Selkie
Encyclopedia
Selkies are mythological creatures that are found in Faroese
, Iceland
ic, Irish
, and Scottish
folklore
.
They can shed their skin from seal
s to become humans. The legend apparently originated on the Orkney and Shetland Islands
. The word derives from earlier Scots
selich, (from Old English seolh meaning seal).
In the Faroe Islands
there are two versions of the story of the Selkie or Seal Wife. A young farmer from the town of Mikladalur
on Kalsoy
island goes to the beach to watch the selkies dance. He hides the skin of a beautiful selkie maid, so she can't go back to sea, and forces her to marry him. He keeps her skin in a chest, and keeps the key with him both day and night. One day when out fishing, he discovers that he has forgotten to bring his key. When he returns home, the selkie wife has escaped back to sea, leaving their children behind. Later, when the farmer on a hunt kills both her selkie husband and two selkie sons, she promises to take revenge upon the men of Mikladalur. Some shall be drowned, some shall fall from cliffs and slopes, and this shall continue, until so many men have been lost that they will be able to link arms around the whole island of Kallsoy.
Male selkies are very handsome in their human form, and have great seduction powers over human women. They typically seek those who are dissatisfied with their romantic life. This includes married women waiting for their fishermen husbands. If a woman wishes to make contact with a selkie male, she has to go to a beach and shed seven tears into the sea.
If a man steals a female selkie's skin, she is in his power, to an extent, and she is forced to become his wife — a regional variant on the motif of the swan maiden, unusual in that the bride's animal form is usually a bird. Female selkies are said to make excellent wives, but because their true home is the sea, they will often be seen gazing longingly at the ocean. If she finds her skin again, she will immediately return to her true home, and sometimes to her selkie husband, in the sea.
Sometimes, a selkie maiden is taken as a wife by a human man and she has several children by him. In these stories, it is one of her children who discovers her sealskin (often unwitting of its significance) and she soon returns to the sea. The selkie woman usually avoids seeing her human husband again but is sometimes shown visiting her children and playing with them in the waves.
Selkies are not always faithless lovers. One tale tells of the fisherman Cagan who married a seal-woman. Against his wife's wishes he set sail dangerously late in the year, and was trapped battling a terrible storm, unable to return home. His wife shifted to her seal form and saved him, even though this meant she could never return to her human body and hence her happy home.
Some stories from Shetland have selkies luring islanders into the sea at midsummer, the lovelorn humans never returning to dry land.
Seal shapeshifters similar to the selkie exist in the folklore of many cultures. A corresponding creature existed in Swedish legend, and the Chinook people of North America have a similar tale of a boy who changes into a seal (see the children's story The Boy Who Lived With The Seals by Rafe Martin). Jane Yolen
incorporated such a shapeshifters as a selkie into her picture book, Greyling. A legend similar to that of the selkie is also told in Wales, but in a slightly different form. The selkies are humans who have returned to the sea. Dylan (Dylan Eil Don) the firstborn of Arianrhod
, was variously a merman or sea spirit, who in some versions of the story escapes to the sea immediately after birth.
Examples of stories related to selkies and other seal-people are the ballad, The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry
and the movie The Secret of Roan Inish
. In The Secret of Roan Inish
, a fisherman steals the selkie's pelt while she is sunbathing. She is then forced to return to his house, as she cannot escape back into the sea, and becomes his wife and bears him children. The skin of the seal gives her power over men, but without it she is a mortal woman, trapped on land, slave to the whims of her husband. The life there slowly suffocates her and she spends much time splashing in the shallows of the ocean. Years later, one of the children sees the pelt and asks what it is. The wife immediately knows, drops what she is doing and retrieves the pelt from its hiding place, having long ago despaired of ever finding it. She does not hesitate; she rushes to the ocean to return to her former life as a seal.
Faroe Islands
The Faroe Islands are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark proper and Greenland...
, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
ic, Irish
Irish mythology
The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branch and the Historical Cycle. There are...
, and Scottish
Scottish mythology
Scottish mythology may refer to any of the mythologies of Scotland.Myths have emerged for various purposes throughout the history of Scotland, sometimes being elaborated upon by successive generations, and at other times being completely rejected and replaced by other explanatory narratives.-...
folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
.
They can shed their skin from seal
Pinniped
Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semiaquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae .-Overview: Pinnipeds are typically sleek-bodied and barrel-shaped...
s to become humans. The legend apparently originated on the Orkney and Shetland Islands
Shetland Islands
Shetland is a subarctic archipelago of Scotland that lies north and east of mainland Great Britain. The islands lie some to the northeast of Orkney and southeast of the Faroe Islands and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. The total...
. The word derives from earlier Scots
Scots language
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
selich, (from Old English seolh meaning seal).
