The Selkie Prince
It has been many years since the Great War when the Irish fended off intruders like the Scots, English, Vikings… and rumors of something much darker. But the improbable fending off started during a fateful Midsummer’s Eve when the General of the Irish Army woke at midnight from a nightmare of the war ending in darkness.
The General had already fought 20 years—and he fought bravely—but having the gutwrenching knowledge that he and all his men would end in blackness, he deserted that same night and set forth for the bays of Donegal where he could hide in peace and maybe, if he weren’t too old, start a family.
But on his way to bay, he encountered a witch who slept in the hollow of a dying tree by the rocky shore. He had heard rumors of a witch that lived on the shore’s edge and dreamed of melding see with land and ending the life of man—the Witch of Darkness from old wive’s tales—and tried his best to ignore her on his way.
The witch hid in the darkness of night, seeming to bring her own proprietary shade with her, against which only her white hair, the whites of her eyes, and her bone white wand gleamed. The witch spoke, “General, aye, your secret is safe with me.”
But it was the contrast behind the witch’s shadow that that caught the General’s eye. ‘twas the bonniest maiden he ever saw with hair darker and eyes blacker than he’d ever seen in Ireland. While having no interest in the witch, the General couldn’t take his eyes off the maiden, who reminded him of the selkies or seal people: seals in the water, libidinous humans on land, yearning to go back to the ocean. Her eyes seemed to be pleading with him
“You think she’s pretty do you? I may be able to help you yet,” the witch said.
The General smelled death on the witch, but he listened only for the maiden.
“Take this cloakskin. With it the maiden will be your wife and she will bear you a son and you’ll have all the fish you can fire.”
“So she is a selkie?” The General asked.
“Seal in the water again if she finds her skin,” the witch cackled.
“What are the conditions?”
“In 21 years, on your son’s 20th birthday, he’ll have to come work for me by nightfall on Midsummer’s Eve.”
“And if not?”
“I’ll plunge the world and your people into darkness without end—just like your dream portended.
The General felt the weight of the decision. But with all the hope of a new life, he took the cloak from the witch. The witch disappeared into the darkness leaving the General in the cool morning rain with the selkie woman.
“You must be special if she gave me up,” said the selkie.
“I’m wittier than most,” said the General.
“Doubtful,” said the selkie, “But you’ve got more constancy than my kinfolk, and you’ve seen enough darkness that you don’t need to pile more on yourself.”
“Ay,” said the General. “What’s your name?
“Moira,” the selkie said.
The General and Moira took up together on the tip of Donegal Bay. She was a wonderful woman, if wanderous and wistful. She sang by the sea and the animals listened to her like she were royalty. And one year to the day on Midsummer’s Eve, Moira, as promised, bore him a son.
The General never knew happiness like that—doubly happy to see that his boy took after his Moira, the dark hair and eyes, the wandering spirit and the resourceful soul. This happiness wasn’t caused by pure bliss, but the fact of the Witch of Darkeness’ curse would come back to him, at nights in dreams. The General would wake in a sweaty panic and he’d rush to hide Moira’s sealskin, paranoid that he’d lose her and these blissful days forever. And by the morning rise, when the good moment were there, the General was especially happy. And he willfully placed his dreams as ridiculous as so many of us mistakenly do, too.
To the General’s surprise, Moira and the lad joined the General fishing on the waters, and he could never believe the amount of fish they caught. The only lament from Moira that seemed to put his nightmares in motion seemed to be when they’d come back to dry shore—as if stepping on land meant she might not see the ocean again. But then there was codhead and kelp stew and song and warmth and love.
But on the 7th year in Donegal Bay, the General was out on the water with Moira and the Lad when the storm turned rough. The waves rose and crashed and in the darkenesses in between, The General could have sworn he saw the Witch of Darkness swimming in the shoreline by her old dead tree. The General swore he heard her scream, “The Boy is getting stronger!”
