Welcome to Scottish Folk Creatures
Selkies
Selkie Folklore
Selkies are one of the more known creatures of Scottish folklore. Selkies are also considered to be the most gentle of Scottish folk creatures. Selkies are believed to be creatures that are half human, half seal. When these creatures go on land, they dry out and their seal skins fall off so that they resemble ordinary humans. When spooked, these creatures dive back into the water with their skins and regain their seal forms. If a human were to steal the skin of a selkie, the selkie would be unable to change back to their seal form and would be stuck on land with that human until their skin was returned to them. There are many stories of humans taking a selkie’s skin and forcing the selkie to marry them. There are also many tales of selkies seducing humans.
Mythical Origins
There are many versions of selkie tales from across the UK. Tales of the seal folk are found in the folklore of the Orkney Islands, the Faroe Island, Iceland, Ireland and the Shetland Islands. There are few tales of seal people from Scandinavia and there is even an American Chinook tale that mentions a boy that turned into a seal. There are many theories as to where the tale of the selkies came from. In Scottish folklore, there is a theme of using Scottish creatures to explain physiological conditions. Because modern medicine wasn’t around, people tried to use folk creatures to explain medical conditions. This can be seen with changelings replacing sick babies. It is thought that selkies could have come about to explain syndactyly or webbing between the fingers or toes. Many people who were a part of the MacCondrum clan were thought to be descended from selkies due to the high frequency of syndactyly among the people of the clan. It is also thought that the tale came about in response to the Sami people’s use of seal skin for clothing, theorizing that the Sami people themselves were selkies.