At first it looked like a scrap of black leather lying on the rock beside the water, something weathered and discarded by the tide. Only when I picked it up did I realise what it was: an empty skate egg case, one of the so-called mermaid’s purses that sometimes wash up along our shores.
Its occupant had long since gone.
There is something quietly moving about finding the remnants of a beginning. This small, leathery case had once been a nursery, a protective chamber in which a young skate grew, hidden from sight in the dark waters of the sea. Somewhere, perhaps months ago, the tiny creature emerged and slipped away to begin its unseen life.
All that remains is the empty cradle.
I found myself thinking about how often we encounter only the traces of things. The split seed case hanging from a stem. An abandoned bird’s nest revealed when the leaves fall. The empty chrysalis clinging to a twig after the butterfly has gone. The world is full of evidence that something remarkable has already happened.
In folklore, these strange cases were called mermaid’s purses because people could not imagine what creature might emerge from such an object. The mystery invited stories of sea maidens, hidden treasures and enchanted beings from beneath the waves. Perhaps the name endured because it preserves something we risk losing as adults: the willingness to let mystery remain for a little while.
Iain McGilchrist has written that the world is not simply a collection of things to be identified and explained, but a place that continually exceeds our understanding. Holding this little black cradle from the sea, I was reminded that there are lives unfolding all around us that we never witness, transformations taking place beneath water, beneath leaves, beyond the edge of our attention.
Perhaps attentive wondering begins by recognising that we never see the whole story.
Sometimes we find only the empty purse and are left to imagine the creature that swam away.
What traces have you noticed recently that hinted at a hidden story?