For this challenge (my first one!) I'll do a map of the village where the folktale of the seal woman is set. This is a tale I have heard my mother tell several times but it wasn't until I started googling yesterday that I found out it's a Faroese folktale. Apparently, there's even a name for the village it's set in, the version I've heard has always been in "in a village, a bit like this one". For those interested I found it online here.

A five sentence summary (spoiler warning): It's about a seal that takes off her seal skin to dance as a human and it gets stolen, forcing her to remain human. The person who stole her skin marries her and she lives as a human for a years. She manages to regain her skin and returns to the sea. Her human husband later kills two of her seal pups and her seal husband despite her warning. She curses the village so that people will die until there are so many of them that they can reach around the whole island if they link hands.

Style idea: I'm thinking about doing this in a very two-dimensional style, partially inspired by the Bayeux tapestry. This will mean all people and animals drawn in profile, houses showing only one side, boats directly from the side and the scale of things might get weird to show details. As I've always associated the story with viking times I'll also take some inspiration from that.

Things to be shown in the map: Obviously, I need to include seals and a village. I'm still unsure how to distinguish the ill-fated farm house. Other than that, I'll do some mountains, a river with a waterfall, fishing boats and probably some farmers.

Here's a picture of the sketch I'm working with:
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sealwoman-sketch.JPG