Mathias Outdoors: The Faroe Island of Kalsoy

The Legend of the Seal Woman

Mathias Outdoor Photography is traveling the Faroe Islands.

This is the Legend of the Seal Woman

Once a year on the eve of the three kings, the seals would come ashore and shed their skins and become human. A boy noticed a young female seal dancing while hiding behind a rock and stole her skin, keeping her from returning to the sea. He married her, and she bore him children keeping her seal skin under lock and key.

One day, he went out fishing and realized the key was missing from his belt. Returning home, he found she had taken back her seal skin and returned to the sea. Years later she returned after the killing of her seal family and left a curse upon the town that to this day is happily, unfulfilled.

She looks over the cliff holding her seal skin, waiting for the dance.