To calm the General’s nerves, Moira recommended they live out on an inish in Donegal Bay. Moira built them a home— an odd one, made of whalebone and dried kelp—and it was a cozy place that seemed to protect them from the elements in a way that always struck the general as funny. The outside of the house would slick with wetness, but never a drop made its way inside. What was strange were the cubby places in, and it made his nightmare escapades demand new cubby holes to hide the seal skin, but Moira had a sense about the place and could sniff out any difference like it was her own body.
Moira only needed but a night before she found her skin and disappeared into the water again.
That stormy morning she disappeared, the General wailed to the sea, which again caught the attention of the Witch of Darkness and gave away The General and The Lad’s hiding place. The storms brought in the high waves and the winds and every whitecapped black wave seemed to be the Witch of Darkness eating at the shoreline—she seemed to be everywhere on all sides, melding greyness of sky and land and water. The General took the lad to high ground, inside the whalebone house and the two of them kept dry. But it was the Lad that calmed the General. The General worried they were in trouble but the Lad pointed at all the seals and said, “No, father, mother’s protecting us.”
Fear is multiplied by sadness, so the General resolved to train the boy in the only way he knew: warfare.
But being a lonely young lad of the inish, the boy took to his father’s ideas of combat training about as well as a fish takes to climbing trees. When his father tried to teach him the sword, the boy ran away like a scared dog. When his father tried to teach him war cries, the lad sang to the birds. When the father tried to teach his child to climb the cliffs, the lad swam with the seals. The boy carried the selkie peacefulness of his mother stronger than the warrior of his father, and asking the lad to change would be like demanding his hair to go red rather than selkie black.
After seven years of training and disappointment, they resolved to enjoy what they had: each other’s company on the inish.
But the promise to the Witch of Darkness kept eating away at the General in the sucession of evenings. The pressure and pain of which built up so much that on the day before the lad’s 20th birthday on Midsummer’s Eve, the General watched his son with a special appreciation and a sensation that he was on the precipice of an unendurable sadness. The General, was about to burst. How he fished! How he sang! How he shone even in the darks of the bay! And that beauty broke the General, and he sobbed like when Moira slipped into the sea.
“Father, what has happened?” the son asked.
“Ay, my boy, there’s something I need to be telling you.”
And so the General told his son about the promise, and how the years that have passed have been joyous even with the undercurrent, and he couldn’t lose everything by giving his boy back.
“I’ll free you of your debts, I have my ways.” The lad said this but he felt a tremor of doubt. He’d seen the Witch of Darkness.
“But you’re fighting skills needs improving.”
“Nay, father, as you can see the Norsemen, the great fighters, they are under her sway. What did fighting do for them?”
“How are you going to fend her off?”
“Father, if she’s searching for me, there must be a reason.”
The Lad’s father agreed, there was nothing else to be done.
The boy set off in a skiff, listening to the cackle of the witch ripple in the wind, promising this darkness will not have an end. There was one seal he knew was his mother.
“Son, you can’t give yourself to the Witch of Darkness, I’ve seen her plans. Your father rescued me from her.”
“Why did she keep you?”
“She harnesses the strength of sea creatures and land creatures to overthrow life forms and pour us into a pit of darkness.”
“Who does she have now?”
“Must be an Irishman, for she’s dominating the land. The Norsemen retreat to sea.”
“I haven’t plans to give myself away, for it would kill father.”
“You’re right.”
“Take care of him while I’m away, loneliness and uncertainty in father is a volatile combination.”
The seal swam to shore and the boy rowed on into the headwinds.
The lad hoped to reach land before nightfall but he saw a sickly, old seal swimming caught in the large surf. The boy pulled the seal into his boat and gave it food. When he reached the protected waters of Donegal Bay, the seal spoke, “There is not much I can help you with on land, but where the waves are wild and the wind whips and there is danger, I’ll return.”
The seal slipped into the water, and the boy sang a tune in the shallows of the bay.
The Lad heard a splash and a falcon had pulled a fish from the bay. “Thank you for singing the fish to the top, if you ever need a light from the sky, sing my praises.” And the falcon flew off.
