Song of the Selkies

by Cathie Dunsford

  ‘What kind of ways, Moira?’ asks Morrigan, her eyebrows raised expectantly.

  ‘Well, just queer, strange.’ Moira looks around to make sure she is out of the hearing of others. ‘They like to diddle-daddle with each other instead of how God made us — to be with men and to bear children.’

  Morrigan draws in a breath, puffing out smoke rings as she concentrates on how she will word her next sentence. ‘I think you might be wrong, there, Moira. Monique has had a child and so has Camilla. I don’t know aboot the rest, but they all look like good childbearing women if you ask me. Seems that you can choose to be with men or women and have children or not in a democratic society, I’d’ve thought.’

  ‘It’s against God’s way, and you know it Morrigan. And so is communing with them seals. The devil’s gotta make a person prefer an animal over his own kith and kin, or a woman instead of a man. That’s God’s law.’

  ‘As interpreted by you, Moira. But when half the women on this island are in relationships with men that drink too much and then go home and bash up their wives, then yer can hardly say that’s God’s will, then, can yee?’

  Moira grimaces, searching for another angle. ‘And that’s not all, Morrigan. Some say, not that I’m one of ‘em, but I’m tellin’ yee this for yer own good.’ She bends over and whispers in Morrigan’s ear. ‘Some say, they are the witches of Skara Brae, returnin’ to finish their business.’ Moira coughs, as if it has been hard work bringing up this piece of gossip from the depths of her throat.

  Morrigan looks at her then throws back her head and laughs loudly. ‘And who, pray, are the witches of Skara Brae?’

  Moira knits her brow, getting very serious, and hisses, ‘You know very well. Them women that’s locked up inside the walls of those old stone cottages. Ever since they uncovered the sand dunes and discovered them, there’s been trouble. Men lost at sea, women dying in childbirth, crops being ruined and the like. They should cover up that damned Stone-age ruin and let it be. S’not right to dig up the dead, expose them to modern ways. It’s God’s will the storm covered the village and it’s man’s will to dig it up again and expose us to the ways of the devil.’

  Morrigan takes a puff on her pipe, leans over to Moira and blows it in her face. ‘Then that proves men are not always right, aye, Moira? There were men lost at sea and women dying in childbirth and crops failing long before they opened up Skara Brae.’ She pauses a moment. ‘Maybe, not that I think this Moira,’ says Morrigan, prefacing her suggestion as Moira does her gossip, ‘maybe you don’t like Skara Brae because it makes a lot of money for Historic Scotland when your own croft struggled to survive. Maybe you should’ve prayed to the women of Skara Brae instead of cursing them, and maybe your wishes would have been heard.’ Morrigan smiles, knowing this will irritate her.

  ‘Tosh. Gobble-dee-gook. Yee carn’t pray to the devil!’ admonishes Moira, poking her net into a crevice in the pond, wanting to slam it down over Morrigan’s head and silence her forever.

  ‘And maybe, just maybe, not that I would think this, Moira, but yee know how the talk about Finstown fishers goes, p’raps yee’re afraid of these women at Skara Brae and the ones I brought back, because they are different, they have cracked the code of male behaviour and invented lives for themselves outside of this system? It dinna mean they dislike men, just the systems of power. They are two different things.’

  ‘One and the same to me,’ spits out Moira. ‘The women at Skara Brae lived separate from the men. It’s not natural. They probably communed with the seals, like you, and for all I know yee could be one of ’em, bringin’ these queer folks out here, setting them loose on the unsuspecting locals. If it weren’t for yer affair with that Kelpie, I’d pick yer for one of ‘em any day, dressing like a man all the time, takin’ up fishin’ for a lifestyle, drinkin’ like the men. It ain’t right.’ Moira has spat it out now. She’d been holding this in for years. She turns her back on Morrigan and disappears into the packing room.

