Scotland’s Stories: Story of a Selkie - Tom Muir

Have you ever seen a seal bobbing in the water, watching you? If you have been to the north of Scotland you may have...

The Pentland Firth is a wild and unforgiving stretch of water. It lies between the North Highland county of Caithness and the Orkney Islands, and each day sees the cold grey waters of the North Sea do battle against the might of the Atlantic Ocean as the two tides meet in the Firth. Whirlpools, powerful enough to sink ships or to draw them towards the rocks form as these waters meet. It is not a place that you can make a comfortable living, but many generations of fishermen had to do just that.

A long, long time ago there was a man whose small cottage lay by the shores of the Pentland Firth, not far from where John O’ Groats House now stands. He had a wife and bairns who depended on him and he had to reap a cold and dangerous harvest from these treacherous waters. He fished and he set creels to catch lobsters and crabs and he gathered shellfish in times of hunger to keep his family fed. He was also a hunter of selkies (as seals are called in the north), and the skins that he stripped from these animals could fetch a decent price at market. People treated the selkies with caution and respect, because it was believed that they had the power to take off their skins and become human at certain times of the tide.

Some said that they were the souls of people who had drowned, and they would not harm them, but the selkie hunter just laughed at these ‘old wives' tales’, and ignored the warnings of his neighbours.

© Tom Muir.

May be freely used within schools and early years’ centres in Scotland.

Rights of reproduction for commercial purposes are strictly not permitted without prior written permission.

Видео Scotland’s Stories: Story of a Selkie - Tom Muir канала Scottish Storytelling Centre