I’ve been involved with the ocean, with the sea, pretty much all my life, from a kid snorkeling on a beach through to sea kayaking, sailing, rowing, surfing, still snorkeling, diving. Anyway, I just love the freedom the ocean brings. And from kayaking, I’ve always had a real genuine interest in the Inuit, the Greenland kayak, and the history. And I’ve researched that and found in Ireland, we actually have some. There’s a fantastic example in the Ulster Museum of a skin-on-frame seal-skin kayak. And also down in Dublin, they have two beautiful examples of skin-on-frame seal-skin kayaks from East and West Greenland.
So with those sort of interests, I also love storytelling and the legends of Ireland and Scotland. And one of those special legends for me as a kayaker is the Legend of the Selkie, where the selkie can transform from human form to seal and from seal to human. And in my studies of museums, I came across the—in the Marischal Museum in Aberdeen—they have a kayak and the tuilik, the jacket belonging to one of these seals, the Inuit hunters who washed up on the beach just north of Aberdeen. And I believe that the legend of the selkie comes from these kayakers who came ashore on the Scottish islands. Mostly we have evidence on Harris and Lewis back into the, ah goodness, 17th century of some of these people coming ashore.
But anyway, out of that, quite often the legend of the Selkie is of a female who takes on human form and has children, and the seal skin is hidden by the fisherman who found her. And also it can be the male is the Selkie and finds a girl on the shore gathering shells, and they become lovers, and she hides his skin so that he can’t go back to the sea.
But anyway, I’ll give you—there’s a lovely ballad from Scotland called “The Selkie” or “The Silkie”…
(The Ballad of the Silkie of Sule Skerry is sung here)
“I am a man upon the land
And I’m a Silkie on the sea
And when I’m far and far frae land
My hame is in the wild Skerry”
“I am a man upon the land
And I’m a Silkie on the sea
And when I’m far and far frae land
My hame is in the Sule Skerry”
And he has taken a purse o’ gold
And he has set it on her knee
Saying “Give to me my little young son
And you accept your nourice fee”
It shall come to pass on a summer’s day
When the sun shines bright on every stone
That I will tak my wee young son
And learn him how to swim the fame
And ye shall marry a gunner good
And a right guid gunner I’m sure he’ll be
And wi’ the first shot that e’er he fires
He’ll kill both my young son and me
“I am a man upon the land
And I’m a Silkie on the sea
And when I’m far and far frae land
My hame is in the wild Skerry”
I actually have a bullet from a seal hunter. With our kayak club, we restored a wee bothy down along the coast in Portmoon, and when we were working at the site digging the foundations out to restore the building, we actually found the bullet, a .303 bullet that the fishermen, the salmon fishermen would have used because the seals could do great damage in the net, and they would often, you know, they had a license to shoot the seals. So it sort of rings home.
