There are many tales of marriages between humans and seals in Scottish and Irish tradition. Some families are supposed to be descended from the seal people, and their children were born with webs of skin between their fingers and toes. Members of the Clan MacCodrum of South Uist have been known for centuries as the Children of the Seals. This is their story.
The Selkie
Long ago on an island at the northern edge of the world, there lived a fisherman called Neil MacCodrum. He lived all alone in a stone croft where the moorland meets the shore, with nothing but the guillemots for company and the stirring of the sand among the shingle for song.
But in the long winter evenings he would sit by the peat-fire and watch the blue smoke curling up to the roof, and his eyes looked far and far away as if he was looking into another country. And sometimes, when the wind rustled the bent-grass on the machair , he seemed to hear a soft voice sighing his name.
One spring evening, the men of the clachan were bringing their boats full of herring into shore. They swung homeward with glad hearts, and their wives lit the rushlights, so that the wide world dwindled to a warm quiet room.
Neil MacCodrum was the last to drag his boat up the shingle and hoist the creel of fish upon his back. He stood a while watching the seabirds fly low towards the headland, their wings dark against the evening sky, then turned to trudge up the shingle to the croft on the machair.
It was as he turned he saw something move in the shadows of the rocks. A glimmer of white and then - he heard it between birds’ cries - high laughter like silver. He set down the creel, and with careful steps he neared the rocks, hardly daring to breathe, and hid behind the largest one. And then he saw them - seven girls with long flowing hair, naked and white as the swans on the lake, dancing in a ring where the shoreline met the sea.
And now his eye caught something else - a shapeless pile of speckled brown skins lying heaped like seaweed on a boulder nearby. Now MacCodrum knew that they were selkie, who are seals in the sea, but when they come to land take off their skins and appear as human women.
Crouching low, Neil MacCodrum crept towards the pile of skins and slowly slid the top one down. But just as he rolled it up and put it under his coat, one of the selkie gave a sharp cry. The dance stopped, the bright circle broke, and the girls ran to the boulder, slipped into their skins and slithered into the rising tide, shiny brown seals that glided away into the dark night sea.
All but one.
She stood before him white as a pearl, as still as frost in starlight. She stared at him with great dark eyes that held the depths of the sea, then slowly she held out her hand, and said in a voice that trembled with silver:
“Ochone, ochone! Please give me back my skin.”
He took a step towards her.
“Come with me,” he said, “I will give you new clothes to wear.”
There are many tales of marriages between humans and seals in Scottish and Irish tradition. Some families are supposed to be descended from the seal people, and their children were born with webs of skin between their fingers and toes. Members of the Clan MacCodrum of South Uist have been known for centuries as the Children of the Seals. This is their story.
The Selkie
Long ago on an island at the northern edge of the world, there lived a fisherman called Neil MacCodrum. He lived all alone in a stone croft where the moorland meets the shore, with nothing but the guillemots for company and the stirring of the sand among the shingle for song.
But in the long winter evenings he would sit by the peat-fire and watch the blue smoke curling up to the roof, and his eyes looked far and far away as if he was looking into another country. And sometimes, when the wind rustled the bent-grass on the machair , he seemed to hear a soft voice sighing his name.
One spring evening, the men of the clachan were bringing their boats full of herring into shore. They swung homeward with glad hearts, and their wives lit the rushlights, so that the wide world dwindled to a warm quiet room.
Neil MacCodrum was the last to drag his boat up the shingle and hoist the creel of fish upon his back. He stood a while watching the seabirds fly low towards the headland, their wings dark against the evening sky, then turned to trudge up the shingle to the croft on the machair.
It was as he turned he saw something move in the shadows of the rocks. A glimmer of white and then - he heard it between birds’ cries - high laughter like silver. He set down the creel, and with careful steps he neared the rocks, hardly daring to breathe, and hid behind the largest one. And then he saw them - seven girls with long flowing hair, naked and white as the swans on the lake, dancing in a ring where the shoreline met the sea.
And now his eye caught something else - a shapeless pile of speckled brown skins lying heaped like seaweed on a boulder nearby. Now MacCodrum knew that they were selkie, who are seals in the sea, but when they come to land take off their skins and appear as human women.
Crouching low, Neil MacCodrum crept towards the pile of skins and slowly slid the top one down. But just as he rolled it up and put it under his coat, one of the selkie gave a sharp cry. The dance stopped, the bright circle broke, and the girls ran to the boulder, slipped into their skins and slithered into the rising tide, shiny brown seals that glided away into the dark night sea.
All but one.
She stood before him white as a pearl, as still as frost in starlight. She stared at him with great dark eyes that held the depths of the sea, then slowly she held out her hand, and said in a voice that trembled with silver:
“Ochone, ochone! Please give me back my skin.”
He took a step towards her.
“Come with me,” he said, “I will give you new clothes to wear.”