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Scottish
Myths and Legends
By Kahreen
This piece of Scottish follore comes from the Orkney islands.
Orkney folklore tells not only of the Fin folk with their perfect farms
under the sea but of seal or selchie people. In these stories seals became
ordinary human beings, though always handsome. Only the large seals like
the grey were people in disguise. Some tales relate that they could assume
human form only once a year, on Midsummer's eve, while others say every
ninth night. Stories of men gaining beautiful wives by snatching the discarded
skin of a seal woman so that she could not return to the sea are common
in the islands, with some families believed to harbour seal blood. Dissatified
mortal women could attract a seal-man lover by shedding seven tears into
the sea at high tide.
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