Legends
Selkies are able to become human by taking off their seal skins, and can return to seal form by putting it back on. Stories concerning selkies are generally romantic tragedies. Sometimes the human will not know that their lover is a selkie, and wakes to find them gone. Other times the human will hide the selkie's skin, thus preventing them from returning to seal form. A selkie can only make contact with one particular human for a short amount of time before they must return to the sea. They are not able to make contact with that human again for seven years, unless the human is to steal their selkie's skin and hide it or burn it.In the Faroe Islands
Faroe Islands
The Faroe Islands are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark proper and Greenland...
there are two versions of the story of the Selkie or Seal Wife. A young farmer from the town of Mikladalur
Mikladalur
Mikladalur is a village on the Faroese island of Kalsoy in the municipality of Klaksvíkar. The 2005 population was 44. Its postal code is FO 797. The town's stone church dates from 1856. A tunnel to Trøllanes was completed in 1985.-External links:*...
on Kalsoy
Kalsoy
Kalsoy is an island located in the north-east of the Faroe Islands between Eysturoy and Kunoy.- Geography :The western coast has dramatically steep cliffs for the full length of the island, whereas idyllic valleys on the eastern slopes protect the four tiny settlements, Húsar, Mikladalur,...
island goes to the beach to watch the selkies dance. He hides the skin of a beautiful selkie maid, so she can't go back to sea, and forces her to marry him. He keeps her skin in a chest, and keeps the key with him both day and night. One day when out fishing, he discovers that he has forgotten to bring his key. When he returns home, the selkie wife has escaped back to sea, leaving their children behind. Later, when the farmer on a hunt kills both her selkie husband and two selkie sons, she promises to take revenge upon the men of Mikladalur. Some shall be drowned, some shall fall from cliffs and slopes, and this shall continue, until so many men have been lost that they will be able to link arms around the whole island of Kallsoy.
Male selkies are very handsome in their human form, and have great seduction powers over human women. They typically seek those who are dissatisfied with their romantic life. This includes married women waiting for their fishermen husbands. If a woman wishes to make contact with a selkie male, she has to go to a beach and shed seven tears into the sea.
If a man steals a female selkie's skin, she is in his power, to an extent, and she is forced to become his wife — a regional variant on the motif of the swan maiden, unusual in that the bride's animal form is usually a bird. Female selkies are said to make excellent wives, but because their true home is the sea, they will often be seen gazing longingly at the ocean. If she finds her skin again, she will immediately return to her true home, and sometimes to her selkie husband, in the sea.
Sometimes, a selkie maiden is taken as a wife by a human man and she has several children by him. In these stories, it is one of her children who discovers her sealskin (often unwitting of its significance) and she soon returns to the sea. The selkie woman usually avoids seeing her human husband again but is sometimes shown visiting her children and playing with them in the waves.
Selkies are not always faithless lovers. One tale tells of the fisherman Cagan who married a seal-woman. Against his wife's wishes he set sail dangerously late in the year, and was trapped battling a terrible storm, unable to return home. His wife shifted to her seal form and saved him, even though this meant she could never return to her human body and hence her happy home.
Some stories from Shetland have selkies luring islanders into the sea at midsummer, the lovelorn humans never returning to dry land.
Seal shapeshifters similar to the selkie exist in the folklore of many cultures. A corresponding creature existed in Swedish legend, and the Chinook people of North America have a similar tale of a boy who changes into a seal (see the children's story The Boy Who Lived With The Seals by Rafe Martin). Jane Yolen
Jane Yolen
Jane Hyatt Yolen is an American author and editor of almost 300 books. These include folklore, fantasy, science fiction, and children's books...
incorporated such a shapeshifters as a selkie into her picture book, Greyling. A legend similar to that of the selkie is also told in Wales, but in a slightly different form. The selkies are humans who have returned to the sea. Dylan (Dylan Eil Don) the firstborn of Arianrhod
Arianrhod
Arianrhod is a figure in Welsh mythology who plays her most important role in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. She is the daughter of Dôn and the sister of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy; the Welsh Triads give her father as Beli Mawr...
, was variously a merman or sea spirit, who in some versions of the story escapes to the sea immediately after birth.
Theories of origins
One folklorist theory of the origin of the belief is that the selkies were actually fur-clad Finns, traveling by kayak. Another is that shipwrecked Spaniards washed ashore and their jet black hair resembled seals. As the anthropologist A. Asbjorn Jon has recognized though, there is a strong body of lore that indicates that selkies "are said to be supernaturally formed from the souls of drowned people".Selkies in fiction, music and pop culture
- See Selkie in popular culture
Examples of stories related to selkies and other seal-people are the ballad, The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry
The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry
The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry or The Grey Selkie of Suleskerry is a traditional folk song from Orkney. The song was collected by the American scholar, Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century and is listed as Child ballad number 113...
and the movie The Secret of Roan Inish
The Secret of Roan Inish
The Secret of Roan Inish is an American independent film written and directed by John Sayles, and released in 1994. It's based on the novel The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry, by Rosalie K. Fry....
. In The Secret of Roan Inish
The Secret of Roan Inish
The Secret of Roan Inish is an American independent film written and directed by John Sayles, and released in 1994. It's based on the novel The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry, by Rosalie K. Fry....
