The selkie are a race of beautiful people who swim beneath the waves and shed their skins to dance on open beaches under the moonlight.
Long ago a fisherman stumbled across a group of selkie women dancing on the beach and was so taken with their beauty that he stole one of their sealskins and hid it away. As the night ended the selkie all slipped back into their skins to return to the sea but one woman could not find her sealskin!
As she sat crying on the beach the fisherman approached her and offered her the safety of his home, so she left with him and became his wife and the mother of his children. Whilst she had a home and children on land she could never forget the joy of swimming beneath the ocean so her husband kept his vicious secret from her and she never knew.
One day her children were playing in the loft and they came across a sealskin wrapped in a bundle and hidden away. They brought it to her to ask what it was and she recognised it immediately!
Bursting with joy she took the skin and ran from the house down to the beach. As the fisherman was coming home he saw her running and knew what must have happened. He chased after her but as he approached the beach she had already slipped into her skin and was disappearing into the waves.
Photos on this page by Ken Crossan.