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Fair-owe Pharaoh: Faroe faro-fair oaf.
Vikings arrived and began a settlement with help from their Irish thralls. But they weren't alone. All manner of otherworldly beings lurked in the island's hidden corners. The Vikings called these beings vættir; the Gaels called them Aes Sídhe.
Among these beings were the selkies who frolicked at outcroppings on the shore. These creatures looked like seals in the water, but they shed their hides on land to reveal beautiful human forms underneath. The Norse chieftain Valbrand saw the prettiest female selkie, whose name was Eyfridh, and decided he wanted her for himself.
As Eyfridh slept on the beach at the edge of the forest, Valbrand snatched her sealskin and bundled it into a hidden bag. When she awoke, she saw that she couldn't return to the water, and she had no choice but to go home with the powerful chieftain before her.
They got married and had a son, who they named Asgeir. This son grew into a strapping young lad, but he noticed that his mother was never happy. She would sit on a rock at the beach and gaze longingly toward the horizon. Asgeir wondered why she was so forlorn, not realizing that she pined for her old home.
During her captivity, Eyfridh's only friend was a woman named Ginna, who regularly came down from the forest to keep Eyfridh company on the beach. Ginna was another of the island's mystical beings. From the front, she was every bit as lovely as Eyfridh. But when Ginna turned around to return to the woods, Eyfridh saw a furry tail swishing behind her and a back as hollow as a dead tree. Eyfridh decided to ask about this, and Ginna explained that she was a type of vættir called a huldra.
During this conversation, Eyfridh let slip that she herself wasn't human, and that Valbrand had captured her from the sea. Ginna was horrified at this. The next day, while the chieftain was leading a raid on a nearby island, Ginna slipped into his longhouse and observed the exact nook where Valbrand had hidden the sealskin. She reported this to Eyfridh, who vanished that night and was never seen again. The boy Asgeir missed his mother from then on, but he hoped she was somewhere that she could be happier.
Years later, when Asgeir was a man, he ventured through the forest and met Ginna. As a supernatural creature of the wild, the huldra had not aged a day, and she noted that Asgeir looked remarkably similar to her old friend Eyfridh. He explained that that was his mother, and asked if Ginna had any idea where Eyfridh had gone. Ginna explain
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A significant reason for the TPP was to curb the power of China, but with China having its own economic initiatives to spread it's influence (such as Belt and Road) I question whether even a TPP with the US rejoining would be enough to contain China. China has also begun establishing military bases overseas and is extending their influence not just economically, but militarily too. Would the democracies of the Pacific uniting in a military alliance with a defense pact promote the influence of liberalism in the region. Would an alliance allow countries like the US, Japan, and South Korea to take a harder stance against China? Could it lead to better relations between South Korea and Japan. Could membership in an alliance be what fuels nations in the South China Sea to resolve their territorial disputes with eachother (excluding China obviously) like NATO/EU membership gave North Macedonia incentive to resolve their dispute with Greece?