, a fisherman steals the selkie's pelt while she is sunbathing. She is then forced to return to his house, as she cannot escape back into the sea, and becomes his wife and bears him children. The skin of the seal gives her power over men, but without it she is a mortal woman, trapped on land, slave to the whims of her husband. The life there slowly suffocates her and she spends much time splashing in the shallows of the ocean. Years later, one of the children sees the pelt and asks what it is. The wife immediately knows, drops what she is doing and retrieves the pelt from its hiding place, having long ago despaired of ever finding it. She does not hesitate; she rushes to the ocean to return to her former life as a seal.
See also
- A Stranger Came Ashore (book)A Stranger Came AshoreA Stranger Came Ashore is a 1975 young adult novel written by Scottish author Mollie Hunter. The plot revolves around a boy called Robbie Henderson, a resident on the island of Black Ness, where there are legends of creatures called Selkies, which are seals that can take on human form...
- Dobhar-chuDobhar-chuThe Dobhar-chú is a creature of Irish folklore and a cryptid. Dobhar-chú is roughly translated into "water hound." It resembles both a dog and an otter though sometimes is described as a half dog, half fish. It lives in water and has fur with protective properties.Many sightings have been...
- Ethereal beingEthereal beingEthereal beings, according to some belief systems and occult theories, are mystic entities that usually are not made of ordinary matter. Despite the fact that they are believed to be essentially incorporeal, they do interact in physical shapes with the material universe and travel between the...
- FinfolkFinfolkIn Orkney folklore, Finfolk are sorcerous shapeshifters of the sea, the dark mysterious race from Finfolkaheem who regularly make an amphibious journey from the depths of the Finfolk ocean home to the Orkney Islands. They wade, swim or sometimes row upon the Orkney shores in the spring and summer...
- KelpieKelpieThe kelpie is a supernatural water horse from Celtic folklore that is believed to haunt the rivers and lochs of Scotland and Ireland; the name may be from Scottish Gaelic cailpeach or colpach "heifer, colt".-Description and behaviour:...
- LavellanLavellanA Lavellan, làbh-allan, la-mhalan or la-bhallan etc. is a mythological/cryptozoological creature from northern Scotland.It was generally considered to be a kind of rodent, and indeed the name "làbh-allan" is also used for a water shrew or water vole in Scottish Gaelic. It was however, reportedly...
- MermaidMermaidA mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head, arms, and torso and the tail of a fish. A male version of a mermaid is known as a "merman" and in general both males and females are known as "merfolk"...
- MerrowMerrowMerrow or Murrough is the Scottish and Irish Gaelic equivalent of the mermaid and mermen of other cultures. These beings are said to appear as human from the waist up but have the body of a fish from the waist down...
- Muc-sheilchMuc-sheilchThe Muc-sheilch or Muc-sheilche is a loch monster reported to live in Loch Maree, and its neighbouring lochs.Mr Banks of Letterewe tried at great expense to drain Loch-na-Bèiste near Aultbea, in the 1850s, but failed. He also tried to poison it with quicklime. Loch-na-Bèiste is Scottish Gaelic for...
- NaidNAIDNAID is an acronym which may refer to:* Native American Indian Dog* In medicine, Non-Anemic Iron Deficiency* North American International Demoparty, a demoscene party in Quebec, Canada* NAID, an Association of Defence Communities...
- Nereid
- NixNixThe Neck/Nixie are shapeshifting water spirits who usually appear in human form. The spirit has appeared in the myths and legends of all Germanic peoples in Europe....
- OceanidOceanidIn Greek mythology and, later, Roman mythology, the Oceanids were the three thousand daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. Each was the patroness of a particular spring, river, sea, lake, pond, pasture, flower or cloud...
- OndineOndine (mythology)Undines , also called ondines, are elementals, enumerated as the water elementals in works of alchemy by Paracelsus. They also appear in European folklore as fairy-like creatures; the name may be used interchangeably with those of other water spirits. Undines are said to be able to gain a soul by...
- Ondine (film)Ondine (film)Ondine is a 2009 Irish romantic drama film directed and written by Neil Jordan and starring Colin Farrell and Alicja Bachleda.The film mixes themes from Irish mythology into contemporary settings.-Plot:...
- The Secret of Roan Inish (film)The Secret of Roan InishThe Secret of Roan Inish is an American independent film written and directed by John Sayles, and released in 1994. It's based on the novel The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry, by Rosalie K. Fry....
External links
- The Selkie Folk, from Orkneyjar, "a website dedicated to the preserving, exploring and documenting the ancient history, folklore and traditions of Orkney."
- The Legend of the Seal Woman, from Tjatsi, "a Faroese website describing the stories behind the Faroese stamps."
- Annotated Selkie resources from Mermaids on the Web
- The Origin of the Selkie Folk from Orkneyjar
- A Home for Selkies by Beth Winegarner
- Legend of the Selkie Soldier
- Some pictures from the play "Kópakonan" (the Seal-Wife", which was performed by children at the Theater in Thorshavn in May 2001
- The Seal's Skin. Icelandic Folktale
- A Sea Story by Ina. Short stories based on based on Celtic and Norse mythology
- The First Silkie by William Meikle, read on the Celtic Myth Podshow