  Morrigan leans against the door, looking out to sea, puffing smoke rings into the salty breeze. So that’s what’s eating her then. Kelpie’s wife was her sister, and she knows they blamed her for the disappearance of Kelpie then his wife, and the abandonment felt by Shelley afterwards. But she never knew what Morrigan and Kelpie shared. It was much more than lust or sex or an affair. It was a meeting of souls, where their erotic desire led to a kind of spiritual fulfilment, enough that they could willingly complete the transformation to selkie and back again. They shared an undersea world together, one free from the constraints and rules of modern life, one where they focused on spirit rather than matter. They’d discovered hidden sides to their natures and felt the explosion of boundaries between human and animal, between the manmade and natural world. In the ocean, they were one and the same, on a new plane of existence, where communication between all beings is possible.

  When Kelpie drowned, she joined him, but she had to return to an earthly existence by day and could only meet him by night. Once the selkies decided to take his wife, put her out of her grief, Morrigan seldom entered their world again and had to commune with Kelpie in spirit. She swam with him on isolated nights, when the moon was full and she could return to the Bay of Skaill by morning. But when Kelpie was caught in the net and left for dead, she had to try to save him. She’d hoped he could make it back to human form but he was too weak by then, could not even shed his skin. His last mumbled wish was that Morrigan tell Shelley he was finally dead and that her Bonnie was happily with another selkie, and who her true mother was. He wanted Shelley to live her life to the full. He’d made Morrigan promise she would look after Shelley, and she made that pact. Then she buried him. But now, she has to get Shelley’s trust, which looks hard when Shelley does not even want to meet her.

  The wind blows the smell of seaweed into Morrigan’s face as she walks along the rocks. She cannot give up. She must keep trying, for Kelpie’s sake. There’s nothing else she can do. She returns to her van and heads out to the Ring of Brodgar. Maybe she can find Shelley and talk to her in private. Maybe she’d be more relaxed at the ring and surrounded by the storytellers. Maybe the standing stones would give their energy, make it easier to bridge the huge gulfs between them, let Shelley understand the depth of their relationship, and that she was the result of their first lovemaking, that Morrigan is her birth mother.

  Moira watches the van from the tiny windows in the packing room until it disappears around the corner. Bad blood, that Morrigan. She’s an evil one. Looks like a man, dresses like a man. Sings to the seals. It’s not natural. She’s bound to be a witch, or a dyke, or both. Her father was the same. Had a bit of the trow in him, that one. Mind you, Bonnie was hardly the perfect wife, neither. Had an affair with the milkman and regretted it after Kelpie disappeared. The guilt sent her a bit looney. Little wonder the seals took her then. Still, at least she’ll be back with Kelpie now, though God’s witness, I’d die if I had to live amongst all that wet tangle and slithery monsters. She pushes the last oysters into the package and seals it with her left hand while taking a fag out of her pocket with her right hand. Time for a break, she reckons. She’s deserved it today.

  [38]

  Shelley saw Morrigan entering the stone circle while she was talking to Cowrie and suddenly remembered she was supposed to be at the inn. She quickly arranged to meet Cowrie later. She wants to avoid any confrontation or Morrigan spilling selkie stories in public up here. It’s fine to tell selkie myths, but once the boundaries collapse and your entire family is taken by the seals, then it is another reality entirely. She quickens her pace so as to reach Morrigan before she gets it into her head to join the crowd. Morrigan is so unpredictable, you never quite know what she may get up to next.

  Cowrie watches from a distance as Shelley meets her friend. A very tall lad by the look of his shape. He stands with his back to the women, looking out over the Loch of Harray, where small brightly coloured dinghies lie waiting on the sands, their sterns lapping in the loch
. Maybe Shelley has a boyfriend? Someone she can share intimacies with. She needs that. Shelley reaches the figure and they stand at some distance from each other. Maybe they have had a rift over something? Cowrie turns her back on them and begins helping to clear the dishes and prepare for the afternoon session.

  ‘I’m Sully Bancroft and ee’d leek to tell you aboot the Finfolk and how the beggar saved the ole’ Mill o’ Skaill,’ says a man with long hair and a grey beard. ‘Once there was a mill at Bay o’ Skaill where folk came to have their corn ground. But the Finfolk who lived in the bay also liked the corn meal and so they’d swim in at night, scare the miller till he was half-dead with fright, and carry off the meal into the deep blue sea. This went on for many a moon, till the miller had to close down his mill.’

  ‘How could the Finfolk carry the meal inta’ the sea, cos it woold get all wet,’ asks a peedie lad from Sandwick.

