Image: Dream 9/17/22 Seal Skin
On Saturday, I participated in the first of three online classes on oral story-telling, taught by Ben Dennis and hosted by Rite of Passage Journeys. For our first class, Ben instructed us to find a fairy tale that spoke to us, resonated in our bones, one might say. "Spend time with the story," he said, "Imbibe it. Feel it become part of you." I chose The Seal's Skin (Yolen, 1988) an Icelandic tale of a seal-woman who has her sealskin stolen from her while she is dancing in human form in a cave.
Last week, I looked for a tale that might speak to me in the Library of the C. G. Jung Society of Seattle, where I currently act as librarian. I found The Seal's Skin in a collection of folk tales from around the world. Seals have come to me in dreams a handful of times in the past few years, and I picked this specific tale because of a dream in the fall of last year, which also inspired the painting above. It's one of those dreams I can't stop thinking about, and I share the painting and the dream here, along with the folktale, because of their similarities. Although I didn't remember, when I started looking for a story to use for Ben's class and I landed upon a tale about a seal, an online search kept landing on Pinkola-Estes (1992) Sealskin, Soulskin from Women Who Run With the Wolves. I must have encountered the tale decades ago when I first read Pinkola-Estes' book.
First, the Dream.
Seal Skin.
9/17/22. I get off a tour bus that has stopped at the beach to unload a tour group going ocean white water rafting. I have a large, full backpack which I partially unload on my way to the beach because it's heavy and embarrasses me. Despite lots of people around me, I feel quite alone and walk back and forth along the beach while everyone else gets ready. As I walk, I realize I don't have my harness. I need it to participate, and go into a warehouse to ask a man on the crew to make one for me. He's loading a fridge with food for our trip, but says it's no problem to make a harness for me. As I watch him make my harness—which looks more like wetsuit—he suddenly puts the it on a seal who's also in the warehouse with us. Everything happens very fast, and the man is highly skilled. He uses his body to squeeze the seal's body as he zips the suit so she can fit. Afterward, the seal lies in his lap and I feel their intimate connection.
Now, the Fable:
The Seal's Skin (Iceland)
There was once some man from Myrdal in eastern Iceland who went walking among the rocks by the sea one morning before anyone else was up. He came to the mouth of a cave, and inside the cave he could hear merriment and dancing, but outside it he saw a great many sealskins. He took one skin away with him, carried it home, and locked it away in a chest. Later in the day he went back to the mouth of the cave; there was a young and lovely woman sitting there, and she was stark naked, weeping bitterly. This was the seal whose skin it was the man had taken. He gave the girl some clothes, comforted her, and took her home with him. She grew very fond of him, but did not get on so well with other people. Often she would sit alone and stare out to sea.
After some while the man married her, and they got on well together, and had several children. As for the skin, the man always kept it locked in a chest, and kept the key on him wherever he went. But after many years, he went fishing one day and forgot it under his pillow at home. Other people say that he went to church one Christmas with the rest of his household, but that his wife was ill and stayed home; he had forgotten to take the key out of his pocket of his everyday clothes when he changed. Be that as it may, when he came home again the chest was open, and both wife and skin were gone. She had taken the key and examined the chest, and there she found the skin; she had been unable to resist the temptation, but had said farewell to her children, put the skin on, and flung herself into the sea.
Before the woman flung herself into the sea, it is said that she spoke these words:
Woe is me! Ah, woe is me!
I have seven bairns on land,
And seven in the sea.
It is said that the man was broken-hearted about this. Whenever he rowed out fishing afterwards, a seal would often swim round and round his boat, and it looked as if tears were running from its eyes. From that time on, he had excellent luck in his fishing, and various valuable things were washed ashore on his beach. People often noticed, too, that when the children he had with this woman went walking along the seashore, a seal would show itself near the edge of the water and keep level with them as they walked along the shore, and would toss them jellyfish and pretty shells. But never did their mother come back to land again.
References:
Pinkola-Estes, C. (1992). Women who run with the wolves: Myths and stories of the wild woman archetype. Ballantine Books.
Yolen, J. (1988). The Seal's Skin (Iceland). Favorite folktales from around the world (pp.310-311). Pantheon.
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