The hidden sealskin represents the mother’s repressed wild nature. The speaker’s father hid it away in order to entrap his wife, paralleling the way men of certain eras would attempt to dampen the more independent and adventurous natures of women. Although the poem is a tragedy, it also conveys a feeling of hope in that these wild natures can never be completely suppressed; only hidden for a brief period of time before eventually, inevitably, making their way into the light.