The Goodman o’ Wastness (Orcadian folktale)

Author: Traditional Orcadian

Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE

Country or Culture: Orkney Islands; Western Europe

Genre: Folktale

Overview

The human affinity for seals is very old, and some folklorists suggest that seal sightings by early sailors and fishermen may provide the factual basis for fantastic tales of mermaids and other sea creatures common in many storytelling traditions. Other scholars speculate that this enduring fascination with seals may have something to do with their curiosity, intelligent eyes, and the childlike sound of their cries. That they can reside on land as well as in the sea also remains a source of intrigue and mystery.

And all the while the sea-wife, and her human husband, seemed content and merry.

But all was not as it seemed—there was a weight in the Selkie Wife’s heart. Many was the time that she was seen to gaze longingly out to the sea. The sea that was her true home.

“The Goodman o’ Wastness”

The Orcadian folktale “The Goodman o’ Wastness” explores the relationship between seals and men in the context of an unconventional love story. Like most romantic tales, this story contains a central tension around which a series of events unfolds. Unlike a romance featuring a maiden under a spell or a young lover who must pass a test, however, the tension in this tale arises from the marriage between a human and a selkie—a being of the sea that exists as a seal in the water but assumes the shape of a man or woman on land upon shedding its sealskin. (“Selkie” is the Scots term for seal.) When the Goodman o’ Wastness steals a selkie woman’s sealskin, he robs her of the freedom to live in both realms and forces her to live with him on land.

The characters and plot of this story appear in many different folklore traditions. Tales of marriages between humans and selkies or mermaids have circulated for centuries in Scandinavian and western North Atlantic societies in both spoken and written forms. While slight variations may be evident from one version to the next, the primary contours of the legend remain: a man, usually a farmer or fisherman, stumbles upon a lone female or a group of sea beings on land. Sometimes the encounter occurs during the day, sometimes during the night. In some tales, the sea people come to shore on a significant day, like Midsummer’s Eve or the twelfth day of Christmas, or during a symbolic season such as Lammas, a harvest festival observed on the first day of August. The land dweller feels compelled by mischief or love to steal the article that allows the woman of the sea to exist in her watery world. Sometimes this item is a mermaid’s cap or her “sloak,” an ornate, fishlike tail. The selkie, of course, is characterized by the sealskin, which she removes to dance and sun herself on land and without which she cannot return to her home under the waves. Eventually, the selkie recovers her skin, usually with the assistance of her husband or one of her children, and returns to the sea.

The concealment of this skin is the core event in these stories because it defines the relationship between the selkie and the man; without the skin, deliberately taken and hidden by a human, there would be no enduring connection between the selkie and her earthly mate. A feminist reading of “The Goodman o’ Wastness” calls into question many assumptions about the Goodman’s motives and actions as well as the value of the selkie’s happiness. For example, does this tale suggest a male bias in its depiction of love and marriage? And what does the selkie’s apparent abandonment of her children suggest about expectations the audience might have about women’s roles and the relationships between children and their mothers?

Summary

The plot of “The Goodman o’ Wastness” hinges on two significant events. The first is the title character’s theft and subsequent concealment of the sealskin belonging to the selkie who becomes his wife. The second is the selkie’s recovery of her skin and her return to the sea. This seemingly simple story line encompasses complex characters and provocative narrative details that raise questions about the marriage bond between the selkie and the Goodman o’ Wastness.

The Goodman o’ Wastness is a young, handsome, and wealthy farmer from Westness near the southern coast of Rousay, an island just north of Mainland, Orkney’s largest island. As such, he is a desirable prospect for the local women of marrying age. The Goodman remains unmoved by their advances, though, and dismisses as idle gossip their accusations that he is aging before his time—they describe him as “an old young man” (“Goodman o’Wastness”)—and consigning himself to celibacy. When asked why he does not marry, the Goodman replies that women are trouble and that Adam himself might never have been driven from the Garden of Eden if he had not been “bewitched” by his wife.

Having heard his excuses time and time again, an old woman warns the Goodman that he may himself be tempted by a woman someday, an idea he ridicules, claiming it more likely that the old woman will walk from one point near the sea to another without soaking her feet: “That’ll be when thou waaks dry-shod fae the Alters o’ Seenie tae da Boar o’ Papey.” For him, falling in love by enchantment or any other means is as inconceivable as walking though water with dry feet.

The old woman’s prophecy is ironically fulfilled when the Goodman spies several selkie folk, both male and female, in their human aspects sunning themselves and dancing on the beach (“the ebb”) among their discarded sealskins. Described as “naked with unblemished skins as white as snow” (“Goodman o’Wastness”), the selkies unselfconsciously playing in the ebb provide an ironic contrast to the Goodman’s earlier allusion to the Garden of Eden because they do not seem ashamed of either their nakedness or their idleness. Compelled to move closer to this fantastic scene, the Goodman springs from his hiding place to rush toward the selkies dancing and basking on the beach. They panic, swiftly pull on their sealskins, and dive back into the sea. The Goodman, however, succeeds in snatching one of the enchanted skins and turns toward home with it. A despondent selkie woman follows, begging for the return of her skin. Without it, she cannot rejoin her people in the sea.

The tale clams that “the Goodman was not a soft-hearted man,” and yet the selkie’s “wailing and weeping” and her “sobbing and howling in grief” move the young farmer to pity and then to love: “The icy heart that had yet to love a mortal woman was soon melted by the seal-maiden’s beauty” (“Goodman o’Wastness”). The selkie does not reciprocate his affection, however. Instead, the Goodman “manage[s] to wring from her” an agreement to live with him as his wife.

With the skin hidden, the farmer and the selkie together settle into a seemingly happy domestic routine. The selkie proves to be a “thrifty, frugal and kindly wife” (“Goodman o’Wastness”), contrary to the Goodman’s earlier characterization of women as a trial upon men. The language of the tale emphasizes that the seal-maiden is a “creature of the sea,” reinforcing the idea that she is not like earthly women. Still, the couple have seven uncommonly beautiful children and “the Goodman had a happy life with her,” a perception shared by all of the islanders.

After several years of a marriage described as “content and merry” (“Goodman o’Wastness”), the Goodman’s happiness comes to an end. One day, while the Goodman and his four sons are out fishing and the two older daughters are gathering snails in the shallows near the shore, the seal-wife seeks high and low throughout their house for her skin. The youngest daughter, home with a sore foot, reveals to the seal-wife where the Goodman has hidden the sealskin. Recovering it and putting it on, the selkie joyfully leaps back into the sea, where she reunites with her seal-husband. Her final words to the Goodman o’ Wastness suggest that she was as happy as could be expected under his roof, but she did not return his love for her: “I liked thee weel enough fur thoo war geud tae me bit I love better me man o’ the sea.”

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