Rare Scottish Stories #10 The Selkie With The Gold Chain

This story has been passed down through word of mouth for many generations in Orkney. Our story starts at Sule Skerry, a minuscule rocky island measuring just 40 acres with no human inhabitants. On this desolated rock sat a young woman cradling a baby in her arms weeping sorrowfully. She had given birth on this tiny island and she did not know where the father was. You see, the father had been a selkie and after making love to her had left her to return to sea. As she lamented at the hopelessness of her situation, a seal appeared in front of her announcing that he was the father of her child but he could not marry her. Instead the selkie promised that the child would be provided for and that when the baby boy was seven years old, he would return and bring him back to where he belongs - to a life in the sea. The seal dropped a leather pouch filled with gold coins in front of the weeping mother and returned to the water.

A Scottish seal - or selkie?

The young mother cared for the child alone knowing that everyday she had less time. The boy grew into a big strong lad with a happy disposition. Shortly after his seventh birthday, when the mother and son were down at the shore, the seal appeared before them again. He announced that it was time for his son to come with him and dropped another leather pouch filled with cold coins at the woman’s feet. Around the boy’s neck, the selkie placed a thick gold chain and told the mother that is she should see any seal with the chain, it would be her son and she should feel content in the knowledge that he was happy and safe, where he belongs.

The mother was overcome with grief and she asked the selkie what would become of her - she had no husband and now she had no son either. The selkie reassured her that she would find love soon with a soldier and she would spend many years with him. The selkie then delivered a warning - there would come one day in May whereby her new love would go down to the shore and shoot two seals - one would be her son and the other would be her selkie lover. Being of few words, as selkies are, the Father and son then dived into the water and were gone in the waves.

Many years passed before the woman found love again and as fate would have it, he was a soldier. Together they married and lived a wonderful life in wedded bliss. One day, in May, her husband went out hunting with his gun and returned with a gold chain announcing that he had killed two seals, one of which had the chain around its neck. Overcome with grief, the woman dropped to her knees and wept. The selkies prophecy had been fulfilled. The woman then lived out the rest of her days in continued happiness, once the grief passed, with her soldier husband.

Is there a reason that every selkie story here in Scotland ends in tragedy? Is the selkie a metaphor for morality used in story telling or is it a real creature that exists?