Case file · Folklore / legend
Selkies
Seal people of Northern Isles folklore who shed their skins to live as humans on land; a man who steals a selkie's skin can force her to be his wife.
1822 CE · 60.76, -0.90 · status: legend
The account
Samuel Hibbert published a version of the stolen-skin tale from Unst, Shetland, in 1822, and an Icelandic writer recorded similar seal-folk in 1641.
The sceptical view
A body of oral tradition from Celtic and Norse seafaring cultures.