SELKIE
STORIES
(excerpts
from posts)
(If you want to retell any of the stories listed below, be sure
to obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material
is not in the public domain)
1)
http://www.orkneyjar.com/index.html
2) http://www.orkneyjar.com/orkney/index.html
3) Background information on selkies: http://members.tripod.com/the_selkie/selkiehistory.html
4) David Thomson's The
People of the Sea (Canongate Classics, Edinburgh, 1996)
is a good source for selkie stories; there are even a few tunes
at the back.
5) Myths and legends from the treasury of Celtic and British storytelling,
including stories retold by Mara Freeman: The
Selkie, The Prince, The Fox and The
Sword of Light... http://www.chalicecenter.com/stories.htm
6) I have told one selkie story for fourth graders which I share
as part of my Tales With Scales program. It is a selkie story,
The Seal Woman, which is found in
many different books. However, the adaptation I used came from
the Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss book Through
The Grapevine. It was one of the stories the children remembered
months later, for some reason it really touched many of them.
7) There's lots in a nice collection called, Tales
of the Sea People, by Duncan Williamson. (Paperback, Interlink
Books, New York). If you go and look in the folklore section of
your children's library, there are several picture books of selkie
stories - although no title comes to mind. Did you know that Northwest
Coast Indians have a lot of stories that are very similar to the
Selkie stories? There's a picture book of a story from the Warm
Springs rez, near here, about a boy who goes to live with the
seals. It
is called The Boy Who Lived With the Seals...
When
he is found, he drags himself on his hands and barks like a seal.....he
goes back to the seals, but first he gifts his people the gift
of carving beautiful canoes - and of course, stories from under
the sea..... There's another about a woman who falls in love with
a seal and goes to the sea.....
8) The Wounded Selkie is a beautiful
Orcadian tale of hate and forgiveness.I have been telling it a
lot this last year. The key line in it is: "Revenge? Revenge
I could have, but that would not help my son [who is dying of
a wound the fisherman has given him]. For only the hand that made
the wound can heal the wound." (In fact, it is one of the
stories on our most recent CD, Jack goes
Hunting and other Tales.
http://www.talesandmusic.de/recordings/frame_index.htm
which will be released on 18th Sept. But enough of the advertising
for now!
9) The seal-folk of Scotland and Ireland, variously called selchies,
selkies, silkies, or roanes, have a habit of swimming out of the
mists of Faery and landing on the shores of popular culture. Those
of a certain age will remember haunting versions of the ballad
The Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie
by Joan Baez and Judy Collins in the 1960s, and younger readers
will know John Sayles's film The Secret
of Roan Inish or the novel that inspired it, Rosalie K.
Fry's Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry.
The Selchies
I am a man upon the land
I am a selkie on the sea
The legend of the selchie is found along the shores of Britain
and Eire; there are selchie stories from Cornwall, Ireland, and
most particularly the northern islands off Scotland: the Orkneys,
Shetlands, and Hebrides. Unlike other merfolk, selchies can shed
their seal-skins on the land and pass for humans, usually with
tragic consequences.
This is a great site:
http://www.legends.dm.net/fairy/selchies.html
10) Ask your local library if they have David Thomson's The
People of the Sea. It's been re-issued and is an absolute
treasure trove of selkie stories. Duncan Williamson published
a collection called Tales of the Seal People. That should also
be in your library or available by interlibrary loan.
Here are Web sites.
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/1614/Story/Silkie/Silkie.htm
[several tales]
http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/selkiefolk/selorig.htm
[origins]
11) Another
beautiful anger story is The Wounded Selkie.
Response: Karen asked me for the
story of The Wounded Selkie. I then
found that I don't have a copy on my PC - just in my head. I thought
the story was on this website:
http://www.orkneyjar.com/index.html
but it isn't (although lots of other selkie tales are).
Thinking back, I suspect the story was originally posted by Alan
Davies so someone may still have a version of that saved. But
Google gave me this page which has the story here in this extract
from Katherine Briggs' "Encyclopaedia
of Fairies":
http://www.wku.edu/~rob.harbison/kim/selkies.html
Alan's version was essentially the same although the wounded selkie
is the son rather than the father. My telling has certainly evolved
over the last couple of years
12)
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 20:20:31 -0000
From: Allan Davies
Subject: Re: 2 topics: sea tales; Thanksgiving
By a very long chalk, my favorite sea stories are those concerning
Selkies, and my favorite Selkie story at the moment is the Wounded
Selkie .......can't help with Thanksgiving stuff (for obvious
reasons !), but here's a transcription of my version of the Wounded
Selkie
The Wounded Selkie
Like many stories of the seal-people, this one is about a fisherman.
A dour fisherman, who lived alone and did not greatly care for
anything. He was particularly un-fond of seals. The way he saw
it, seals were the competition. They eat fish, the same fish he
spent his days trying to catch The way he would fish was this;
he had a number of bouys moored a long the coast, and he would
row from bouy to bouy, pulling up the net tied under it, checking
the catch, then putting the net back into the sea. When he got
to the end of the line of bouys he would go back to the beginning
and start again.
Some days the catch was good, and he would eat (and drink) well;
some days, not so good - but that was the fishing. One time he
began to notice that the catch was dwindling away from one net
- day by day it grew smaller, until all that he was pulling up
was a few shells, the odd fish bone and a lot of sea-weed. He
had a good look at the net, and noticed that there were several
big tears in it, and that the ends of the twine showed signs of
something gnawing it. 'It's those bloody seals, I'll be bound',
he said to himself. The seals were stealing his fish. Well, he
decided he wasn't having this, and that the time had come to do
something about it. So, the next morning, rather than checking
the nets one by one, he just dropped anchor in sight of that one
buoy, loosened his knife it it's sheath and settled down to watch.
