selkie myth / legends

Selkies are able to transform to human form by shedding their seal skins, and can return to seal form by putting it back on. Stories concerning selkies are generally romantic tragedies. Sometimes the human will not know that their lover is a selkie, and wakes to find them gone. Other times the human will hide the selkie's skin, thus preventing them from returning to seal form. A selkie can only make contact with one particular human for a short amount of time before they must return to the sea. They are not able to make contact with that human again for seven years, unless the human is to steal their selkie's skin and hide it or burn it.^{[citation needed]} Examples of such stories are The Grey Selkie of Suleskerry, a ballad, and the movie The Secret of Roan Inish.

In The Secret of Roan Inish, a fisherman steals the selkie's pelt while she is sunbathing. She is then forced to return to his house, as she cannot escape back into the sea, and becomes his wife and bears him children. The skin of the seal gives her power over men, but without it she is a mortal woman, trapped on land, slave to the whims of her husband. The life there slowly suffocates her and she spends much time splashing in the shallows of the ocean. Years later, one of the children sees the pelt and asks what it is. The wife immediately knows, drops what she is doing and retrieves the pelt from its hiding place, having long ago despaired of ever finding it. She does not hesitate; she rushes to the ocean to return to her former life as a seal.

The selkie legend is also told in Wales, but in a slightly different form. The selkies are humans who have returned to the sea. Dylan (Dylan Eil Don) the firstborn of Arianrhod, was variously a merman or sea spirit, who in some versions of the story escapes to the sea immediately after birth.

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 can't 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 on a hunt kills both her selkie husband and two selkie sons, 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 Kallsoy.

Male selkies are very handsome in their human form, and have great seduction powers over human women. They typically seek those who are dissatisfied with their romantic life. This includes married women waiting for their fishermen husbands. If a woman wishes to make contact with a selkie male, she has to go to a beach and shed seven tears into the sea.

If a man steals a female selkie's skin, she is in his power, to an extent, and she is forced to become his wife — a regional variant on the motif of the swan maiden, unusual in that the bride's animal form is usually a bird. 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 again, 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.

Selkies are not always faithless lovers. One tale tells of the fisherman Cagan who married a seal-woman. Against his wife's wishes he set sail dangerously late in the year, and was trapped battling a terrible storm, unable to return home. His wife shifted to her seal form and saved him, even though this meant she could never return to her human body and hence her happy home.

Selkie....working story

Chapter 1

Insert background of g'mas house

“Sarah “ the voice caressed her with a touch as light as a summer breeze. She felt a need growing in her each time it called her. She was lying of on the beach. Waves crashing on the sand; the moon half-full shining brightly. He stood on the sand with the tide coming in around him. His lithe body glistening with the spray from the surf. She awoke suddenly to the shrill sound of her alarm. The smell of the ocean still on the air.

Chapter 2

”Morning. Sarah. How was your night?”
“Strange. I had that dream again. It gets more real every time. This morning I swear I could smell the ocean when I woke up.”
“You should talk to my friend Joseph. He is really into dream interpretation and stuff. I can give him a call and see if he’s free for lunch today. Maybe he could help.”
“Thanks Laura. That sounds great! I’ll talk to you later. Right now, I’ve got to find the top of my desk.” I said, gesturing to the multiple piles of paper on the desk in front of me.

Laura closed the door behind her as she left my office. All thoughts of the dream would have to wait. I had a ton of work to get done if I was going to have any chance of lunch away from my desk. Those pesky forms would not file themselves. I grabbed the file folder on top and got to work. It was quite awhile later when there was a knock at my door.

“Come in.” I called as I stretched, trying to relive the tension in my shoulders. Looking up I found Laura standing in my doorway with a silly grin on her face and a man I didn’t recognize.” This is my friend, Joseph. And this” She said pointing at me, “is Sarah.” . He followed her in, holding his hand out at the introduction. “Hi “ I said shaking his hand. He was not what I had pictured when she said he was into interpreting dreams “and stuff”. I had expected long pony-tailed hair, jeans, and tie-dye …the stereotypical hippy. He was the exact opposite. He seemed totally at ease in his shirt and tie. His suit coat casually slung over his shoulder. “So, have you found enough of your desk to come to lunch with us?” he asked interrupting my thoughts. “No,” I said , shrugging. “but I need the break. Let’s go.”

We went to a nice little café. About half-way through our meal, Laura nudges me, “tell him about your dream.” Joseph looked up expectantly. 

 

Selkie - ideas & thoughts

A woman (Sarah) is left a house by her grandmother. It is near the ocean (need location...northern). She moves out of her apartment and moves in the house. Initally doesnt go thru things left, just uses spare bedroom.

Starts to have dreams.....

“Sarah “ the voice caressed her with a touch as light as a summer breeze. She felt a need growing in her each time it called her. She was lying of on the beach. Waves crashing on the sand; the moon half-full shining brightly. He stood on the sand with the tide coming in around him. His lithe body glistening with the spray from the surf. She awoke suddenly to the shrill sound of her alarm. The smell of the ocean still on the air.


Starts to go thru things...finds love letters, fur coat, journal but it is locked ....Journal could be someone's other than the g'mas...maybe best friend of g'ma.

Selkie myth but reversed- seal turns to man, leave seal fur coat on beach...if woman finds it and hides it from him then he must remain a man until he is given his coat back. generally woman and man fall in love and have children..girls (human), boys (seals). Man does not age but woman does.