What is a Selkie?

Legends of the seal people come from Northern Europe, predominately areas settled by Norse Vikings: the Scottish isles, coasts of Ireland, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland.

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Most of the time they prefer to stay in their seal form. But every now and then—the exact timing varies: every full moon, once or twice a year—they come ashore on a remote beach to remove their sealskins and dance on land as humans. Then they put their sealskins back on and slip into the sea.

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The problems arise when they come into contact with the human folk.

 

Most selkie stories fall into one of three main themes:

• A human man steals a selkie woman’s skin and she is forced to become his wife—until she finds her skin and can return home to the sea.

• A selkie man could be a desirable lover for a human woman saddled with a disappointing husband.

• A human seal hunter might find that the seal he injured or skinned was a selkie and he is required to heal it or return the skin.

• There is a subgroup of the first two categories, which I call the family legend. A surprising number of families across the selkie lands of Northern Europe claim to be descended from a selkie—usually a selkie woman, but sometimes a selkie man.

Many of these legends were originally collected and published by folklorists in the 1800s. I’ve searched out many of these old, old tales and will share them in the blog.