Song of the Selkies

by Cathie Dunsford

  ‘Is it true that two elderly women were found buried in the walls of one of the houses? If so, why?’ asks Cowrie.

  Kerry rests her fork on her plate a moment, looks into the far distance, and sighs. ‘I never know how to answer this,’ she admits, ‘but it’s true. It is clear that this was an intentional burial, and we know that many ceremonial burials took place, mainly for important chiefs and the like at Maes Howe and throughout Britain. But why these women were interred in the walls of a humble community house is another question.’

  ‘Maybe it was like that foundation ritual where Saint Columba buried one of his monks to found the church on Iona?’ suggests DK, recalling their recent visit to the sacred island.

  ‘It’s highly possible’, replies Kerry, ‘especially since similar practices lasted in the UK into the seventh century, long after Skara Brae was built.’

  ‘Maybe they were ancestors and were blessed by the tribe for some reason. Perhaps they saved the community from some disaster and became ancestral spirits or guardians who were consulted for spiritual matters and guidance. That’s common in my tribe also and not beyond belief here.’

  ‘That is very possible,’ answers Kerry. ‘I even heard one of the archeologists suggest this, but she later added that she could never write it up in her reports because she would be accused of speculating rather than sticking to facts alone.’

  ‘Typical. A bit more imagination and some cross-cultural work could elucidate some of the inscriptions here now,’ Uretsete suggests.

  ‘Were there any male burials found?’ asks DK.

  ‘No, come to think of it, none at all. That’s what has fuelled speculation it was an entirely peaceful and close-knit female community.’ Kerry resumes work on her baked tattie.

  Another hour is spent eagerly imagining what life may have been like at Skara Brae over a selection of seafood and baked tatties, then they depart for home. DK thanks Kerry for giving so much beyond her duty and she replies, ‘It’s a pleasure to find people so genuinely interested. Most of the tourists simply come, take a few pictures and depart, and you know their main experience of Orkney will be buying mugs inscribed with Orkney names or plastic puffins.’ They laugh, knowing what she means, but assuring her that many of the people will think about this experience again one day over a cuppa back in Dundee or Yorkshire, Montreal or Melbourne. A van, similar to Morrigan’s, draws up and whisks her away before DK can deduce whether it is driven by a man or a woman.

  ‘Damn! I’ll have to come back again,’ mumbles DK.

  ‘And so will I,’ adds Uretsete, nudging her affectionately.

  DK grins, knowing she is lucky to be with Uretsete and glad that her former lover Ruth went off to live on a kibbutz in Israel about the time DK’s lover, Suzanne, was called back south to look after her ailing parents. At first, they’d cried on each other’s shoulders, missing their loved ones intensely. Then gradually they cuddled up for the night and eventually became lovers after the Miwok village summer solstice, when they went to celebrate the expansion of the Tomales Bay oyster farms run by Uretsete’s relatives.

  DK looks out over the Bay of Skaill, uncharacteristically calm today, remembering that wonderful night when the moon shone over Tomales Bay and lit up their faces as they kissed by the shoreline. A seal swam by and issued a throaty cry, as if announcing their love. She scans the horizon. Not a seal in sight. They must be munching on kelp below, she thinks, as they put on their packs to climb the hill up to the cottages.

  Above them, smoke issues from the shed at the far end of Morrigan’s farm. Cowrie notices it, and is surprised. She had thought it was a disused shed. She must ask Morrigan who lives there.

  [24]

  Wind and rain pound against the roof and they have to batten it down with large stones at the side.

  The fire keeps them warm and the women gather around the hearth. Their faces are painted with ochre and strings of beads decorated with limpet shells hang around their necks. One necklace has a black mussel shell in the middle, another a carved deer-bone. Some of the women are painting shells and others are painting bodies with crosses and spirals. Still more work at carving grooves into pots they are preparing to fire in the central hearth. In a corner, one woman turns the limpets in their watery graves.

  Gradually, a slow chant begins from the left and moves around the circle to the right.

  A woman holds up some dried herbs bound together with heather twine and dips it into the limpet water to slow the burning and make it smoke more, then lights it from the roaring fire. The smoke rises to the roof where an opening on an angle to prevent rain from coming through allows it to disappear into the moist night air.

