Also called Selkie folk, Silkie, Roane, Seal people.
The tale
In Orkney and Shetland it was said that seals could take off their skins and dance on the shore as beautiful men and women. A man who hid a selkie woman's skin could make her his wife, and she would stay, kind but always gazing at the sea. Years later one of her children finds the skin hidden in the rafters, and she takes it and runs to the water, returning to her seal husband and leaving her human family forever. Families in the islands sometimes claimed descent from such a marriage, and said a woman wishing to meet a selkie man should shed seven tears into the sea.
When they are met
- Midsummer Eve on the shore, in some Orkney tellings
- at high tide
- at a full moon over the sea
Staying on their good side
- kindness to seals and sea creatures
- never keeping what belongs to another
- songs sung by the shore
Honouring them, or keeping safe
- Walk by the sea and give quiet thanks, watching for seals from a respectful distance.
- Support the care of seals and clean beaches.
- Keep a small shell or sea-smoothed stone as a reminder of where your own heart truly belongs.
- Read or sing the Orkney ballad The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry.
What their tales teach
- understanding longing for home
- letting loved ones be free
- change and transformation
- kinship with the sea
Symbols
- a sealskin
- a rocky shore
- the seal's dark eyes
- seven tears shed into the sea
From Orkney, Shetland, Irish and Hebridean lore collected in the 19th and 20th centuries.
More Celtic folklore
- The Banshee The keening woman of the fairy mound
- The Púca The shape-shifter of November
- The Aos Sí The people of the fairy mounds
- The Kelpie The water horse of the lochs
- The Tylwyth Teg The Fair Family of Wales
- Leprechaun The solitary fairy shoemaker
- Clurichaun The fairy of the wine cellar
- Fear Dearg The red man who asks to warm himself