  ‘Aye, laddie, there’s no telling how the Finfolk like their meal. Happens they might like it all wet, being folk from the sea. Now, where was I then? Aye, the miller gave up the ghost and everyone else was too frightened to take over the mill. The stories had spread aboot the island like fire in the heather. Until one day this beggar comes along and says she knows how to get rid of the Finfolk. She asks them for a pot, a peat fire, some saltwater, kail and a ladle. Some folk scorned her requests, but then again, they was right keen to get rid of the Finny Ones. So she lay in wait with her goodies until the Finned Ones, seeing a fire at the mill, swam in and finned their way up the bay to see what was cookin’. When they got close enough, she ladled out the kail and boiling water from the pot on the peat fire and threw it all over them. They screamed and ran aboot, flames flaring oota their fins, then dived inta the sea and never returned to t’ Mill o’ Skaill.’

  ‘Did they die of burns?’ asks a wee girl, concerned.

  The old man looks at her, seeing the pain in her eyes. ‘No, lassie, for they made it back to the water in time. They had scarred fins, but could still swim, na doot.’

  The wee lassie breathes a sigh of relief and he gets back to his tale. ‘After that, the miller returned and started grinding corn again. A caisie was hung ootside the door for Skaill folks to put their meal into so the beggar would never be hungry again. You’d see her doon on the beach, gathering stoons, making a driftwood fire, and eating the cornmeal to her heart’s desire. And the Finned Ones never bothered the millar again.’

  ‘So wer’d they go, the Fins?’

  ‘Back oot to sea, to find another place to live. They’re very resourceful, them Finfolk. So if you ever see one, never under-estimate them,’ he adds, with a note of caution.

  The audience are keen on hearing more about the Finfolk, and a woman from Quoyloo, Bessie, knows more. ‘My mother and hers and hers before told me aboot how the Finfolk lost the sacred ’n holy island of Eynhallow. Let me tell it to thee now.’ She settles her rolls of flesh around her like a skirt, comfortably full of clapshot and oatcakes, and continues her tale. It is a long story, full of mystery, as she tells them about the man of Thorodale, whose wife was pulled into the sea by the Finfolk, and how, in retaliation, he got his sons to help get revenge. ‘One orange dawn, he saw an island rise from the sea, the holy land of Eynhallow, and he bid his sons row with him, each carrying a caisie of salt. Their boot was surrounded by huge whales, the like of which had not been seen in a while, and they knew they’d been sent by the Finfolk to take them off their path. One whale opened his huge jaws and it looked like the whole boot, men an’ all, would be swallowed by the giant. So the man threw some salt into the whale’s throat and he splashed aboot in pain then sank back into the sea. Next they were distracted by some mermaids sent by the Finfolks, so he cast out crosses made from dried tangles and they screamed in fear of God and drowned themselves in the sea.

  Finally, they arrived at the island and a huge monster with trunks appeared. They threw salt in his eyes and he screamed and rolled away. Then a Finman appeared and challenged them. They threw him a cross made from a sticky grass called cloggirs. Now the Finfolk are heathens and they dinna like crosses, so it stuck to his forehead and he screeched with agony. For this was the Fin who’d dragged Thorodale’s wife into the sea. Then the man and his sons went aboot the island throwing salt at Finfolk and their wives and their animals and all of them screamed and fled for the sea. They began their task of making nine salt rings around the island, but the last was never finished, making Eynhallow still a holy island. Now, if you try to tether an animal, it’s said the iron stake will jump oot of the earth. If you cut corn after the moon has risen, the stalks will ooze blood onto the hallowed ground. So the Finfolk lost the island of Eynhallow. T’was the last island to be made sacred, that’s for sure.’ She stretches her arms and looks into the large eyes of the children.

  There is a long silence, and one of them asks a disarming question. ‘Why was folks so horrid to the Finpeople? Seems like they just wanted love.’

  Bessie looks at the young girl whose eyes are sea-green and full of hope. ‘Aye, yee might be right there. But then they was considered heathens. They didn’t follow the ways of God and people was scared of anything different in those days.’

  ‘Has it changed now? Are they still scared of Finfolk?’

