selkie folk

Scots

Noun

selkie folk (plural selkie folks)

1. Orkney form of selkie fowk.
   • 1893, (Please provide the book title or journal name):

     To the other class belonged all seals larger in size than the Phoca vitulina; such as the great seal, rough seal, Greenland seal, crested seal, and gray seal, — all of which have been seen in Orkney waters. And it was this class of larger seals that were called “selkie folk”, because they had the power of assuming the human form. . . . Unlike the mermaid, the selkie folk were never represented as dwelling in “Finfolk-a-heem”. . . . The only home of the selkie folk was some far outlying skerry, or sea-surrounded rock. Indeed, my old informants regarded the selkie folk as a wholly different race of beings from the Finfolk.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Further reading

• “selkie folk”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.
• Flaws, Margaret, Lamb, Gregor (1996) The Orkney Dictionary, Kirkwall, Orkney: Orkney Language and Culture Group, published 2001, →ISBN