Continuing our Scottish history and myths series, the graceful Selkies have long stood beside Scotland’s mythical legends. Now, they’re one of the most popular mythical stories and folklore in Scotland, and we’re going to tell our version.
Read on to learn about the graceful Selkies.
Selkie Mythology
Selkies are shapeshifting beings from Scottish, Irish, and Norse folklore. They can transform between human and seal forms by shedding their seal skin and putting it back on again to return to human form.
Why seals? We will never know. Some say it’s because seals have a beautiful innocence, and so do the Selkies. Then again, it depends on who you ask. Some folklore suggests Selkies have a dark side, but most of the Scottish myths describe the Selkies as graceful, half-human, half-animal creatures.
The Original Selkie Story
You’ll often hear or see Selkie stories more commonly on the shores of Scotland.
The most typical story you’ll hear features a fisherman. The man in the story meets a beautiful lady sitting on the rocks. She doesn’t wear any clothes, and the man can see her sealskin nearby.
Suddenly, the skin disappears into a hiding place created by the fisherman. The fisherman is lonely and, longing for a wife, claims to have fallen in love at first sight of the Selkie. The Selkie needs her skin to transform back into a seal, so she has no choice but to fall in love with the fisherman and marry him.
But it’s not a forever love story. They build a beautiful life together and go on to have children, but the Selkie always feels the ocean calling to her. As she sings her mournful songs for her Selkie family in the sea, the fisherman can tell she’s not happy at home. Eventually, she leaves home to find her sealskin and flee back to the sea. Some versions of the story say she takes her children with her and turns them into stones or drowns them.
There are more stories, some of which we’ll tell further along!
Iconic Selkie Landmarks
There aren’t any Selkie landmarks as such, but one of the most famous places to go to learn about the folklore is the Faroe Islands. There, there’s the famous Selkie statue, and you can almost feel the tales of the story in the air.
The Orkney Islands are another great place to go. The tales of Selkies are just as famous there as they are on the Faroe Islands. If you travel around most of the Scottish coast with our motorhome hire, you’ll come across stories in most of the towns.
The most interesting comes from the far north coast near Castletown. Inside Old Olrig Kirk, there’s a graveyard that’s said to be home to the Selkie’s grave, and there’s actually one there. But this isn’t the graveyard of the original Selkie woman. Again, the story involves a fisherman who found a baby girl wrapped in sealskin. As he had no wife or children of his own, he took the baby girl and raised her.
But it soon became clear the girl was different, claiming to see things that weren’t there. She claimed to see the Devil in the rafters of Olrig Kirk and was eventually banished from the area.
Now, the grave lies there with a hollow inside that some say never dries out.
Stories of Selkies
Many stories have come from the original Selkie woman. One of the most popular is the story of Selkie and the hunter.
The story involves a man named Donald, a seal hunter from John O’Groats. He didn’t believe in the myths and the legends, only that seals put money in his pocket and food on his table. One day, he saw a giant seal on the rocks. He sneakily went up to the rock and took his knife to the seal to take the skin. The seal quickly cried out in pain and dived deep down into the sea with Donald’s knife.
Later that night, a handsome stranger arrived at Donald’s house and requested sealskins for the lord. Donald, excited, went with the stranger on his horse. Taking the coastal path, the horse suddenly dived off the cliff, plunging Donald into the sea, dragging him deep down until he arrived at a door.
There, he saw many seals with sad expressions. In the corner was the massive seal from earlier in the day, lying with a wound to its side. They brought Donald there to heal their king, as only human hands could close the wound. He pushed the wound closed, and it magically started to heal over.
Meaning no harm, the Selkies were grateful and allowed him to return home. From that day, he never harmed another seal again.
Do you believe in Selkies? If you go to the coast of Scotland, you will definitely hear or see a story or two about these mythical, beautiful creatures.