The boy pulled the boat onto shore and a black dog sniffed him and he gave the dog his last morsels of food. “I’ll stay with you so I can sniff through the darkness!”
The boy was relieved to have the black dog’s loyalty, but as he climbed the hill to the rocks by the dying tree, he remembered his mother’s words and walked to the army barracks in town, the dog following him in the long darkness.
When he arrived at the barracks, they lit the room by firelight and there were redheads and blond Irish, no one looked like him and the soldiers noticed.
“We don’t want to be fighting against the people, but working together,” The Lad said.
“Who do you think you are, Selkie Boy?” the new General said.
“My father was a general in the war,” the boy said.
“If that’s the case, then you’ll know how to fight the Giant and return the princess of Ireland to us.”
Even had the lessons his father given him stuck, the boy would have been in trouble.
“And if I don’t fight?”
“We’ll kill ya and feed you to the Giant anyways.”
The boy saw soldiers gather around him and he had but no choice other than to slay the Giant.
So he walked in the darkness out to the Giant, and he could hear the bone-crushing chewing and the harrowing screams of men dying one after another.
The Giant could smell him for giants can smell better than any monster alive, and the Giant spoke, “Hi! Hau! Hogaraich!”
The Lad was so scared that he started to sing,
“The song stirs my appetite!”
But lo, a spark of light in the darkness!
The boy called to the falcon, “Fly above the Giant, and put the spotlight on him.”
The falcon circled above and a beam of light broke through the blackness, blinding the Giant’s one eye, so that he stumbled off Giant’s Causeway to his death!
The soldiers cheered in darkness but they knew the war would continue until they returned the Irish Princess. The lad again remembered his mother’s words and knew that the Witch of Darkness captured her.
“Lead me back to Donegal Bay!”
They followed the spotlight of the falcon and the black dog sniffed the way. But when they arrived, the falcon flew over the princess and they saw that she’d been put on a boat in a harbor. The lad could hear the cackling of the Witch of Darkness on the shoreline.
“Give the selkie boy to me and you shall get your princess back!”
The soldiers grabbed the boy and he begged them, “It’s a trick! She’ll rule us all if this happens!”
And then he whistled to the black dog! The dog evaded the soldiers because he blended into the shadows, and the dog ran fast to the water’s edge and took the Witch of Darkness’ bone wand because he could smell it!
The skies were visible again. The Witch of Darkness fell off the rocks by the dying tree and into the ocean. Her dress pulled her under and she turned into the kelp beds and the currents! And so she still had some last power and pulled the princess out into the deep!
The soldiers were furious at the boy but let him dive into the waters. They’d never seen an Irishman swim like that! He must have been a selkie!
The boy swam beyond the skerry and saw the old seal on the rocks. The old seal barked to his seal brethren. The seals created a storm of whitewater as they swam through the waves and the kelp with tremendous speed and angling to help the boy.
Each time the boy breached, he could feel the extra push from the seals! And when he thought he’d get wrapped up by the kelp, a seal would eat him out of the weeds! The Witch of Darkness was no match! Even as the Princess drifted to an inish rounded by jagged rocks the seals boosted him onto the boat with the princess! And the seals and the boy guided the boat safely to shore!
On shore, the Princess declared she’d marry the boy, but the King said his daughter could not marry a lowly soldier!
“But I do not fight!” The boy said.
“Even worse, my daughter will not marry a commoner!” The King said.
Then in front of all the Irishman, the old seal swam to shore. It crawled out of his skin and morphed into an old man with hair still black as the deep and eyes still sharp as the rocks and he said, “That boy is no commoner! I am King of the Selkies and that boy is my grandson!”
The Irish King was aghast, “The Selkie Prince!”
“If your daughter marries my grandson, we’ll unite the kingdoms such that no Viking, no Scot, no Englishman will ever attack you from the seas again!”
And the soldiers and townsfolk rejoiced and made preparations for The Selkie Prince and the Irish Princess to marry—in front of all, father and mother included—and there was peace in Ireland again.