Just beyond the fishing town of Buckie, where the cold waters of the Moray Firth slam against the rocky shore with unforgiving force, lived a solitary fisherman named Ewan MacLeod. His croft was crude—a battered, wind-beaten cottage slumped against the rocks, with a roof patched more times than he could count. Each morning, he rowed into the Firth in his weathered boat, braving churning swells and biting wind, casting his nets beneath skies as grim as the sea itself.
Ewan was known in Buckie for two things: his uncanny knack for pulling in a catch even when others found nothing, and the eerie quiet that clung to him. He spoke little, smiled less. Some whispered that he’d once lost a brother to the sea and had never quite come back from it. Others swore he talked to the ocean like a priest to his god.
One summer evening, with the gulls screaming overhead and the waves gnawing at the shore, Ewan stumbled upon something unusual. Amid the twisted seaweed and shards of driftwood, half-buried beneath a rock, lay a seal skin.
It was enormous, sleek and slick with salt, glistening like something still alive. As soon as Ewan touched it, a jolt of warmth surged through his veins—an unnatural, pulsing heat.
Then came a voice, sharp with fear.
“Please,” it cried. “Give it back.”
He turned. A woman stood before him, hair matted with brine, eyes wide and shining with desperation. She was naked, save for a tangle of seaweed clinging to her limbs. Her lips were blue. Her skin bore the pale, cold sheen of something just hauled from the deep.
“You’re a selkie,” he breathed.
She nodded, shaking. “My skin. Without it, I’ll die.”
But Ewan hesitated. Something wild and possessive flared inside him—a primal urge rooted in years of loneliness and loss. “You can come with me. Just for the night. I’ll keep you warm.”
Her jaw clenched, but she said nothing. He bundled the skin under his coat and turned. After a long pause, she followed.
That night, she shivered by his hearth, wrapped in an old woolen blanket. Ewan gave her food—cold fish stew and a crust of bread. She ate with trembling hands, eyes darting to the floor where he’d hidden her skin beneath a loose board.
“You’ll feel better in the morning,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.
In the morning, she stood by the waves, fists clenched. “Give it back.”
He stepped closer. “Stay.”
Her lips curled. “You’re no better than the tide that drags sailors under.”
But she stayed.
Her name was Mairi. She moved through the cottage like a prisoner, silent and taut. Over time, her stiffness eased, but the sadness in her eyes never left. She mended nets, scrubbed floors, and bore the bleakness of Ewan’s love like a chain around her neck.
They married in the fall. The ceremony was swift and cheerless, with only a few neighbours in attendance, watching with wary eyes. She did not smile.
A son came the following year—Finlay, born on a night of storms. He screamed when he entered the world, as if mourning something lost. His eyes were strange: pale blue with flecks of silver, like the belly of a fish.
Mairi raised him gently. She sang to him in a language no one else knew, in lilting tones that made Ewan grit his teeth. She bathed him in saltwater, even in winter. And when she thought no one watched, she wept.
Seven years passed. Ewan aged quickly, his skin weathered like driftwood. Mairi grew quieter. She moved like a shadow. One freezing night, she rose silently, barefoot on stone, and lifted the floorboard with practiced ease.
Finlay, wide-eyed from the cot, watched her unwrap the seal skin.
She kissed his forehead. “You are of both worlds, my son. Never forget.”
By morning, she was gone.
Ewan found her note—written in seaweed ink on fish parchment:
I was never yours. The sea took me once, and you took me again. I go now of my own will. Tell our son the truth.
The grief hit Ewan like a rogue wave, battering him breathless. He roamed the shore, screaming into the surf, but no seal came. Buckie whispered, some in pity, others with contempt.
Finlay grew into a strange boy—strong swimmer, quiet as his mother. He spoke to the waves and understood their rhythm. Seals followed him in the water. The villagers said he was cursed, or blessed. It depended on the tide.
Ewan lived on in bitterness. He drank more. Spoke less. On nights when the wind howled like a dying beast, he would sit outside and listen for her song. Sometimes, faint and far, he thought he heard it.
Years later, Finlay came home from a voyage, gaunt and shaken.
“I saw her,” he said. “In the deep. She called my name. Warned of changes.”
Ewan’s hands shook. “Then she still watches.”
Finlay nodded. “She said I’ll have to choose. Soon.”
Ewan gazed at the crashing surf. “You were born of salt and blood. The sea will take what it’s owed.”
And so it would. The selkies are not kind, nor cruel. They are nature—relentless and wild. As for Ewan, his tale became part of Buckie’s dark folklore, told when the wind howls and the sea turns black.
And if you stand on Buckie sands at dusk, when the tide is cruel and the light is dying, you might still hear the echoes of a woman’s cry—not mournful, but free.

• Original tales adapted by Nick Kimber