Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure. Among Celts in close contact with Ancient Rome, s...
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Selkies (also spelled silkies, sylkies, selchies, Scots: selkie fowk) are mythological creatures found in Irish, Scottish, Faroese, and Icelandic folklore. Selkies are said to live as seals in the sea but shed their skin to become human on land. The stories frequently revolve around female selkies being coerced into relationships with humans by someone stealing and hiding their sealskin, often not regaining the skin until years later upon which they commonly return to the sea, forsaking their human family.
Theory of Origins
Before the advent of modern medicine, many physiological conditions were untreatable. When children were born with abnormalities, it was common to blame the fairies. The MacCodrum clan of the Outer Hebrides became known as the "MacCodrums of the seals" as they claimed to be descended from a union between a fisherman and a selkie. This was an explanation for the hereditary growth of skin between their fingers that made their hands resemble flippers.
Scottish folklorist and antiquarian, David MacRitchie believed that early settlers in Scotland probably encountered, and even married, Finnish and Sami women who were misidentified as selkies because of their sealskin kayaks and clothing. Others have suggested that the traditions concerning the selkies may have been due to misinterpreted sightings of Finn-men (Inuit from the Davis Strait). The Inuit wore clothes and used kayaks that were both made of animal skins. Both the clothes and kayaks would lose buoyancy when saturated and would need to be dried out. It is thought that sightings of Inuit divesting themselves of their clothing or lying next to the skins on the rocks could have led to the belief in their ability to change from a seal to a man. Another belief is that shipwrecked Spaniards were washed ashore, and their jet black hair resembled seals. As the anthropologist A. Asbjørn Jøn has recognised though, there is a strong body of lore that indicates that selkies "are said to be supernaturally formed from the souls of drowned people".
Legends
Male selkies are described as being very handsome in their human form, and having great seductive powers over human women. They typically seek those who are dissatisfied with their lives, such as married women waiting for their fishermen husbands. If a woman wishes to make contact with a selkie male, she must shed seven tears into the sea. If a man steals a female selkie's skin she is in his power and is forced to become his wife. Female selkies are said to make excellent wives, but because their true home is the sea, they will often be seen gazing longingly at the ocean. If she finds her skin she will immediately return to her true home, and sometimes to her selkie husband, in the sea. Sometimes, a selkie maiden is taken as a wife by a human man and she has several children by him. In these stories, it is one of her children who discovers her sealskin (often unwitting of its significance) and she soon returns to the sea. The selkie woman usually avoids seeing her human husband again but is sometimes shown visiting her children and playing with them in the waves.
Stories concerning selkies are generally romantic tragedies. Sometimes the human will not know that their lover is a selkie, and wakes to find them returned to their seal form. In other stories the human will hide the selkie's skin, thus preventing the selkie from returning to its seal form. A selkie can only make contact with one human for a short amount of time before the selkie must return to the sea. The selkie is unable to make contact with that human again for seven years, unless the human steals their selkie skin and hides it or burns it.
In the Faroe Islands there are two versions of the story of the Selkie or Seal Wife. A young farmer from the town of Mikladalur on Kalsoy island goes to the beach to watch the selkies dance. He hides the skin of a beautiful selkie maid, so she cannot go back to sea, and forces her to marry him. He keeps her skin in a chest, and keeps the key with him both day and night. One day when out fishing, he discovers that he has forgotten to bring his key. When he returns home, the selkie wife has escaped back to sea, leaving their children behind. Later, when the farmer is out on a hunt, he kills both her selkie husband and two selkie sons, and she promises to take revenge upon the men of Mikladalur. Some shall be drowned, some shall fall from cliffs and slopes, and this shall continue, until so many men have been lost that they will be able to link arms around the whole island of Kalsoy, there are still occasional deaths occurring in this way on the island.
Mythology
There is one ancient Celtic story featuring Neil Mac Coddrum, a Scottish fisherman. He was traveling along the coast when he spotted a group of nude women dancing under the moon. When he stepped on a piece of driftwood, he alerted his presence to the women who ran over to a pile of furs, slipped them on and dove into the sea. However, Neil Mac Coddrum was able to grab the last sister’s sealskin before she could put it on. Although she pleaded with him to give it back to her, Neil knew about selkies from the old tales and he refused. He hid her sealskin and the woman was forced to stay with him and become his wife.
After some time, she gave Neil a son and a daughter, both sporting webs between their fingers and toes. They grew older as the selkie woman grew more wistful, though she was a good and obedient wife. One day, the children came running to her with a piece of fur, excited to show her what they had found. Their mother was overjoyed to have her sealskin back. She told her children about the Selkie race and then warned them that she had to leave them that very night.
After Neil had fallen asleep, the selkie woman took her sealskin to the water’s edge. She bade her children farewell but she told them that they would be able to hear her singing from time to time, as they were half-selkie themselves. Then, she slipped into the water and the children headed home. In the morning, Neil Mac Coddrum was saddened to hear his children tell him that their mother had returned to the sea. He missed her very much, but his children kept him company for the rest of his life, except for the nights when their mother’s song called them to come to her and swim through the waves.
There are many Celtic legends that tell of children being born with webbed fingers and toes, but none so famous as the Mac Coddrum siblings.
