To celebrate the release of my new book, Coral Were His Bones, I’m going to be posting a month’s worth of things about selkies. Coral is a m/m paranormal erotica novel about Finn, a selkie who’s in love with his childhood sweetheart Devon, but bound in a magical contract to a cruel master. It’s a story of modern magic, snark, sex, and how to heal when everything hurts. 

Today’s selkie song is The Maiden and the Selkie by fellow Canadian Heather Dale, which is happier than a lot of selkie stories. Pretty song, too! You can also preview it over on last.fm or Itunes.

Heather Dale’s also given a TED Talk on how to find a tribe that loves your art, a topic near and dear to my heart. (I’ve talked about my love for Vi Hart’s They Became What They Beheld video before.)

I’m doing my best to link to artist websites and legitimate places to preview and buy songs as I’m doing these music posts–but I think this is one musician who wouldn’t mind too much if you went hunting for fan works of her songs, since she has a whole selection of fan works created from one of her other songs, Mordred’s Lullaby, from the video section on her website. And yes, at least one of those is a fanvid for the BBC series Merlin.

To celebrate the release of my new book, Coral Were His Bones, I’m going to be posting a month’s worth of things about selkies. Coral is a m/m paranormal erotica novel about Finn, a selkie who’s in love with his childhood sweetheart Devon, but bound in a magical contract to a cruel master. It’s a story of modern magic, snark, sex, and how to heal when everything hurts. 

The first song of the week is Grey Stone, a song about selkies, mothers, and daughters from British folk musician Emily Portman. The link will take you to a Youtube video by artist Jackie Morris, and the song’s been used with the artist’s permission.

Here’s the song on Itunes, Soundcloud and Bandcamp.

You can also listen to another track from the same album on Emily Portman’s website, Stick Stock, a haunting, mournful little folk song that gets gorier as you listen the the lyrics. (Cannibalism–it’s a theme!)

To celebrate the release of my new book, Coral Were His Bones, I’m going to be posting a month’s worth of things about selkies. Coral is a m/m paranormal erotica novel about Finn, a selkie who’s in love with his childhood sweetheart Devon, but bound in a magical contract to a cruel master. It’s a story of modern magic, snark, sex, and how to heal when everything hurts. 

We’re back to Scottland for our last day of folklore links, with a bit of history thrown into the mix.If you’re from Clan MacPhee/MacFie, tradition has it that you may be descended from Selkies. There’s some more at this site about the children of selkies, too. Selkies, human parents, and bloodlines play into the Tempest series, but show up more in the upcoming second and third books than in Coral.

And a bonus Scottish folk story, The Selkie Bride is typical of the tragedy of selkie stories–a fisherman, a stolen skin, and children left behind.

Coming up next–selkies in music!

To celebrate the release of my new book, Coral Were His Bones, I’m going to be posting a month’s worth of things about selkies. Coral is a m/m paranormal erotica novel about Finn, a selkie who’s in love with his childhood sweetheart Devon, but bound in a magical contract to a cruel master. It’s a story of modern magic, snark, sex, and how to heal when everything hurts.

In Inuit mythology, Sedna is the goddess of the sea and sea creatures, including seals. There are other seal stories too, like Seal Boy, who turned into a seal pup when tossed into the sea.

Inuit folktales probably aren’t very familiar to most North American or European audiences. You can explore more from the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, where there are interviews from CBC North with Nunavummiut elders discussing various traditional stories, or read some translations of folktales. (About half of them have been translated into English–scroll past the Inuktitut script and transcription to see if there’s an English translation.)

There are also some great books from Inhabit Media, a Canadian Inuit owned and operated publisher. Their goal is to preserve and promote the stories, knowledge and talent of Inuit and northern Canada. You can read a bit more about how they got started in this recent Publisher’s Weekly article. If you like creepy folktales, or know a nine or ten year old who loves Scary Stories To Tell In the Dark, definitely get a copy of The Shadows That Rush Past.

To celebrate the release of my new book, Coral Were His Bones, I’m going to be posting a month’s worth of things about selkies. Coral is a m/m paranormal erotica novel about Finn, a selkie who’s in love with his childhood sweetheart Devon, but bound in a magical contract to a cruel master. It’s a story of modern magic, snark, sex, and how to heal when everything hurts.

