The session completed the topic looking at Seal People (Selkies), Sea Trows, Water Cattle and Kelpies.
1/. Seal people’s (Selkies):-
In tales from the West of Ireland and Scotland their normal environment is the sea, they can shed their skin and take on human form. This happens at dawn and dusk and on special days.
People used to claim they were descended from Selkies who bred with human men whilst in their human form.
One tale was of a young crofter/fisherman who saw a Selkie in the act of turning into a woman, he stole her skin so she could not revert and go back to the sea. He took her home to be his wife and they lived together and had children. She always wanted to return to the sea and one day found the skin the young man had left and went back to the sea and was never seen again.
There was another tale of the Selkie Bride from long ago on the coast of Scotland where a beautiful human form Selkie was left behind by her own kind when they were startled by a man. He kept her skin even though she begged for it as he had fallen in love with her. She was trapped and had no option but to agree to live with him. He kept the skin in a crook in the chimney. They were married and he truly loved her and she grew to love him too and they had 7 children. She pined for the sea and the children would sometimes see their mother on the beach. One of the children asked her why and she replied that she was born in the sea and your father has hidden my seal skin. The child knew where the skin was and moved by his mother’s distress brought the skin to her. She put the skin on and went into the sea. The fisherman’s heart broke in two and he realised how wrong he had been. They missed her for the rest of their lives, they often saw a seal close to the shore and they never went hungry as every time they went fishing, they had a net full of gleaming fish.
2/. Sea Trows from Shetland:-
These looked like human beings, they were mortal and very beautiful men and women with super natural powers. They lived in the sea down below any fish. The only way they could come up was by putting on the skin of an amphibious creature, once on shore they could take the skin off but they could not return if they lost the skin.
Samuel Hibbert in his book ‘A Description of the Shetland Isles’ says these were fallen angels who took refuge in the sea but records show these stories were there before Christianity.
They were fond of the Skerries and would revel in the moonlight protected by the turbulent water around the islands.
There are connections to Celtic Mythology, from the other world, using water as a way to cross over and shape-shifting
3/. Water Cattle:-
These are stories from the Celtic parts of Britain, Scotland, Wales and Coastal Ireland. In the Highlands of Scotland and Wales they are fairy cattle whose real homes are under the water and belong to the fairy folk. They are brown with no horns. One tale was of a fairy cow which was bred with a normal bull. When it had come to be of no further use they were about to butcher it when it was called home by a green woman, the cow sped away and took all her offspring with her.
4/. Horses/Kelpies:-
Kelpies were most often horses but they could also take on human form. Old men, young men, young women. They would go courting and could be recognised by the waterweed in their hair. They haunted fords and rivers especially at night in storms and when the rivers were full. They were dangerous and malevolent beings. They delighted in the drowning of men, distress of sailors as a ship went down.
The White Horse of Spey was ready saddled with reins dangling to lure tired travellers to ride it, then would gallop off into the water.
When the Conon River in Ross-shire was in flood it would appear as a woman or as a horse. The woman was described as being very tall and dressed in green. Her face was distorted by a malignant scowl. They would leap out from the water beside travellers and beckon them into the water. The traveller couldn’t resist and could not be saved. One tale covers a man being saved from drowning and taken to a church but later found face down in a trough. It was his fate.
Such was the belief in Kelpies that on one occasion some people were stuck on a sandbank in the Solway Firth and the people on land did not try to save them as they assumed it was kelpies and they could not be saved.
There were lots of these stories, with the majority resulting in mutilation with fingers being chopped off to loosen grip on reins in order to escape or drowning. On occasion the Kelpie could be outwitted.
These stories were a way of explain natural phenomenon.
Next time we shall start a new topic of Giants.
Last Updated on June 6, 2021