  The chanting of the women rises in pitch and they stand around the circle, eyes closed, deep in concentration. Then they turn, as if one, and face the wall. The voices rise higher in pitch until they are soaring above the room and out into the bay. They never once take their concentration from the wall. Finally, one of the women steps forward and asks a question. After a while, a voice replies, from within the wall. The chanting continues, quietly, and the questions go on for some time. Another voice answers.

  Eventually, the painted woman steps back into the circle. There is a hushed silence as she communicates the message. A great sand storm is to come within the next few seasons, and before the summer. They have been warned to move out from the village. They will assume a new lifestyle, returning to the old mode of living in individual homes. They will be isolated again, for a period. But they will find each other and live communally again if they want to. It is up to them. Other women will come and live in the Bay in years to come. They will also feel the energy of the work that has taken place here. They will tune into it and tell the true stories of a matriarchal existence that once happened here. They will tell about the secrets of the seals, the oneness of human and animals, that to kill another is to kill oneself. The women of Skara Brae will always return in different shapes and forms until the world is healed again and peace is restored.

  After she has communicated the words from the women elders, the women turn to the wall and thank them for their wisdom. Some are crying. They do not want to be parted and nor do they want to leave Skara Brae and join the mens’ community over the loch. Maybe others will build on top of their homes as they did on their ancestors’ homes? Anything is possible.

  A screeching from outside as an oystercatcher is blown into their roof. Cowrie wakes with a start to find that Sasha is fast asleep beside her and it is still light outside. She carefully slides out of bed and walks quietly to the window facing the bay. From the shed at the end of the farm, smoke rises. Far beyond, waves lap against the wall below the buried village of Skara Brae. She stays a while at the window, watching as the early morning mists gather around the bay and move up the hillside, then she puts on her clothes. It is unlikely she will get back to sleep now and she wants to find out who lives in the shed at the end of the farm where the smoke swirls from the old chimney day and night.

  Cowrie steals out into the cold morning air. It is freezing. She shudders, pulling her oilskin tighter and wrapping her scarf twice around her neck. The ground is wet and the heather crunches beneath her feet. She moves to the narrow dirt path once made by cattle and continues down the track. She stops before the shed and listens to assess if people are about. All she can hear is the steady roll of the surf crashing onto the rocks in the bay below and a slow moaning, like an animal in pain. She creeps slowly towards the window and stands on a rock to peer inside. At first all she can see is hay and she smells a foul odour of oil. Then she makes out a creature moaning in the distance. She peers closer, dislodging a stone from the mound she is standing on. The creature looks up at her with plaintive eyes. Maybe it is a dying cow. It is too dark to see inside distinctly.

  A shuffling outside and someone walks in from the far wall carrying what appears to be a bucket. He tips water all over the animal and then leaves to fetch another. This goes on several times until
he bends down in exhaustion over the animal, murmuring. Cowrie stretches up to see better, dislodging another stone which tumbles down the pile and rolls over, kicking the wall. The figure scrambles up and goes toward the door. Cowrie lies flat against the wall, hoping he will not see her. He mumbles something indistinct and then shuts the door, pulling down the latch to secure it. He then returns to the moaning creature and bends over it as before. It’s then that she hears the words. ‘My darling, sweet darling, do not give up on me now. I have waited so long for you to return and you cannot die now. Just let me stay with you and you can return and be with me forever.’ The voice is that of Morrigan. She must have really lost it, poor thing. At that moment, the creature moans again, as if trying to answer her and flicks its tail up in the air. It is no cow’s tail, nor that of a sheep. It is the tail of a seal, and Morrigan is now crooning into its ear as if the seal is her lover. She gently strokes the seal, touching her with such grace and affection that Cowrie wonders if she is still inside her Skara Brae dream.

  She has had little sleep tonight and maybe she is hallucinating. She clambers down from the rock ledge and walks briskly back to the cottage, flinging off her clothes and climbing back into bed beside Sasha, cuddling up to her. Sasha moans briefly, then falls back into sleep. Within minutes, Cowrie follows her into dreamland, and is snoring happily several hours later when Sasha rises.

