If you’ve never heard the term ‘Selkie’ before then odds are you’re not from Scotland. A Selkie is a traditional mythical creature that lives most of its life as a seal, bobbing about in the ocean, but on rare occasions will take off its seal skin to reveal the human beneath. Or in other words, Its a Ware-Seal!
Stories of Selkies were popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and later were related in print by a number of early Victorian authors who introduced the idea of the immoral human peasant entrapping the beautiful selkie and having a child with her.
For this version I’ve set it in the very real fishing village of Buckie, where the coastal path that skirts the surf to the east of the town is so beautiful and rugged that it really deserves to be the setting for a story of this sort.
If you really want to understand what was in my head when I was writing this, then head out past Portessie to the rocks below the Findochty golf course and find a rock on which to sit and whisper to the waves. – NBK
