The Selkie Wife

The Orkney Islands lie north of the coast of Scotland. With nothing but the endless ocean before them, it is but natural that the folk here believe in magical shape-shifting creatures called selkies. The word ‘selkie’ means ‘seal’ in the Orcadian dialect. Seals were a common sight in those parts. Selkies, the natives believe, could shed their skins and take human form. Many a time, a human has fallen in love with these glowing, beautiful, transformed beings, often leading to tragic circumstances.

In Orkney, in a time long past, lived a man who was simply known as Goodman of Wastness. Goodman was a handsome young lad and naturally, many of the local maidens wanted to marry him. But sadly for them, Goodman was not interested. As is the case with sour grapes, the girls would make fun of him. ‘That Goodman, he is an old young man. He’s just grown to be too old to be a suitable groom for any of us,’ they would say, laughing derisively. Goodman couldn’t care less about their opinion though.

When his well-meaning friends would voice their concerns about his bachelorhood, he would always tell them, ‘These women are nothing but trouble. As if I don’t have enough already! If old Adam hadn’t been bewitched by that wife of his, we’d all still be in the Garden of Eden.’

‘Don’t keep saying that, my boy,’ said an old woman who heard him. ‘You’ll be bewitched too, one day! Mark my words!’

Goodman laughed loudly at this. ‘That will be the day!’

That day came soon enough. Goodman was walking by the seashore when he came upon some selkies beside a flat rock, across a rather shallow pool of water. They looked like humans, with glowing, ivory-white skins. Some were sunbathing on the rock, while others playfully splashed water on each other. A little away, he saw their magical seal skins left strewn across the dry sand and a cluster of small rocks. Quickly, he plunged into the waters and swam to that part of the sea and seized one of the seal skins. The terrified selkies tried to make a dash for it, seeing a stranger in their midst.

When he returned to the shore with his prized possession, he heard a mournful cry, almost human, from the sea. He turned to look and saw a beautiful girl-selkie looking at him with a piteous expression. Tears were flowing down her pretty face as she begged him to return her skin. ‘Please, kind human, return my skin to me! Without it I can never return home,’ she begged. Goodman was not inclined to be so obliging.

But when he looked at her large and limpid sea-green eyes, something stirred in his heart. His stubborn heart, which had refused every girl, melted at this vision before him. ‘I’m not going to return your skin, for you look so beautiful without it. Come with me and be my wife. I’ll take good care of you,’ he said to her.

We do not know how he convinced her. Perhaps she knew she had no choice and she quietly went home with him and became his wife. She was very sweet-tempered and soon settled into her new life with ease. Over the years, they had four sons and three daughters. All of them were fair with glowing skin like their mother’s and Goodman was a contented man.

Although she appeared cheerful and never complained, the selkie maiden would often gaze longingly at the sea and sit for hours by the shore singing a strange, mournful song. She taught her children the song too, though nobody knew what it meant.

One morning, Goodman and his two eldest sons went out in their boats for a day of fishing. The remaining children were sent to the seashore to collect limpets and whelks by their mother (which are both sea snails that can be eaten). But the youngest girl stayed at home as she had hurt her foot climbing some sharp rocks.

Now the selkie maiden finally had the house to herself—well, almost. So she began to look high and low for her seal skin that Goodman had hidden away so carefully. She spent the whole day looking but couldn’t find it anywhere. Soon it was getting to be evening and nobody had come home yet.

‘Mother, what are you looking for? You’ve spent the whole day searching the house. Tell me, maybe I can help you!’ her little girl asked her. The mother looked at the golden-haired cherubic child of hers. ‘There’s a beautiful piece of skin somewhere in this house of ours. If I could find it, I thought I’d make you a fine pair of shoes so that you would never get hurt again.’

‘Oh Mother dear,’ said the girl laughing. ‘I told you I could help. One night, when Father thought I was fast asleep, which I wasn’t, of course, he pulled out a pretty piece of skin from that space in that corner of the roof between the walls there,’ she said, pointing, ‘and gazed at it angrily and folded it and put it right back.’ The mother rushed to where the girl was pointing and stood on a stool and sure enough, there it was—her own skin!

Clasping it to her breast, the selkie woman looked at her youngest born and said softly, ‘Farewell, sweet child of mine.’ And then she rushed out towards the seashore. Slipping on that magical skin, she plunged into the sea and swam to a distance where a selkie man was waiting for her. He greeted her with great delight and she, after the longest time, laughed joyfully.

At that moment, who should be rowing back to the shore but Goodman and his sons? When she saw them, the selkie woman uncovered her beautiful face and cried out to him, ‘Fair thee well, Goodman of Wastness! I liked you well enough, for you were good to me, but I love my husband from the sea more!’ And then she disappeared into the deep. That was the last Goodman ever saw of his selkie wife.