  ‘C’mon Cowrie. It’s nearly ten. We’re off to the Broch of Gurness, remember? The others will be waiting for us.’

  Cowrie raises herself up on one arm, rubbing her eyes. ‘What? When? My head feels like lead.’

  ‘That’s because you slept too late, Turtle. Besides, you talked some weird nonsense in your sleep and I simply rolled you over and went back to sleep myself.’

  ‘What did I say?’ asks Cowrie, recalling her dreams about the women of Skara Brae, then of visiting the hut.

  ‘Something about wounded seals and women chanting. I could not make it out so I dozed off.’

  ‘I had some awesome dreams.’

  ‘Tell me later, Turtle. Just fling on some clothes and follow me out.’ Sasha throws her the jacket and trousers at the bottom of the bed, noticing they are covered in mud, yet they were freshly washed the day before. Maybe Cowrie has been on some night jaunts? She chuckles at the thought of her going anywhere in the state she was in last night and exits out the door to join the others. Cowrie stares at the clothes, realising that she did indeed venture out and that maybe what she saw really did happen? Maybe Morrigan has some weird thing with seals after all? She dismisses the thought from her head and finds clean clothes to wear. As she shuts the door, she cannot resist a glance down to the shed. Sure enough, smoke still smoulders from the chimney and she will not be surprised to hear from Camilla that Morrigan has not yet come home.

  [25]

  Sasha leads the singing as they drive towards the Broch of Gurness, happy to have the use of Morrigan’s van all this time. She left a note for Camilla telling them to use it as she’d be away for at least a week with some Finstown fishers, keen to see what catches lay further afield. Squiddy would collect her in his truck. Camilla was not pleased but took it as a good chance to get some thorough cleaning and polishing done while Morrigan was well out of the way, little realising she was holed up with supplies and a sick seal in the shed further down the farm.

  ‘How did that Maori song you taught us in California go?’ asks Uretsete. ‘You know, the one where the strong women gather round and encourage each other to stay strong.’

  ‘Wahine ma, wahine ma, maranga mai, maranga mai, kia kaha!’ Cowrie’s spirit rises as she bursts into the waiata at the top of her voice and repeats the round so the others can learn it. Gather round women, join together, stay strong.’ Soon the van is resounding with songs from their own repertoires and Cowrie even joins Camilla for rousing renditions of Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem, though she recalls having refused to sing such patriotic colonial songs at school. Sasha teaches them an Inuit chant which is captivating but uses a different tonal range which they have to learn carefully from her. Soon they have figured it out and Uretsete is amazed at the similarities to some of her own Chumash and Miwok songs in melody, tone and pace. They compare notes while the others sing heartily, pleased to be off on another exploration of these extraordinary islands which hold so many secrets to our shared past lives.

  They drive through Dounby then pass by the Click Mill and the delightful town of Evie, where campers from the local campsite are stocking up on supplies, then turn left on the narrow road leading down to the sea and to the Broch of Gurness. DK reads to them from the guidebook about the history of the brochs in Orkney. The Orcadians were building strong circular dry-stone houses on their farms by 500 B.C. during the Iron Age and gradually they became more sophisticated with villages sprouting around them. Some were as tall as thirteen metres high with chambers around the edges and a stone staircase leading up to a higher level, and were used as central gathering places for the communities as well as a kind of castle where they could keep an eye on the surrounding countryside and the possibility of invaders approaching. By 100 BCE there were at least one hundred and twenty brochs in Orkney and about five hundred over Scotland, but none were found demolished by violent destruction rather than wear and tear, leading to the conclusion that the Orcadians lived a fairly peaceful existence even by the Iron Age.

  ‘I find it inspiring that wherever we go, it seems that history shows us the natural inhabitants lived peacefully here, even though they were constantly invaded by outsiders like the Vikings later on,’ comments Monique, eager to understand how the people lived from the archeological evidence.

  Camilla reinforces her impressions, telling them that it is clear from her reading of the Orkneyinga Saga, written in 1200, that the brochs were used as a mutual deterrent since any attack on them would lead to many deaths which the working population on these islands could not afford. Also the archeological evidence shows that the outer ditches and walls designed for defence were built over, indicating there was little need for them.

