The Seal Wife: A traditional Hebridean Tale retold by Lizzie Gates
Every year, on the Isle of Berneray South of Harris in the Hebrides, young seal people – selkies – leave the sea. For one day only, we take off our sealskins, and dance on the white sands at the water’s edge. We laugh and run and feel a freedom we do not know in our own form. We play at being humans. And – although only for one day – it feels good.
But, for many generations, our seal mothers and fathers have told us, “Beware the humans who live on these wild islands. They long to be like us – to survive in the sea and know no cold – to play in our world as we can in theirs.”
But we – being young – are not afraid. We always believe we will win. But – oh, my children – now I must tell you the story of how I almost lost you. And of the other grief which came to me instead.
Once upon a time, I was the most beautiful of my sisters and longed to dance on the White Sands with the Prince of Seals, the most handsome and the strongest of his generation.
The year passed and the Day came. We hauled ourselves out of the turquoise Sea and slid out of our skins. The pile of our pelts grew and grew – black, white, silver, dark brown and mine. Glimmering gold in the sun. It was the most beautiful you could hope to see.
And then, my children, oh how we danced, your father and I. On sands white as silver against clouds black as steel. We rejoiced in our Life. But, then the Day was over. My sisters, my brothers, laughing, found their skins from the pile and plunged again into the welcoming sea.
But then I wept. The skins were gone, my brothers and sisters were gone and I was alone. My beautiful golden skin – it was nowhere to be found. And, without it, I could not come back here to the sea. Your father, the Prince of Seals, was calling me – I could hear him across the waves of the evening sea. His call was lonely. It echoed the loneliness of my own heart. I thought my heart would break.
Then, I realised, I would have to find my skin myself. No-one else could help. I curled up on a rock and thought.
Only a human would have been able to take my beautiful skin. Certainly, on this lonely, wild island, nothing else had thumbs. But also, nothing else would want to steal something purely for its beauty. And what other use could it serve?
Across the green mounds behind the strand, I could smell the peat fire. Only a human would need a peat fire. The rest of us have other arrangements. And, I was sure – my pelt was somewhere near that fire. I followed the scent on the air – smoking, bitter, ancient – speaking of earth centuries shared by the sea. Salt in the wind.
My legs pained me to walk now. I was desperate to reach the peat fire but the sun was down to the rim of the now black sea. The world was suddenly cold. Suddenly hostile. Magic was dying with the Sun. And I was facing nothing I had ever known.
Then, outlined against the firelight, I saw him. A human, a shepherd, hulked in the darkness, listening to my weeping. “Mortal man!”, I cried out, “mortal man! If you have taken my skin, please give it back to me. Without it, I cannot go home.”
The memory of my Prince of Seals bit into my heart and I wept. But, that day, I was destined to find someone who loved me. The shepherd did not give me my skin. But he led me to his hearth, to his peat fireside, and warmed me with cloth woven from the wool of the sheep he tended on the Isles and washed with the rain of the Isles’ heaven and dyed with the berries and flowers and lichens of the Isles’ earth.
I was enchanted. And I stayed. And I bore him a daughter. A beautiful child – entirely perfect – even down to the webs of skin between her tiny fingers and toes. She was so beautiful, your sister. It broke my heart to leave her.
But leave her I did.
It happened this way. I loved the shepherd. In my way. I tended him. I tended his croft. Although I could not forget that I did not belong and I continued to search long after I had forgotten what I searched for. Then one day – I was dusting as human wives do and I saw something hidden up in the thatch which gleamed gold in the firelight. What I had searched for – all that time – had found me. It was time to go.
At first, I didn’t understand that the choice before me was either/or. I just felt compelled to explore the possibility. I kissed my darling child, knowing I was going on an adventure, and would not see her till morning. Then I ran again to the shore, across the silver white sand and down to the turquoise sea. I drew on my golden pelt, dived from the rocks into the deep and gleaming water and swam towards the setting sun.
Suddenly, I was aware that a seal was alongside me. It was your father, the Prince of Seals. He had waited all those years! And now we could dance again in our element. We reclaimed ourselves – and our sea – and I never went back again to walk on the land. Which is how you and I come to know each other.
But, I do sometimes swim near the Isle again. And she walks there. And I call to her. She hears the longing in my call. But she does not understand. I call and I call my love to her but she does not understand. . . .
©Lizzie Gates, Lonely Furrow Company, 2011.
Prompts
Read the Story of the Seal Wife
Now Consider:
1) Are there moral issues in this story? What are they? This story is told from the viewpoint of the Seal Wife. Usually, it is told from the viewpoint of the fisherman. How would this alter the moral issues?
2) Memory – Think of a story from your own life – it may contain a setting similar or contrasting to the Isle of Berneray, and characters such as the fisherman or the seal wife, and dwell on the theme of loneliness. Loneliness – when have you felt lonely? Where is the loneliest place you have been to? Do you remember how you felt and what you did about it?
3) Where do you feel you belong – where are your roots? Relate the concept of belonging to the story. Relate to your own story. Can you translate this story to your society, your times? What can you change? How can you improve your current story? Tell your new story.
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