Selkie

Of all the British isle folktales my favourite has always been the Selkie.

The mystic, shape-shifting creatures who come ashore to shed their skin and take human form as beautiful women.

This story has been told many times, over many generations. It has also been given life in many places, including Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. All of these places have various versions of the tale, and each put their unique spin on the tradition.

For the Scots, their legends of selkie-folk are taken from their Northern Islands, particularly Orkney and Shetland.

A common and sad tale of the Selkie is that a man accidentally discovers one, he falls in love with her and they marry. However, she spends her days depressed, gazing at the coast and longing for her real home, the ocean.

Other accounts state that the female Selkie are compelled to marry the men who steal their seal skins, abandoning their selkie-husbands. Others, bring human-men to the oceans, keeping them under the water never to see dry land again.

Another, more twisted and distressing tale, is from Iceland. Their story is told of a man who discovers several Selkie, transformed into women, dancing in a cave. They are startled by him and rush to gather their skins, however he manages to steal the smallest of the skins and hides it. The Selkie who it belongs to is caught by him, and he then forces her into marriage and to bare his children. Two years later she finds her stolen skin in his belongings, takes it, and returns to the ocean and her former Selkie husband.

In Ireland there is a family with a very long lineage, and tradition claims they are descendants of a man who had a Selkie wife, or Murdúch, who also later returned to the sea to be with her ocean-dwelling people.

There is another tradition from the Conneely clan in Ireland to never hunt or kill seals as this is thought to bring bad luck. They also suggest that children with webbed feet are born from Selkie-women...but that may not be quite true!

I’m drawn to these tales and folklore stories for many reasons. I like stories for the magic within them, and ones that have darker sides. I like the raw imagination, which isn’t always pretty. I like the shades of life and human experience they express, and the themes they push us to think about.

In particular, these stories of the Selkie reflect the way we as humans shape-shift. Our physical bodies change over time, and our minds shift, transform, develop, and re-learn as we live.

From time to time we find ourselves needing to release and reset. Our need to shed our 'skins' and feel something new, to feel 'ourselves' again, is natural, and is perfectly represented in the beautiful yet often woeful folktales of the Selkie.

It is powerful to put into words and share a story which rings true to human experience and emotion. It's hard to describe our intrinsic needs to be filled, our worries we find challenging, and our individual conditions as imperfect people. But the more I explore ancient stories, the more I delight in the way word-of-mouth traditions, which travel across time and space, and that are still relevant and applicable to us as humans today.

These stories give us a connection to the past, to our ancestors, and can remind us of where and what humans came from.

These stories are gifts. Retelling and remembering them is our way to be gracious and grateful for them, who started them, and where they began.

For one, the sea and what She holds will always be a mystery. So, we can understand why so many stories have been written about the waters, and tales told about curious beings being seen on the surface and deep within Her.

I think of these seal-women whenever I look out to sea, hoping to catch a glimpse of one coming ashore to transform, and shed her skin anew.