Druidcraft: The Magic of Wicca and Druidry. Philip Carr-Gomm
the first step in learning how to become a magician.
Imagine that you have just arrived for the first time at Avronelle. You are shown into a thatched roundhouse, and you seat yourself beside the fire. Gradually, you allow yourself to relax completely. As you do so, a Bard picks up his harp and plays for a while until you feel yourself in that wonderful state halfway between the world of this life and the world of dreams. Then he begins his tale:
The Story of the Selkie
On the islands of the Shetlands and the Outer Hebrides it was considered that a great misfortune would befall you if you ever killed a seal – whether by accident or with ill intent. Seals were thought to be magical creatures that brought blessings to the sea and to the land, and it was even believed that some clans were descended from seals – way back in the distant past when animals and humankind could speak together, and shared the world as one. But there are many tales of humans, both men and women, who in later times enslaved seals and took them as their spouse, to keep their homes and bear them children.
These were no ordinary seals. They were magical creatures part human, part seal and they were known as silkies or selkies. Every year at Midsummer’s Eve, or at Bealteinne Eve, a dozen of them would swim ashore at midnight, peeling off their silver skins, leaving them on the rocks, to become men and women for a while, and they would dance together in a circle in the moonlight. This dance would be led by a mysterious old man, a wizard, who would chant and lead the rhythms, until at last the seals would pair off (for there were six males and six females) to make love beside the sea, and beneath the moonlight. Then they would climb back into their silver skins and return to the sea, the women carrying the next brood of selkies within their wombs.
One year an old fisherman, Taggart, had been gathering cockles amongst the rocks, and had fallen asleep on his jacket as the sun was setting. He awoke at midnight to see the mysterious dance taking place in the moonlight, and he was captivated by the selkies’ beauty. Each was fair and tall, with fine golden hair. And the eyes of each one shone with a radiance and a knowledge of both land and sea that was as beautiful as it was uncanny.
The dance over, the thirteenth member of the party, the Cunning Man a-centre strode swiftly away from the beach, soon to disappear in the distance. Taggart could hardly believe his eyes when he saw six couples walk hand in hand to different parts of the beach, until at last they lay down together, entwining themselves in warm and passionate embraces. Speechless, with eyes wide and mouth half-open, Taggart watched the scene, until eventually each selkie walked to their little pile of crumpled silver skin that lay on the rocks, climbed into it, at once transforming themselves into a seal which then slid gracefully into the sea, diving and disappearing without trace.
But there was one selkie who could not become a seal again. She looked in vain for her skin, but could not find it. Taggart stepped forward from his hiding place in the rocks, startling her with his sudden appearance. He had hidden her skin, and now held it in his hands. Her clear dark eyes fixed him with a steady gaze and she simply held out her arms to him, and said, ‘Please give my skin to me. Without it I cannot return to the sea.’
‘Fair woman,’ Taggart said, ‘Don’t go back to the sea. You are so beautiful that I have fallen in love with you, and I want you to be my wife. Stay with me here and marry me.’
‘I cannot stay too long on land,’ she replied, ‘for my skin goes dry and cracks, and I yearn for the sea.’ But Taggart insisted, and finally she agreed to stay with him for seven years, so long as she could then return to the sea where she belonged.
Nine months later she bore a child, and Taggart never knew whether he or her selkie partner was the father. But the lad was fine and strong, and the mother and child loved each other with a fierce love that both pleased and troubled the fisherman, who had hidden her skin amongst the cottage thatch.
At the end of her seventh year upon dry land, the selkie asked her husband for her skin. ‘I must return to the sea now,’ she said sadly, for she loved her son so dearly she could not bear the thought of leaving him, and she even felt a fondness and concern for Taggart, though hardly love.
But to her surprise, Taggart’s response was swift and brutal: ‘How can you ask this?’ he roared. ‘Don’t you love your husband and child enough to stay with them?’
‘Of course I do,’ she pleaded, ‘but look at my skin – it is peeling and cracking. And look at my eyes that weep continually. If I do not return I will die before long.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Taggart, who slammed the door and walked towards his boat in a fury. Their son watched his mother sobbing by the kitchen table, and having heard their argument knew what he must do. Without hesitation, he made sure his father was out of sight, then climbed up into the thatch and carefully removed his mother’s sealskin. He marvelled at the way it shone in the sunlight, and at its smoothness to the touch. He ran to his mother and said, ‘Here, put this on and go before he returns!’
Looking through tear-stained eyes at her son, she knew he was right and yet she could not bear to leave him. But she followed him as he hurried her to the seashore. There she unbuttoned her dress and let it fall to the sand. At that moment they heard a furious cry of ‘No!’ and they turned to see Taggart running towards them shouting over and over again ‘No! No!’
She looked at her son. ‘Go!’ he shouted at her – with love not fury. Quickly she stepped into her silver suit, lunged at the water, and within a moment was gone.
But every night thereafter a seal would swim to the shore beside their house and leave two large fish on the flat rocks there. And every night both Taggart and the boy would sit as the sun set to watch the seal arrive, and for a moment the seal would gaze at them with her large dark eyes, and tears would seem to fall from them.
As the Bard finishes his tale, he plays again upon his harp, until you awake as if from a dream.
‘You will find your teacher by the seashore,’ he tells the assembled company, and so, without a word, you leave the roundhouse with your fellow pupils and take the path down to the beach. It is evening, and as you walk you can see the moon rising in the sky. You pass the tall Scots pines that lie beyond the last of the houses of Avronelle, and looking back you see their lights twinkling in the growing darkness. Ahead of you lies wildness and the vast expanse of ocean. You continue walking, down along the steep path through the gorse bushes, until at last you are by the seashore.
Standing alone, her figure outlined by the silver moonlight on the water, is your teacher – Elidir. You and your fellow pupils sit on the smooth rocks around her, and she invites a young man to step forward. His name is Brendan. Elidir unfurls a rug embroidered with Celtic knotwork and together they sit down and begin a conversation – a formal discussion between teacher and pupil that is known as a Colloquy.
‘I’m glad you’ve come here now – on such a beautiful night. This is the best place to learn about the magic of Druidcraft,’ begins Elidir. ‘Here, at every moment, Nature shows to you the fundamental law of life and of magic – the Law of the Returning Tide.’ For a moment, Elidir is silent, and you find yourself watching the gentle surf, listening to the rhythmic sound of the waves upon the beach.
Then Elidir continues. ‘The Law of the Returning Tide says that whatever you cast into the sea of life returns to you – often changed, often in an unrecognizable form, but nevertheless what comes to you in your life is usually the direct result of what you have given out into the world. Most people are only vaguely aware of this law, or don’t