kópakonan - legend of the seal woman

The Legend of the Seal Woman takes place in the traditional hometown of Ben's family, and all the Rasmussen children grow up hearing about their magical seal ancestor. The version I have included below is from the Færøsk Anthologi by V.U. Hammershaimb, and it is very close to what I was told by Ben's aunt. Seals originally come from people who committed suicide by jumping from cliffs and then drowned in the sea. Once every year, on the Twelfth Night, they are allowed to take off their skins and be like other people. That night they enjoy themselves by playing and dancing on the rocks by the seashore or in the seal-caverns. The story tells that a young man from Mikladalur on Kallsoy had heard that the seals used to assemble on Twelfth Night in a cavern not far from the village. That evening he went down there to find out whether the story was true or false. He hid himself behind a boulder close to the cavern. After sunset, he saw a lot of seals come swimming to the cavern. They all took off their skins and left them on the rocks by the shore, and now they actually looked like normal people. The young man was pleased to watch them from his hideout, but suddenly he saw the fairest and most beautiful girl he had ever seen, take off her sealskin. He noticed where she put her skin, crept up to it and took it to his hideout. The seals danced and enjoyed themselves the whole night, and when the day began to break, they put their skins back on. But the seal-maid could not find her skin, and started to wail in her misery as she searched for it, because the night was gone and the sun was about to rise. But before sunrise, she caught scent of the skin and the man, and had to go to him and ask for it. She pleaded him to give her the skin back, but he would not listen to her and went up the steep track to his house. She didn't have any choice but to follow him and the skin he carried. He now took her as his wife, and they lived in harmony like other married couples. But he always had to make sure that she didn't get hold of the skin. He kept it in a chest, locked it securely, and always carried the key upon him. One day he was out fishing, and as he sat there out on the sea and pulled in a fish, he accidentally touched his belt, where the key used to hang. He was horrified, because only then he realized that he had left the key at home, and cried out in sorrow: "Today I am going to loose my wife!" His boat mates drew in their fishing-gear, and they rowed swiftly back ashore. When the man came home, his wife was gone and the children sat quietly in the house. She had put out the fire and hidden all knifes and sharp objects, so that they shouldn't hurt themselves while they were on their own. Then she had run down to the shore, put on the skin and thrown herself into the sea. She had found the key while her husband was out fishing, opened up the chest and found the skin. After that she couldn't restrain herself, and from that comes the expression: "Can't restrain herself, no less than a seal when it sees its skin". At the same moment as she leapt into the sea, the bull-seal she had been with before, came to her, and the two now swam away. All these years he had been waiting for her. Ever since, when the children of the seal-woman came down to the shore, a seal appeared in the sea and watched them. It was the common believe that this was their mother. Many years now passed, in which nothing more is to be told about the farmer or his children. But then it happened, that the men from Mikladalur decided to go to the seal-cavern to hunt for seals. The night before the hunt, the seal-woman appeared in the farmer's dreams. She told him, that if he went with the others, he had to make sure that they didn't kill the bull-seal who stood outside the cavern, because he was her husband. They should also spare the two seal-pups that were lying innermost in the cavern, because they were her sons – and she described what they looked like. But the farmer ignored the dream. He went to the cave with the other men, and they killed all the seals. When they shared the catch, the farmer got the bull-seal and the flippers and tails of the pups. That night the farmer boiled the head of the bull-seal and the flippers and tail from the pups for supper. But when the food was put on the table, there was great noise and commotion outside, and the seal-woman entered the living room in the shape of a horrible troll. She sniffed to the dish and cried out in anger: "Here lies my husband with his nose turned upward, the hand of Harek and the foot of Fredrik. You have got your revenge – and now revenge shall come upon the men of Mikladalur. Some shall be drowned, some shall fall from cliffs and slopes, and this shall continue, until as many have been lost, that they can link arms around the whole island of Kallsoy!" When she had said this, she left, and no one has seen her ever since. -a