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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Creature Feature: Selkies

Selkies are a mythological race of seals who shed their skin to take human form. According to one website, they are gentle creatures, with the ability to transform from seals into beautiful, lithe humans. Some tales say they could transform only once a year, usually Midsummer's Eve, while others state it could be “every ninth night” or “every seventh stream”.

One thing common in most of the legends is the power of their seal skins. If the skins were stolen or lost, the selkie could never return to the sea. The hansome selkie males were blamed for a lot of dallying about with mortal maids and were said to be very handsome indeed. Selkie women were often the tragic figures of trickery where a mortal man would steal her seal skin and force her to marry him. Often those legends ended sadly when one of her children would return the stolen skin and either return with her to the sea or stay with the human father on land forevermore.

Either way, selkies in human form were said to be beautiful and almost irresistable to the opposite sex. Maybe that's why there have been a few romance novels with selkie heroes of late. Writers looking for new kinds of shapeshifters to write about have rediscovered the selkie and all the magic they possess.

2 comments:

Gia Dawn said...

I saw a very sad movie recently about a selkie-lass. Scott Glen played a grieving Irish sailor whe had lost his wife years ago...when the selkie was made a slave by his neighbor he saved her and fell in love, but in the end, she had to save him from drowning and returned to the sea.
The actress was beautiful, and the movie was cooly Irish.
I've also read a couple of horror books that turned the selkies into nasty monster things...pretty cool, too.

Jean Marie Ward said...

Have you ever read the marvelous Barbara Michaels book Wait for What Will Come? It's the kind of book that make you wish gothics never went out of style. The plot revolves around demon selkie lovers, and the hero is an ex-ballet dancer who looks like the young Nureyev only he's Brit and he's straight. *user fans self* Oh, the fantasies that inspired in my fevered post-adolescent brain!