The Selkie
Because we do not know everything, nor can explain what we know
When I was eight, my father introduced me to the Selkie. What is a Selkie? Well, as explained to me, “Lad, a Selkie is a seal in the winter months. In the summertime, they come to the land, discard their skins, and become human females. If a natural human man meets a Selkie, he will immediately fall in love.
No story is written about a Selkie that ends happily, not one.
Bringing my love from America to the West coast of Scotland, needing a little time away from children and grandchildren, what better place to come home to than the home of the Selkie?
The simple explanation of why loving a Selkie cannot end happily is that humans will go to great lengths to hide the Selkie’s skin. However, as time passes, the Selkie cannot resist the call of home. This might take a year or ten years, but the Selkie will age faster than the human without her skin. Not to give it back is to sentence her to death.
Selkies are not Mermaids.
Mermaids can never become wholly human. Mermaids are fanciful. Selkies are very real.
I was young when I arrived on the island, then raised here, and now, at seventy-six, on the last day of May 2024, I sit on the wall of Tobermory Harbour. It’s a clear night, and the stars will soon be glinting their hellos.
In the distance, a moaning will fade in and out. It’s not uncommon for those of us who live on the island. Those visiting could be forgiven thinking it was the lighthouse foghorn, but tonight, there is no moon, no wandering fog, just a clear, cool evening.
There it came again.
Several more times, I heard this moan as if pained. The kind of moan that if you found out its source, you’d kill it immediately.
Several families from the Outer Hebrides claim to be descendants of sea people, having been born to Selkie mothers. To a man, each was left, children abandoned.
I, too, was wed to a Selkie. It is all the women on the island talked about. Each time they saw her, she was more beautiful.
After five years, Selkies spend their days indoors, mostly eating broiled fish. The island women believed her to be a princess. After the sixth year, the womenfolk lay the Selkie on her bed, looking out from the window.
When you love a Selkie, there is pain, which depends on whether she lives or dies.
As she lay on the bed, she softly spoke: “I want to walk.”
After that talk, the island women sat in a circle, almost ceremoniously, around the young Selkie. The older women know that the child the Selkie was leaving behind would be placed in their care. For the Selkie to live, she must return to the sea.
The next morning at breakfast, the island woman bring food to the Selkie. However, there is a change. Instead of broiled fish, there is sliced raw fish.
The Selkie picks a single piece of fish and eats it. Her fragile lips pressed in appreciation for the sumptuous taste.
As she finishes her promise, the sun begins to rise over the water, lining the horizon, light reflecting various shades of reds and oranges as the Selkie makes her leave. Moans can be heard for days. It is the sound of a Selkie leaving forever her human family.
And like I told you, it is a moan that if you ever found its source, you’d want to kill it; such is her pain.
Tonight, on the island, a family will know the sound, the love, and its reason, as I did.
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