THE STORY OF THE SELKIE
Shapeshifter initially began as a re-telling of an ancient Celtic myth. In the story, a fisherman steals the seal skin of a selkie, a mythical creature who is part seal, part woman. Imprisoned on land, the selkie lives with the man for years, even having a child with him, all the while slowly fading away and endlessly trying to find her way back home. While not every song is a direct reference, the selkie myth became a focal point for the duo’s creative process. They found modern questions in the ancient archetype - how do we stay true to ourselves in a world defined by dominating and conformist systems? How do we close the gulf between who we are and who we pretend to be? What would it take to recover our wild souls and a sense of being at home in ourselves? These are some of the questions the duo asks throughout the album.
Half human, half seal, selkies come from the sea and symbolize societal issues such as bodily autonomy and cultural dysphoria.
The selkie is also a direct reference to the issues at large in our society today: the right and fearful loss of bodily autonomy, cultural dysphoria, and the societal pressure to fit into cultural structures of gender, race, ableism, among others. To tell the story of the selkie and relay the significance of the underlying messages and inspiration of the album, Violet Bell began retelling the story in a series of Instagram Reels.
“The stories range from hilarious to tragic, but the question is always the same - how do you get your skin back? How do you survive and find a way to return to your wholeness? When was the first time you lost your skin, and what helped you find it again?”
A common element in all the selkie-folk tales, and perhaps the most important, is the fact that in order to shapeshift they had to cast off their sealskins. Within these magical skins lay the power to return to seal form, and therefore the sea.
If this sealskin was lost, or stolen, the creature was doomed to remain in human form until it could be recovered. Because of this, if disturbed while on shore, the selkie-folk would hastily snatch up their skins before rushing back to the safety of the sea (Source).
Violet Bell released their 10-track album, Shapeshifter on October 7, 2022. The symbolism of the selkie story throughout the album provides a deep look into the messages behind each song on the album. The duo takes you on a journey weaving in the selkie-inspired messages in songs like “Fish To Catch,” where the listener meets the lonely fisherman. Isolated and haunted by his dreams, he fears that he’ll be taken by the sea with no one to mourn him, echoing the cultural experience of isolation in recent years.
“Back To Sea” is sung from the point of view of the selkie, who is slipping back into her seal skin to be reunited with her home, the ocean. Lines like “one or the other, water or land” explore the human tendency towards duality that the selkie experiences while she’s trapped in the fisherman’s land-bound world.
“I am a Wolf” explores both unique perspectives: first, the perspective from the fisherman, followed by the selkie answering from her own perspective.
“Junkie” explores the perils of addiction, as the fisherman represents that insatiable part of the self some call the hungry ghost.
“At the heart of the Selkie story is the hope that, while our skin may be stolen, we can recover it, and we can learn how to stay free.”