“The first law of story telling: every man is bound to leave a story better than he found it.”

Reader, I am going to share with you one of my loves...but first I must reflect on an idea that now seems to pervade the world, one that troubles me, because it galls my Celtic blood: the idea that magic has left the world, that only material things matter, that only money and technology can provide us with happiness, that the myths of yore have vanished taking with them beliefs which once both warmed and scared the human heart.

But lovers of the mysterious and the wonderful need not despair. Magic has found shelter in Orkney, Shetland, the Outer Hebrides, Northern Scotland and Ireland, to mention but a few sites. The folklore of these places is a tangled web of interconnecting threads, combining elements of Norse, Scottish and other Celtic myths.
The influence of Norse lore introduced into to the islands by each Scandinavian longboat that pulled into island waters was considerable, as each ship brought not only settlers but their distinct language, customs, traditions and beliefs; epic tales of dwarfs and giants, trolls and seafolk, which with each retelling were transplanted from Scandinavian glaciers and fjords into the new landscape.

I certainly do not claim to be an expert on this fascinting lore, however, I would love to share what I learned at my Scottish grandmother's knee and from my father, who grew up by a wild and treacherous sea. I want to tell you what I know about Selkies and Finmen, denizens of the watery depths who often mingled with humans in both good and evil ways.

The Orkney and Shetland islands are my favourite sources of wonder. Both places are steeped in a rich folklore originating in a society that has traditionally depended on the land and the sea for its survival.

I would like you, reader, to imagine islands surrounded by raging seas and swept by wild winds, places where the long nights meant that lamps were lit at three or four in the afternoon, and where, when the long evenings lay ahead, folk gathered around winter fires to fill the hours with games and wondrous tales of magical creatures.

Now a new kind of magic is pervading the world: technology with its all-embracing arms is taking the place of the old tales. Therefore the lore of the islands is in danger of becoming extinct as the children of the isles are no longer told the legends of yore and will not be able to pass them on to their descendants.

Yet not all is lost. There are people interested in keeping the old myths alive, people who travel from island to island garnering the old stories and stringing them into a necklace of wonderful legends.

Orkney and Shetland folklore can be divided into two distinct groups: tales surrounding the sea and its magical inhabitants and the tales of the creatures who wandered the land. Among the latter are the trows, nocturnal creatures that lived in the hollow hills of the islands and kidnapped musicians to make them fiddle at trow weddings; the witches who met at their covens (a coven is a gathering of witches), danced on deserted moonlit beaches and worked their “dark arts”¸ the ghosts who haunted silent kirkyards (churchyards) in the dead of night and the lovely faeries who would grant anyone whatever they wished for as long as they did their asking respectfully.

Now let us spy on the fascinating sea-dwellers: the Finmen, the Selkies or sealmen and the mermaids.

The Finmen were once thought to be very much like the Selkies, but, unlike the latter, were evil by nature. An Orkney Finman had the appearance of a well-built man, was tall, dark and sinewy with a stern gloomy face. He was generally clad in black.

Finmen had extraordinary rowing skills and wielded powerful magic. These sorcerers could render their vessels invisible and, as they were very territorial, they objected to humans fishing in what they considered “their” waters. When a mortal fisherman entered a Finman's domain, the latter would smash the former's oars or hole his boat, sometimes costing the impertinent human his life. However, as Finmen lusted for “white metal”- silver - a human fisherman could shake off a pursuing Finman by throwing a silver coin into the sea. The pursuer would give up the chase to retrieve the precious coin.

The other supernatural sea dwellers were the handsome, gentle but generally deceptive Selkie-folk. “Selkie” is th Orcadian dialect word for “seal”. The Selkies were seals with the ability to transform themselves into beautiful humans. Folklore tells us that once in human form, the selkie-folk would dance on the moonlight bathed beaches or bask in the sun on outlying skerries. “Skerry” means “rocky islet”.

In order to become human or “shapeshift” the seals would cast off their skins. If the cast-off sealskin was lost or stolen, the creature was doomed to remain in human form until he/she could recover it, don the skin and rush back to the safety of the sea.

The selkie-men were well known for their amorous encounters with human females married or unmarried - who were an easy prey for these supernatural charmers. A seal-man in human form was said to be good-looking, seductive and would often head inland to seek out “unsastisfied women” illicit love.

Just like the males of the Selkie race were irresistible to inland women, the Selkie-women were truly alluring to earth- born men. Thus, a common theme in Selkie folklore is one in which a young man steals a selkie- girl's sealskin. This prevents her from returning to the sea, and the Selkie-maiden has no other choice but to marry her “captor”.

These tales generally end sadly, when the selkie-wife finds where her husband has stashed her skin, or it is returned to her, often by one of her children. The Selkie-woman usually heads back to the sea, sometimes taking her children with her. Other tales have the children remaining with their mortal father.

Mermaids lured mortal fishermen into the deep tumultuous water. These men were seen no more on land.
These sea creatures, Selkies, Finmen and mermaids, provided the islanders with answers for events they did not or could not comprehend or explain, and sometimes did not even want to explain. If a man was lost at sea, he had surely been taken by the Finmen, or tempted away by an alluring mermaid. An unwed pregnancy was explained as the result of a union brought about by the charms of a Selkie man.

A delightful Selkie tale is “Sealskin Trousers”, by Eric Linklater. The story is divided into three parts, the first and the last told by the narrator, Charles Sellin, who claims “he is not mad” but that by a great intellectual effort knows what has happened to his fiancée, Elizabeth Bradford. The second part of the story written in the third person - tells of Elizabeth's encounter with a sophisticated seal man, Roger Fairfield, who holds a degree in Arts from Edinburgh university. He has “shapeshifted” in order to find out if humans really work to create a surplus of wealth that will give them leisure time to cultivate wisdom and be aware of God, as his people believe. Unfortunately for the innocent seals’ beliefs, that is not so.

Gently, lovingly, Roger seduces Elizabeth into becoming a seal. He wants to punish men for robbing him of his faith, and now he is doing so by robbing them of their treasure, the lovely Elizabeth. Charles is left to find Elizabeth's clothes and a pair of sealskin trousers on the edge of a cliff and to scream his grief to the world.
A difference between the Selkie legends and Linklater's story is that Roger is not handsome; however, he is just as seductive as the myths claim: Elizabeth becomes a Selkie-woman and plunges into the sea with him. “Sealskin Trousers” features a verse from one of the most beautiful Selkie ballads:

“I am a Man upon the land,
I am a Selkie in the sea,
And when I'm far from every strand
My home it is on Sule Skerry.”

My prayer: that magic never vanishes from the hearts of all wonder-loving men and women.