Bad Machinery by John Allison for June 24, 2022

Grandpa Joe being a useful source of information!

Wise old man listen to him indeed

Grandpa Joe is old enough to know all the old legends. His encounter last night with a wild man in a cape must have brought this one to mind.

Well, this ought to be interesting for Sonny. What’s he going to do with a Selkie?

Grandpa Joe oversees a regular junk yard.

My roof is a 54 Buick.

Well…call her, then! The gal has, like, two cell phones, doesn’t she?

The perfect age: Old enough for an Irish coffee, but not too old for a yarn.

So, if a selkie and a man have a baby, would that child be a selkie, or a human? Or something in between? Or is such a hybrid biologically impossible?

In Shetland, the sea-folk were believed to revert to human shape and breathed air in the atmosphere in the submarine homeland, but with their sea-dress (seal-skin) they had the ability to transform into seals to make transit from there to the reefs above the sea. However, each skin was unique and irreplaceable.16

The shape-shifting nature of selkies within Shetland tradition is detailed in the Scottish ballad The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry:

I am a man upo’ da land;I am a selkie i’ da sea.An’ whin I’m far fa every strand,My dwelling is in Shöol Skerry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie