Alena's Daughter

“Alright then,” says Mirna, shushing Niamh who has become excited by the last story’s happy ending. “I’ll tell you one more and then we’ll be on our way, and I’m sure you’ll be a very careful seal!” Niamh nods and snuggles into her mother’s flippers, preparing for the last story.

--

Once upon a time, right here in the Orkney Islands, a beautiful selkie named Alena lived as a seal with her parents and sisters. Underwater, everyone knew her as the loveliest seal with the smoothest coat, and when she went ashore and shed her skin with the other selkies, they praised her for her surpassing human beauty. She was charming, gentle, and talented at swimming in her seal form and dancing in her human form. You may recall that young selkies like to go on land at night and dance together; Alena lived for such nights, because she loved to feel the fresh air on her skin and move her long legs and arms.

Alena had reached an age where her friends began to pair up and marry off, but no one seemed suitable to her. One night, though, while Alena danced with her friends on the coast, someone finally caught her eye. As he danced across from her, his dark hair swinging across his face and his black eyes reflecting the moonlight, Alena found herself enamored. She didn’t recognize the man, whereas she usually recognized all the selkies at the dance parties, but she was so taken with him that she easily forgot he was a stranger.

Alena approached the man and softly spoke to him. She was quick to reveal her name and details about her family, but she had to press the stranger for even his first name. Nevertheless, the pair danced together all night, and after they shared a kiss, Alena put on her sealskin again and swam home out of shyness. Each week, she returned to the same spot on the shore, shed her skin, and danced with the stranger. As the weeks and months went by, he became less of a stranger, but he would never tell Alena what part of the sea he lived in or who his family was. Still, they formed a deep bond, and Alena would have nothing to do with the other young male seals.

One night on land, Alena pulled the man to the side and whispered in his ear. “We must get married,” she said earnestly, “for I am pregnant with your child.”

He looked down at his feet and sighed. Alena looked at him worriedly; this was not the reaction she had hoped for.

“Well,” she said, “tell me what part of the sea you’re from, tell me your family name! Now that we’ll be living together, I need to know these things, and there is no reason to keep them from me.”

When the man looked up at her, Alena saw that he was crying. She felt a weight drop down in her stomach, and then she knew: he was not a selkie. He was only a human.

Although Alena did not want her child to grow up without a father, she could not bear the thought of leaving her seal identity behind to become a human. She loved her family, and she had always lived as a seal. So, when her daughter was born a selkie, she decided to raise her in the sea and take her on occasional visits to her father.

Alena and her daughter displayed great affection and curiosity toward the man on their visits. Still, little did they know, he held onto yet another secret. Not only was he a human, but also a seal hunter. His father and grandfather were seal hunters, and although he cared for Alena and their daughter, he found it difficult to give up the only means of supporting himself that he knew. He felt sure, though, that he would be able to recognize his beloved seals and spare their lives.

One day, as Alena swam with her daughter to visit her father on the island, she saw a man pointing a gun toward her. Seals are used to this kind of thing, and Alena grabbed onto her daughter to swim deeper and avoid the hunter. But as she took her daughter’s fin in her own, she stopped in cold shock. She recognized that man as the father of her daughter! Panicked and heartbroken, she raised her head for a better view. It couldn’t be him, could it?

“Ah, an easy shot today,” he said. Humans are incapable of recognizing selkies in their seal form, and he wondered why this strange seal looked at him with such curiosity. Shrugging, he gave thanks for the easy catch, and two bullets forever separated him from his daughter and her mother.

--

Mirna and Niamh cry together for the fate of Alena and her daughter, and even for the man who did not know the consequences of his shot that day. Though Niam's bellows and whimpers make Mirna's heart ache, she knows that she is right in passing on the stories of selkies, even the saddest ones.

"Niamh," she says, as softly and gently as possible, "I know that was painful to hear. I tell you these stories not to hurt you or even scare you, but to honor the seals who have gone before us and to teach you the dangers of the shore." Niamh nods solemnly.

"But," says Mirna, with the twinkle returning to her eye, "The shore can also be a magical place. I have gone ashore many times, and here I am!" She pokes her daughter's snout to drive home her point, and Niamh giggles.

"So now that you know the bad things that can happen on the shore, let's go find out about all the good things!" she says, grabbing Niamh's flipper and guiding her toward the rocky coast and the warm sunshine.

Author's Note: This story is based on the ballad "The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry," which originated in Orkney, the setting of my Storybook. I highly recommend reading the original ballad, and it's not very long. In the original story, a human woman nurses her baby and wonders about where the father is. A creature shows up at her bed and claims he is a selkie and that he is the father of the child. He pays her for the child and predicts that the woman will marry a hunter, who will shoot him and the child. I decided to do a gender-flip with this story, because Mirna is telling stories to warn her daughter about the dangers of humans, so I thought a female selkie would be more relevant for Niamh. Flipping the genders led to certain plot changes, because clearly a man could not be nursing his baby and wondering where the mother is. I also added background information on how the selkie and human met and had a child in the first place, because I wondered about that when I read the original ballad. Finally, I had the father kill the child and her mother, instead of his spouse doing it, which I think makes the story even sadder (sorry!).

Bibliography: "The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry," from Child's Collected Ballads by Francis James Child. Link to the reading online.

Image Information: Statue of the Little Mermaid. By Edvard Eriksen in Copenhagen, Denmark. Source: Pixabay.