This tale comes from John Masefield’s collection of sea stories ‘A Mainsail Haul’, first published in 1905 when the author was only 26. It's beautiful, although like most tales about selkies it is quite dark and sad. ['Loanings' means 'lanes'.]
‘The seals is pretty
when they do be playing,’ said the old woman. ‘Ah, I seen them frisking their
tails till you’d think it was rocks with the sea beating on them, the time the
storm’s on. I seen the merrows of the sea sitting yonder on the dark stone, and
they had crowns on them, and they were laughing. The merrows are not good; it’s
not good to see too many of them. They are beautiful like young men in their
shirts playing hurley. They’re as beautiful as anything you would be seeing in
Amerikey or Australeyey, or any place. The seals is beautiful too, going
through the water in the young of the day; but they’re not so beautiful as
them. The seals are no good either. It’s a great curse keeps them the way they
are, not able to live either in the sea or on the land.
‘One time there was a man of the O’Donnells came here, and
he was a bad man. A saint in Heaven would have been bothered to find good in
him. He died of the fever that came before the Famine. I was a girl then; and
if you’d seen the people in them times; there wasn’t enough to bury them. The
pigs used to eat them in the loanings. And their mouths would be all green
where they’d eaten grass from want of food. If you’d seen the houses there was
then, indeed, you’d think the place bewitched. But the cabins is all fell in,
like wonder, and there’s no dancing or fiddling, or anything at all, and all of
my friends is gone to Amerikey or Australeyey; I’ve no one at all to bury me...
‘This O’Donnell I was telling you. My father was at his
wake. And they’d the candles lit, and they were drinking putcheen. My father
was nearest the door, and a fear took him, and he got up with his glass in his
hand, and he cried out, ‘There’s something here is not good.’ And another of
them said, ‘There’s something wants to get out.’ And another said, ‘It’s
himself wants to go out into the dark night.’ So my father flung the door open;
and, outside, the moon shone down to the sea. And the corpse of the O’Donnell
was all blue, and it got up with the sheet knotted on it, and walked out
without leaving a track. So they followed it, saying their prayers to Almighty
God, and it walked down to the sea. And when it came to the edge of the sea,
the sea was like a flame before it. And it bowed there, three times; and each
time it rose up it screamed. And all the seals, and all the merrows, and all
them that’s under the tides, they came up to welcome it. They called out to the
corpse and laughed, and the corpse laughed back, and fell on to the sand. My
father and the other men saw the wraith pass from it, into the water, as it
fell. It was like a little boy, laughing, with great long arms on
him. It was all black, and its hands moved like he was tickling something.
‘And after that the priest had him buried, like they buried
the Old Ones; but the wraith passed into a bull seal. You would be feared to
see the like of the bull seal. There was a man of the O’Kanes fired a blessed
shilling at him, and the seal roared up at him and tore his arms across. There
was marks like black stars on him after till he died. And the bull seal walked
like a man at the change of the moon, like a big, tall, handsome man stepping
the roads. You’d be feared, sir, if you saw the like. He set his eyes on young
Norah O’Hara. Lovely she was. Wasn’t it a great curse he should take her when
there was old hags the like of Mary that has no more beauty than a done-out old
gather-up of a duck that a hungry dog would blush to be biting? Still, he took
Norah.
‘She had a little son, and the little son was a sea-man;
the priest wouldn’t sign him with the cross. When Norah died he used always to
be going to the sea, he would always be swimming. He’d little soft brown hair,
like a seal’s, the prettiest you would be seeing. He used to talk to the
seals. My father was coming home one night from Carnmore, and he saw the little
seal-man in the sea; and seals were playing with him, singing songs. But my
father was feared to hear; he ran away. They stoned the seal-man, whiles, after
that; but whiles they didn’t stone it. They had a kindness for it, although it
had no holy water on it. It was a very young thing to be walking the world, and
it was a beautiful wee thing, with its eyes so pretty; so it grew up to be a
man.
‘Them that live in the water, they have ways of calling
people. Them who pass this seal-man, they felt the call in their hearts. Indeed,
if you passed the seal-man, stepping the roads, you would get a queer twist
from the way he looked at you. And he set his love on a young girl of the
O’Keefe’s, a little young girl with no more in her than the flower on its
stalk. You would see them in the loanings, coming home, or in the bright of the
day going. There was a strong love was on them two young things; it was like the
love of the Old Ones that took nine deaths to kill. They would be telling Kate
it was not right she should set her love on one who wasn’t like ourselves; but
there’s few indeed the young will listen. They are all for pleasure, all for
pleasure, before they are withered old hags, the like of my sister, Mary. And
at last they shut her up at home, to keep her from seeing him.
‘And he came by her cabin to the west of the road, calling.
There was a strong love came up in her at that, and she put down her sewing on
the table, and “Mother,” she says, “there’s no lock, and no key, and no bolt,
and no door. There’s no iron, nor no stone, nor anything at all will keep me
this night from the man I love.” And she went out into the moonlight to him,
there by the bush where the flowers is pretty, beyond the river. And he says to
her, “You are all of the beauty of the world, will you come where I go, over
the waves of the sea?” And she says to him: “My treasure and my strength,” she
says, “I would follow you on the frozen hills, my feet bleeding.”
‘Then they went down into the sea together, and the moon
made a track upon the sea, and they walked down it; it was like a flame before
them. There was no fear at all on her; only a great love like the love of the
Old Ones, that was stronger than the touch of the fool. She had a little white
throat, and little cheeks like flowers, and she went down into the sea with her
man, who wasn’t a man at all. She was drowned, of course. It’s like he never
thought that she wouldn’t bear the sea like himself. She was drowned, drowned.
‘When it come light they saw the seal-man sitting yonder on
the rock, and she lying by him, dead, with her face as white as a flower. He
was crying and beating her hands to bring life to her. It would have drawn pity
from a priest to hear him, though he wasn’t Christian. And at last, when he saw
that she was drowned, he took her in his arms and slipped into the sea like a
seal. And he swam, carrying her, with his head up, laughing and laughing, and
no one ever saw him again at all.’
Picture credit:
The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry; artist unknown: source: https://terreceltiche.altervista.org/the-grey-silkie-of-sule-skerry/
(If anyone can tell me the name of the artist, I will be delighted to credit them.)
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