  This one takes Bessie by surprise. She pauses a moment. ‘Like as not, some folk are always frightened by those who are different, who dare to stand oot among the crowd.’ She thinks of her own son, himself a gay lad, long married to a beautiful dark island man, and how hard she’d worked to accept them, how she’d used God as an excuse for her fear of difference as well. ‘Aye, it takes time for acceptance. Maybe that’s why these stories abound. They are aboot trows an’ fairies and selkies and Finfolk and people’s fear of them. Maybe they are just projections of our own fears too.’

  Bessie surprises herself. She’d never consciously thought of this before, and neither had Cowrie, who nods her head in agreement. She’s distracted a little, since Shelley has not returned to the group. She’d not noticed her going but now neither she nor the man are at the ring or anywhere to be seen. Cowrie hopes she’ll return for the celebrations around the ring tonight, so she can pass on her Edinburgh contact and make sure it is followed through before she leaves the island.

  She cannot imagine leaving now. She has become very fond of the endless light, the ancient stories lying under the earth, waiting to be unfolded by the next generation, the powerful tradition of myth and storytelling that has sustained these island people through the worst of blustery northern winters, where the dark takes over and there’s only a few hours of sunlight a day. And the people themselves, tough, gentle, strong, complex, God-fearing and politically liberal all at once. These are islands of contrasts, colonised by so many different cultures, and yet embracing them all. They are islands of extremes, in climate, nature, mood and manner.

  And most of the extremes are embodied in Morrigan, that attractive, annoying, charming, moody pirate of the seas. Morrigan would fit in well with the Finfolk and they’d’ve taken to her. They both challenge authority and do it devilishly, with a twinkle in the eye. She imagines Morrigan swimming up to the mill at the Bay of Skaill, attracted to the light of the fire, keen to taste the cornmeal, even at the expense of the miller and smiles at the thought.

  [39]

  Fiona floats on the surface as the sun sets above her, unconcerned about the squid passing her by. She has made a pact not to eat squid after one of them unwittingly helped her to distract the shark away from Sandy. It’s more difficult for Sandy, whose mouth waters as he watches such fat squid thrusting their way forward, full of tasty morsels and just what he needs tonight. He bites his lip and instead chases after a haughty haddock who thinks nothing of flicking his tail right in Sandy’s face.

  In the distance, they hear the purr of a motor and recognise its tone. Soon a blue-bottomed dory circles the area and Sandy pokes his nose, full of fresh haddock, into the air to let her know they are there, then dives down to
join Fiona, now at the ocean floor, to cleanse his palate with seaweed. Above, the dory idles a while then drops anchor. It lands in the kelp near to them and disturbs a school of mackerel feeding below. Sandy scoops one up in his mouth and downs it before Fiona has time to scold him for his greed.

  A clanking from above and then a pair of giant fins break the surface of the water, surrounded by bubbles. Once they disappear, a seal emerges, and dives down to greet them. The seal circles around to make sure she has the right couple. She’d not noticed the gash in one fin until now.

  ‘Sandy, Fiona. I’m right glad to see you both agin. It’s bin a long time.’

  ‘Aye, Morrigan. We’d wondered what’d kept yee from coming. We thought maybe ye’d stay above ground from now on, never to return.’

  ‘This’ll be my last swim. I’ve news for you both. Kelpie got caught in a net and died oot of the sea before he had a chance to shed his skin. It was a long and painful letting go, but he’s laid to rest on my farm and so’s the past, at long last.’

  ‘Does Shelley know all this yet?’, asks Fiona, concerned.

  ‘She does indeed. She found it hard to take but I convinced her it was true. I took her oot to the grave and showed her the ring Kelpie gave me and told her the whole story. She wept and wept.’ Morrigan fins the water to keep afloat, a bit out of practice.

  ‘It’s a good thing yee’ve done, Morrigan. She had to know sometime. Poor love, she always looked lost, even when her folks was alive.’ Fiona nibbles at the edge of the dabberlocks, unable to stop herself munching her favourite food.

  ‘Aye, it’s a right good thing for yee, Morrigan. Lay it all to rest. The past is best left in the past and yee can never return to what was, no matter how hard yee try.’ Sandy thinks about his former life as he says this, referring to he and Fiona as well.