©nisi&woods
>Selkie
The legend of the Selkies had always inspired me since i red Jungian psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes interpretation of the myth in her book "Women that run with the wolves". The opportunity to dwelve in this myth came when i worked with Alison Woods on her "Selkies stories" project in the summer 2003. We were studying how to adapt this folk legend into an interactive and distributed narrative.
During that summer, we sketched, photographed and filmed Selkie's women. From that summer i started to conceive the idea for a screenplay that i develop during the spring of 2006 at the Binger Film Institute in Amsterdam.
The selkies tales mostly come from the northernmost reaches of Ireland and Scotland -- the Orkney and Shetland Islands in Scotland, and especially Co. Donegal in Ireland -- where people make their living from the sea. To the Celtic peoples that inhabited these lands, the sea that surrounded them was a place of wonder and mystery. Their mythology is cruel at times. The expressive nearly human eyes of seals and sea lions inspired the myth of the Selkies. Seals at times seem to understand the depth of human emotion the same way they understand the depths of the seas..
The selkies are silent and intense creature. With thick black hair, deep dark eyes. Witnesses of selkies women report they unusual way of walking, the smell of salt and seaweeds at their passage, no one has ever seen their feet. These women wear long sleeves covering their hands for most of the time. Some peole swear they had a glimpse at a webbed selkie’s hand once.
Sketches (low res: approx. 70 kb per page)
Video fragments..soon
More about the Legend
Books References:
1. “The
People of the Sea: A Journey in Search of the Seal Legend”
by David Thomson
2. "The Secret
of Roan Inish" (originally "The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry")
by Rosalie K. Fry
Websites references:
1. Some selkies legends
here
2. Irish selkies
legends
3. Orkney selkies
legends
4. Sightings
of mairmaids
5. Mairmaids
folklore and legends