Selkie
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The shy Selkies are marine creatures in the shape of a seal. They can be found near the islands of Orkney and Shetland. A female can shed her skin and come ashore as a beautiful woman. When a man finds the skin, he can force the Selkie to be a good, if somewhat sad, wife. Should she ever recover the skin, she will immediately return to sea, leaving her husband behind. The male Selkies are responsible for storms and also for the sinking of ships, which is their way of avenging the hunting of seals. The term "selkie" is simply the Orcadian dialect word meaning "seal". Selkies are a very common sight across the islands. Heads bobbing above the surface of the waves, they are most often seen watching inquisitively with uncannily human eyes. To the onshore observer it is not hard to see how the legends surrounding the selkie folk - the seal people - sprang into life. Orkney has many stories concerning a this magical race of creatures. Unlike the Fin Folk with their malicious tendencies, the selkie folk came to be regarded as gentle shape shifters with the ability to transform from seals into beautiful, lithe humans. Throughout the surviving folklore there is no general agreement as to how often this magical transformation could take place. In some tales it was once a year, usually on Midsummer's Eve, whereas in others it could be 'every ninth night' or 'every seventh stream'. However often they were able to transform, the folklore does tell us that once in human form the selkie folk would dance merrily on lonely stretches of moonlit shore or bask in the sun on outlying rocks or skerries. A common element in all Selkie Folk tales, and perhaps the most important, is the fact that when the selkies assume human form they cast off their sealskins. Within these magical skins lay the power to return to seal form, and therefore the sea. If one of the selkie folk lost their sealskin, they were doomed to remain in human form until the skin was recovered. Because of this, if disturbed during one of their midnight shore dances, the selkie folk would hastily snatch up their skins and rush back to the safety of the sea. The male members among the selkie folk were renowned for their many encounters with human females - married and unmarried. A selkie man in human form was a handsome creature with almost magical seductive powers over mortal women. These selkie men had no qualms in casting off their sealskins, stashing them carefully, before heading inland to seek illicit intercourse with an 'unsatisfied woman'. Should such a mortal woman wish to make contact with a selkie man, there was a specific rite that she had to follow. At the high tide, the woman should make her way to the shore where she had to shed seven tears into the sea. The selkie man would then come ashore and after removing his magical sealskin, would seek out 'unlawful love' among the women of the island. In the words of the Orkney folklorist Walter Traill Dennison, these selkie males: "..often made havoc among thoughtless girls, and sometimes intruded into the sanctity of married life." If a girl went missing while out on the ebb or at sea, it was inevitably said that her selkie lover had taken her to his watery domain - assuming, of course, she had not attracted the eye of a Finman. But if the males of the selkie race were irresistable to the island women, selkie women were no less alluring to the eyes of earth-born men. The most common theme in selkie folklore is one in which a cunning young Orcadian man acquires, either by trickery or theft, a selkie girl's sealskin. This prevented her from returning to her home in the sea and the beautiful seal-maiden was usually forced to marry their 'captors' and sire children. These tales generally end sadly, however, with the selkie wife's children finding and returning her sealskin so that she might return to the sea. In some accounts her children go with her while others have them remaining with their mortal father.