Freedom and Restraint

Beastly Bride tales, and selkie stories in particular, use a speculative lens to explore the divide between constriction and freedom — particularly that of women in domestic households. In this poem, a woman has been held captive by her husband, yet continually mourns the life she left behind: “I always wondered why […] her eyes held all / the mourning of the darkest sea” (Lines 1, 3). The opening stanza also mentions a spinning wheel, a symbol of domestic labour which a seal woman, in her natural state, would be unfamiliar with. This suggests that the woman has been forced to adapt to her new surroundings. The third stanza introduces some of the specific restrictions placed on the selkie woman by the man in her life: “father / never let me swim out against the waves, / never let her walk the shores alone” (Lines 9-11).

Rather than being a healthy...