It won’t surprise you at all, I’m sure, to learn that there are plenty of Irish stories about sea-dwelling people and shape shifters. Merrows are not exactly like Scottish selkies. Caps of red feathers, webbed fingers, pig-like features, or sealskin cloaks all figure into the legends–in some versions, they’re more like what we’d think of as mermaids. But there are more stories of seals too, whether they’re called selchies, selkies, silkies, or roanes. At the blog Leprachauns Shout Out, you can read the story of The Seal Woman’s Croon.

Once again, not seal-related, but fantasy and SF author Diane Duane (I knew her best for her Star Trek novels and the Young Wizard series), also is an avid cook and baker and had a series of posts on her Tumblr around St Patrick’s Day on real Irish food. If it’s getting close to lunchtime where you are, and your mind might be drifting food-wards, too…)

To celebrate the release of my new book, Coral Were His Bones, I’m going to be posting a month’s worth of things about selkies. Coral is a m/m paranormal erotica novel about Finn, a selkie who’s in love with his childhood sweetheart Devon, but bound in a magical contract to a cruel master. It’s a story of modern magic, snark, sex, and how to heal when everything hurts. 

There are stories about seals-wives from other cultures, too. Today’s link comes from The Viking Rune (also a good resources for things like the historical accuracy of the haircuts on the History channel Vikings show), and is an Icelandic folktale, The Seal’s Skin. The general introduction has some more variations on the details of the myths and legends–did you know that if a woman wants to meet a selkie, it’s said she can go to the shore and shed seven tears into the sea?  I just figured out where the title came from for this teen novel by Terri Farley that came out a few years ago.

Here’s your tangential bonus link! Not seal-related, but on a Viking type note, the internet also provides the magic of an ancient Icelandic hymn sung in a German subway station.

To celebrate the release of my new book, Coral Were His Bones, I’m going to be posting a month’s worth of things about selkies. Coral is a m/m paranormal erotica novel about Finn, a selkie who’s in love with his childhood sweetheart Devon, but bound in a magical contract to a cruel master. It’s a story of modern magic, snark, sex, and how to heal when everything hurts. 

The internet is awesome–in all sorts of ways, but in this particular case, I’m thinking of how I can watch someone on another continent tell a story that’s hundreds of years old.

Education Scotland and the Scottish Storytelling Centre have put together some video and audio recordings of storytellers telling traditional folktales. Today, you can listen to two different selkies stories in the form that preserved them over the centuries, told out loud to an audience with A Selkie Story and MacCodram and his Seal Wife.

To celebrate the release of my new book, Coral Were His Bones, I’m going to be posting a month’s worth of things about selkies. Coral is a m/m paranormal erotica novel about Finn, a selkie who’s in love with his childhood sweetheart Devon, but bound in a magical contract to a cruel master. It’s a story of modern magic, snark, sex, and how to heal when everything hurts. 

I’ve got a podcast for you today from The Celtic Myth Podshow, along with an accompanying blog post on The Mysterious Selkie. The Celtic Myth Podshow is full of stories and legends of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and the Isle of Man. Download Special Episode 02a of the podcast to hear a story from William Meikle called The First Silkie, as well as a reading from The Religion of the Ancient Celts, another from a modern book called Fairy Healing, and some music . You can also grab the podcast as an Iphone or Ipad app, if you’re so inclined! Forty episodes’ worth going back to 2008 will keep you busy for a bit. Anyone looking for summer road trip listening material? I’d rather listen to music when driving, but that’s because I’m usually at the same time.

Most selkie stories I’ve heard come out the Celtic tradition, but I’ve got a few links I’ve rounded up for later this week from other seal-having places.

To celebrate the release of my new book, Coral Were His Bones, I’m going to be posting a month’s worth of things about selkies. Coral is a m/m paranormal erotica novel about Finn, a selkie who’s in love with his childhood sweetheart Devon, but bound in a magical contract to a cruel master. It’s a story of modern magic, snark, sex, and how to heal when everything hurts. 

This week’s theme is traditional folklore about selkies. I used various bits and pieces in Coral, but there are some parts of the stories that fit into a modern world a bit differently. Finn’s pelt disguises itself as a leather jacket, for example, instead of a sealskin, and there are some other bits of mythology lurking around edges of the story, as well.

Today’s link comes from Orkneyjar, a website dedicated to the preserving, exploring and documenting the ancient history, folklore and traditions of Orkney, a group of islands lying off the northern tip of Scotland.

Check out about The Selkie Folk to learn exactly what a selkie is, and read some traditional folk tales and historical accounts.

If you want to learn more about folktales and legends, there are all sorts of resources online. Here’s a good summary on a teacher resources website.