Did I really feel excitement or was it nervousness as my friend  and I arrived? A heavy old gate guarded the entrance to the old ruined church of St Trothans at Olrig. It is only a short drive from Castletown (or Caston as the locals say). While I had heard there were local legends about a ‘selkie’ grave, I hadn’t managed to get there before. By the way, the word ‘selkie’ means ‘seal’ in both Old Scots and Norse languages common in Caithness in earlier times.

Old Olrig Church ruins

There are effectively three cemetries at Olrig – the ancient, the old and the modern. Each are delineated by old stone walls. The roads to the church are unmarked and it took local knowledge to help me find the location.

The ancient cemetery and the ruins of St Trothans were built in 1633, and certainly have an eerie feel about them! The walls are quite overgrown with ivy which seems intent on taking over the remnants of the building.

Sign on Olrig Church gate

The influence on locals’ lives by the church was strong in former times, and legends and stories were always common.

The ancient cemetery of Olrig is certainly the location of the burial of the selkie  woman.

The story goes that she was found as a baby swaddled in a sealskin; she was subsequently banished from the kirk as a devil worshipper. Sadly she died giving birth to her first child.

The small hollow in the stone that covers her wee grave, is said to never dry out. I had heard a number of people discuss the matter. Everyone vows that there was water lying in the hollowed top, when they saw it.

So why is this so interesting to me? Selkies are the mythological shapeshifting creatures found in Faroese, Icelandic, Irish and Scottish folklores. It interests me that the legend is so widespread. However people used the waterways to travel and trade throughout the area, so I guess the legend was easily shared.

They say the selkies were able to become humans by taking off their sealskin, and could return to seal form by putting it back on. Stories about selkies generally involve tragedies. Sometimes the human did not know that their lover was a selkie and woke one day to find them gone.

Once their seal skins were discarded, selkies became extremely attractive to humans and it was not uncommon for  marriages to take place, and children born to them – with the selkie making the decision to stay on land. But despite strong ties with her mortal family, she would always pine to return to the sea.

The Selkie Grave

So the men hid the selkie’s skin while they were away working. This prevented  their wife from returning to seal form. Without their skins, the selkies were trapped on land.But according to the legend, the selkie could only make contact with one particular human for a short amount of time before they had to return to the sea.

A Scottish writer and antiquarian  published articles about the selkies. He believed the early settlers probably encountered and married Finish and Sami women. They were believed to be selkies because of their sealskin clothing. Was it as simple as that or not?

The legend remains…….I can tell you that after a muddy trek through the ancient headstones, clambering around the ruins, there WAS water in the selkie grave!

Mysterious urn at gate

I cannot explain why, but I had a sudden sense of foreboding, while standing at the selkie grave. So we wasted no time in moving out of the ancient section.

We crossed over to the new section of the cemetery via the gate and past the old stone urn, to modern graves. Most were known to my friend.

It was only there that suddenly everything had an air of calmness about it.