The myth of the Selkie is a strong one in the Celtic world. They are stories about the magical seals that have shed their skins to become these superbly accomplished women—great mothers, wives, providers. But something always happens to her skin while she’s in a woman’s form. Her shapeshifting portal goes missing, is hidden from her to prevent her from leaving, or maliciously taken in the first place to capture her. And if she does get her skin and ever answers the call back to the sea she often loses her family.
The Selkie myth feels like a modern female problem, and yet the story telling about it is so very old. At the beginning of the Age of the Saints where my novel is set these stories would be as present as a Taylor Swift meme. The western isles of Scotland, including the location of Colmcille’s Iona and the lost Hinba monasteries, would have been surrounded by seals. Grey seals and Harbour seals ever present, their young on the shore, the dutiful mothers coming back to care for them. The bobbing heads and playful antics in the bays around them. Everyone would know the Selkie story.
When I read Blackie’s quote this week it made me think of the main character Erna so much. Trapped in a monastic world where she has to work harder and harder to find a way to belong as she grows into a talented, strong woman. When she encounters the tribal people on the other side of the loch, does she want to return again and again simply for love? Or also because she finds a piece of the belonging she longs for in a society not ordered under the advancing patriarchy in the church? How does she take that belonging back into the monastic world with her as she must return to her work in the scriptorium?
These are some of the mysteries of our story that I’ve been sitting with this week.
I hadn't heard of this and it's fascinating! Thank you for sharing. :)