  They park and walk to the Broch of Gurness and are inspired by its location beside the sea with the waves crashing in at their feet. The broch still stands as an impressive rounded structure of stone, with walls crumbled part the way up and hearths, beds and living evidence of the inhabitants still intact, though not as much as at Skara Brae. The broch and surrounding village structures grow out of the stark green grass, as if an organic part of nature.

  ‘Who took over after the Iron Age inhabitants?,’ asks Uretsete and DK scans her book.

  ‘The Picts, from all accounts. Carved stones and Pictish writings called ogham show there was a thriving Pictish settlement here and in other parts of Orkney.’

  They explore the impressive ruins in their picturesque setting beside the sea, as the sun works hard to break through the clouds. It is a misty morning and the sea is uncharacteristically calm, giving a haunting feeling to the ruins as they keep watch over the Holy Island of Eynhallow and the seaside Broch of Midhowe on the nearby island of Rousay. It is possible to imagine life here in the Iron Age and people bustling about the broch. Like Skara Brae, the stone structures had timber and whalebone roofs covered with skins, hearths, storage pits and wall cupboards in the stone, but here there is also a water well.

  Pit-fired pottery, bone weaving combs, a Pictish knife with a bone handle carved with ogham script, and handmade bronze pins all tell of a community rich with skills and from remains it seems the gathering of seaweed, shellfish and wild plants complemented the early farming of cattle on the island and the weaving of clothes from sheep and goat’s wool. Cowrie examines the Pictish script and drawings closely. Again, the archeological experts are stumped on their meaning, but like the ki’i pohaku or inscriptions in lava rock and on cave walls in Hawai’i and Aotearoa, they depict ordinary aspects of Pictish life rather than the expectation of modern art that it is separate from and better than common existence.


  One stone shows a woman with a halo around her head, typical of the early Hawai’ian drawings, a V marking her chest, standing opposite a man. Next to her, by its size, lies the grave of a child. Perhaps they are mourning the death of their child. Maybe the woman’s spirit, marked by the halo, will guide that of her child as it makes the journey of transition, just as the spirit guides live inside the pohutukawa tree at the tip of Cape Reinga in her homeland, waiting to guide dead spirits back over the seas to their ancestral homeland in Hawai’iki. People usually comment in script, talkstory or drawing when something touches their lives, and it is from this heart place that the archeologists need to look as well as from their reasoning head place.

  Cowrie allows herself to imagine what was going through that woman’s head at the time, wondering if the women elders interred in the walls of Skara Brae spoke to these Iron-age women and the later Viking women in their dreams as well. The sea laps at the edges of the stony beach and Sasha lays a hand on her shoulder. ‘Back to earth yet, Turtle?’ Cowrie looks up to notice she is as far away in thought over the sea as Cowrie was in dreamspace. ‘A pity Morrigan is not here as she might be able to tell us more about the Broch of Midhowe on Rousay.’ Sasha looks longingly at the broch on the island opposite them.

  ‘Bet you wish you had your kayak here now, eh, Sasha?’ Cowrie asks. Sasha grins. ‘But talking of Morrigan, I had an amazing dream about the women of Skara Brae last night and also about Morrigan. Only I got up and checked the shed and you will not believe what I saw.’

  Sasha looks into her dark brown eyes affectionately. ‘Tell me, Turtle. I know you went out adventuring last night and now I want to hear all about it.’ Cowrie is relieved to be able to share her doubts about Morrigan and have Sasha reassure her all is well. After she has finished telling her about the dream and the night visit, Sasha sighs. ‘I think it all has a perfectly clear explanation. Morrigan already rescued a sick seal, the one you told me you saw at Stromness through the binoculars that day. She’s a very private person and especially when it comes to anything sentimental or which will show her as the caring woman that she really is underneath that butch exterior. It makes sense to me that she would not tell us that she is going to give up her fishing livelihood and her independence for a week to nurse a sick seal back to health. She probably feels guilt if it got caught in her net, and unlike the other fishers, she does not see the seals as competitors for her catch.’