n.d.). Keask. In Bestiary.us, from https://www.bestiary.us/keask/
Interpretive Lenses
Religious Readings
- Christian Ascetic Deep Dive
Philosophical Readings
- Nietzschean Deep Dive
Psychological Readings
- Jungian Deep Dive
Esoteric Deep Dive
- Hermetic Deep Dive
Political / Social Readings
- Marxist Deep Dive
Other
- How to Invite The Keask