Today, June 8, is World Ocean Day! Check out the official website (https://worldoceanday.org/) for initiatives and ways to help. For my part, I’ve actually been over my head in edits for one of the sequels to Beauty and the Alchemist–a sequel which may, or may not, be mermaid-themed 😉 –so I thought rounding up some ocean-related folklore would be appropriate.

Now, I’ve already done a whole blog post just on mermaid stories, and another on selkies. But that leaves an important category of ocean tales untouched: why the sea is salty.

“Why the sea is salty” tales (type 565 in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index, for folklore nerds!) are kind of like “Just So” stories, in that the whole point of the story is to explain a natural phenomenon. I actually first stumbled across these stories because I was looking at folklore surrounding millstones–which, it turns out, are a very relevant player in these tales!

Of course, today we know that the salt in the ocean actually comes from erosion of the rocks on land (and from sea vents on the sea floor)–you can learn more about that science here. But for a more whimsical explanation, check out these stories:

  • “Frodi’s Mill,” an Icelandic tale full of Norse drama and even a song: here
  • “The Coffee Mill Which Grinds Salt,” a story from Denmark featuring a common twist in which some greedy people get their comeuppance: here.
  • “Why the Ocean is Salty,” from the Philippines, which departs from the mill storyline and instead features a lovelorn giant: here.

And don’t forget to spread the word about World Ocean Day! 🙂