The Selkie and Her Children

The Selkie and Her Children: A Story by Sean Buvala. 

Excerpt:

The man looked out toward the beach and there he saw a bonfire and around it were dancing the silhouettes of a woman and her children and as he looked about he saw that there was a pile next to them and so he figured that these must be selkies and that pile was their pelts. He knew that if he took their pelts away from them, they could not return to the water and that he could tell them what to do and so while they were dancing silhouetted against the flame, the man snuck up behind them, grabbed the pelts in his arms, and held them tight.

Immediately, the woman knew that their pelts had been stolen and so she turned to the man and she said, "Sir, please give us those pelts back. We must have them."

He said "No, you are on my land. This part of the land here is mine and you have trespassed upon it. No, you will do as I say."

And she said, "Sir, please, the seas from which we come are rough and dangerous for my children. We need to come here."

And he said, "No. I have told you. Here is what I am going to do. I'm going to take your children and lock them away. You will become my wife and you will do as I say."

She begged the man to return the pelts but he refused. And so, she reluctantly agreed to his terms.

He took the children and he put them in a cellar. There in the cellar, they could not hear the sound of the ocean. There was, however, a window high at the top of the cellar. When he would come back every day bring food to the children, he would open the window and leave it open for an hour. He would then close it, He would leave the cellar, lock the door behind him, leaving the children behind. He forbid the selkie woman from ever going to see the children, lest he take them away in secret to a place she would never know.

He took the pelts that he had stolen from them and he put them in a chest, keeping them under lock and key. The selkie woman, meanwhile, became his wife and, as you can imagine, she was miserable. She did not give him any children of his own. Every day, she would go to the edges of the ocean, sit upon a rock, and simply lament the loss of her sea children.

Watch the video for the entire story.  CC video.