The morning wore into afternoon, and the rocking of his boat on
the gentle swell had almost lulled him to sleep, when he heard
a splash and a gurgle. The buoy was swaying rapidly from side
to side, then it disappeared beneath the waves altogether.
Taking a deep breath, he stood up and dived over the side of the
boat, naked knife in hand...and saw a big seal worrying at the
net. He swam down to the seal, and plunged his knife into it,
pulling it through the seal's flesh with all his might. Blood billowed
out of the wound, making a red fog in the water, and , even wounded,
the seal proved stronger than the man. It wriggled and twisted,
and wrenched the knife handle out of his hand, then disappeared
in the now murky water.
Spluttering and gasping, the fisherman hauled himself back into
his boat. 'Well', he thought, 'I might not have killed it, but
that's one seal that'll trouble me no more. Problem solved'. But
the next day, all of his nets were empty...and the next, and the
next. By the end of the week, he was running out of money, and
hungry as well, and could hardly be bothered to put out to sea
anymore. So, when a stranger came up to him in the harbour and
said, 'I hear you're a man as can lay their hands on some seal
skins', the fisherman was only too ready to help. 'I certainly
can,' he said, ' I don't owe them nothing. I'll be wanting a good
price, mind'
'Well,' said the stranger, 'as to price, I can't speak to that,
you'll have to come with me and meet my master'. This the fisherman
was glad to do, and the pair of them walked out of the harbour,
and along the coast path. As they reached the top of the cliffs,
the stranger stopped, made a funnel of his hands around his mouth,
and sang
'Hey an dah
Hey an dah
Hey an dah
Ho dah dah
Hyun dan dah
Hyun dan dah
Hyun dan dah
Ho dah dah'
.even before the stranger had finished the call, the sea below
the cliffs was boiling with more sleek, black seals than the fisherman
had ever seen in his life. The stranger grasped him tightly by
the shoulders, and jumped clean off the cliff, pulling the fisherman
with him. The instant the stranegr touched the water, he changed
into a big, powerful bull seal, and the fingers on the fishermans
shoudler became teeth. Try as he might, and he tried mightily
hard, the fisherman Could not break that grip, and his chest beagn
to ache with the effort of holding his breath, as he was dragged
deeper and deeper. Now his chest brued as though it was on fire,
and a blackness nibbled at the edges of his vision. Then, he knew,
he was beaten, and with a gasp he opened his mouth, and the sea
filled his lungs.
But that is not the end of the story. After some time, the fisherman
awoke. His chest ached, and his head too. He felt around him,
and felt damp rock. As he grew used to the dim light, he saw the
stranger standing over him. The seal man helped the fisherman
to his feet, then said, “'There is someone I would like you
to meet,” and led him towards the back of the cave. There,
on a rough bed of kelp, lay a young man. His chest was cut open
in a wound that ran from shoulder to hip.
'This is my son,' said the seal man, 'and, if he is not healed
soon, he will die. Oh, and I believe that this is yours' and he
reached down beside the bed, and pulled from beneath the kelp
the fisherman’s knife. The fisherman was now deeply afraid,
and begining to feel ashamed. 'Have you brought me here for vengeance
?', he asked the seal-man. 'What can I do to you, other than kill
you ?', replied the selkie 'And if I did that, would that help
my son ? No, I have brought you here to help, if you will. Only
the hand that casued the wound can heal the wound' The fisherman
looked at the youth, at his pale flesh and the cruel gash across
his chest. He thought of how he had resented and hated the seals.
But still he said 'What must I do ?' 'Simply touch his hurt' said
the seal-man.
And so, the fisherman bent forward and touched a trembling hand
to the start of the wound, on the youth's shoulder. The flesh
was deadly cold, and, as he drew his hand slowly along the gash,
the fisherman felt an icy, burning pain crawl across his own chest.
But, as his hand passed allong, the wound closed, as easily as
you would close a jacket, and the flesh grew warm and the colour
seeped back into it.
By the time he was halfway along the wound, the fisherman could
hardly breathe for the pain in his own chest, and, as he reached
the hip, and the wound was finally closed, he fell to his knees,
gasping and panting. It seemed as though hsi own life had flowed
out of his hand and into the young seal-man. He fell forward,
and slept, exhausted. When he awoke, he was lying on the shore,
at the foot of the cliffs. A little brusied and battered, but
alive. He told those who asked that he had slipped, and fallen
over the cliffs. Some believed him , some did not. But he never
told another soul that, when he awoke, lying next to him on the
shingle was a neat pile of his nets. Not only mended, but better
than ever - and they always gave him a good catch. And on top
of the nets was a creel. Inside were two of the biggest lobsters
he had ever seen
From that day on, he was one fishreman that never hurt hair or
hide of seal, and, if he was a few fish short from one net or
another from time to time, he woudl shrug, and smile, and say
'Why not ? They have to live as well'
The song is a traditional sela call, from the West Coast of Scotland.
Allan (sealman) Davies
Blackridge, West Lothian
Scotland
13) The Orcadians have many selkie stories. You'll be able to google some more sites, too. And a modest advert - my favourite selkie tale is on my latest CD:
http://www.talesandmusic.de/recordings/cd_2.htm
(This
web page updated 2/28/05)
