Lady in the Water
The mystique, myths, and masterpieces that reflect the depths of femininity. In essay and original podcast form.
“She is water. Powerful enough to drown you. Soft enough to cleanse you. Deep enough to save you.” - Adrian Michael
You can listen to the original recording of Lady in the Water from The Bygone Society Show by clicking the link above or read it in essay form below.
Women and water.
What is it about women and water that holds such power over the whole of society?
There’s a mystique that has fascinated us…petrified us…drawn us in.
Water, as a traditional symbol of femininity, is an ancient theme that dominates literature and the arts in nearly every corner of the earth.
From the Japanese swan maidens to Disney’s lagoon-loving mermaids, tales of women and water abound.
There are three main tropes you’re sure to find if you crack open enough books or watch enough movies:
The first is the tale of the drowning girl. For me, the 2002 American psychological horror film, The Ring, based on Koji Suzuki’s 1991 novel by the same name, comes to mind.
The second is woman as a wild and powerful force born from nature. One example is Mera, queen of Atlantis, from DC Comics.
And finally, the alluring and aquatic spirit. I think of The Birth of Venus, an iconic Italian Renaissance painting by Sandro Boticelli, which depicts the beautiful goddess emerging from a half shell, much like a pearl.
In this essay, we’ll explore these three characters to emerge from Earth’s murky depths, a place that holds and hides many of our world’s greatest mysteries.
The Selkie
On the moody shores of Scotland, you’ll find mythological tales of the selkie, a mysterious creature who can live both in water and on land.
A selkie is a seal who, when it sheds its sealskin on land, assumes the form of a beautiful, young woman.
One of the more famous stories is that of the selkie wife or the selkie bride. It goes something like this…
A young and handsome Scottish man captured the eye of every young maiden in his nearby village, but there was no one who captured his own.
One day, after a long and fruitless fishing excursion, the young man was returning home when he spotted something strange near the water… partly hidden by craggy rocks.
As he approached, he heard beautiful voices singing a lyrical and lovely tune. And then, he saw it: A group of selkies dancing and singing along the shore, their shiny sealskins draped across the rocks.
He watched in wonder, until the selkies noticed him. They quickly scurried, grabbing and slipping into their sealskins to return to sea.
But before the last selkie could join her friends and family back to safe waters, the man rushed from behind the rock and grabbed her skin in his clutches.
The selkie wept and begged the man to hand over her sealskin, so she could return home. “For I could never be happy on land,” she explained.
The man withheld her skin, promising her a safe home and a happy life, if only she would be his bride.
With little choice, the selkie reluctantly followed the man back to his home, where he hid the sealskin in the chimney. Some stories say it stayed hidden away on the canopy above their bed.
Over the years, they had several children; the selkie assumed her wifely and motherly duties with ease. And the man did everything to make his selkie wife happy; he loved her, and she loved him in return. But he never revealed his hiding spot.
Today, we’re fortunate to know that blackmailing your partner to stay with you is not a sign of love, and the appropriate term to describe “learning how to love your captor” is a coping mechanism called Stockholm syndrome.
But I digress…
The selkie could often be found gazing out at sea. When her children asked why she was sad, she’d respond: “Never you mind. I’ve only been dreaming too long.”
Many years later, the selkie was left alone with her youngest child, while her husband and their other children went to fish and fetch some milk and bread.
She looked longingly out the window at sea and noticed a group of seals barking and bobbing far in the distance. She sighed; salty tears rolled down her cheeks.
Her youngest ran to her side and asked, “Mother, what’s wrong? Whenever you look out to sea, you become so sad.”
The selkie replied, “I’m sad because I was born in the sea but can never return until I find my sealskin.”
The child knew exactly what his mother was referring to, for he had seen his father pull out the sealskin from its hiding place once, when he thought no one was looking.
The child quickly retrieved the sealskin and held it up to show his mother.
Astonished, she embraced the sealskin and her son, before whispering in his ear, “I will always love you.”
With her sealskin firmly in hand, the mother ran to where the sea meets the land, slipped into her ticket back home, and disappeared under the rolling waves.
Some retellings say the fisherman and his other children were returning home, when they saw a group of seals bobbing in the water.
One seal had a strange and familiar expression on its face. She stared in their direction, and let out a small, mournful cry before swimming away forever.
The word selkie comes from the lowland Scots word selph, meaning gray seal.
One origin theory is that early settlers came into contact with Saami and Finnish natives, who often wore sealskin coats and traveled in sealskin kayaks.
These boats would easily become waterlogged and need to be dried out on shore. For any unsuspecting newcomer, the unattended sealskin coats and kayaks could have made their imagination run wild.
Thus, paving the way for legends to circulate.
Some historians believe these early settlers likely married Finnish and Saami peoples, and their descendants could have further substantiated their mythological beliefs.
For example, in the Western Isles, the MacCodrum clan were known as the “MacCodrums of the seals.” They believed they descended from a fisherman father and a selkie mother.
These part-human, part-selkie children were said to be born with unique characteristics: webbed toes and fingers, known as syndactyly, pale complexions and patches of scaly, dry skin that, well, smelled of fish.
And while we know today that this was likely a family history of eczema or another genetic marker, medical conditions back then were not well understood.
For them, folklore explained the unexplainable.
The Legend of Lake Ronkonkoma
Where one mythological creature fears that she may never return to the water, another is doomed to haunt its dark abyss.
Across the Pacific Ocean, a few hours outside of New York City sits Lake Ronkonkoma, Long Island’s 243-acre, freshwater lake.
It serves as both a reprieve for visitors in the summer, and a cautionary tale that keeps many local residents firmly on land.
The lake is nearly 90 feet at its deepest, around 10 feet along the edges and at some points, it features a dangerous and sudden 45-foot drop.
Apart from its surprising depth, this lake is entrenched in local lore.
Legend has it that in the 1600s, Tuskawanta, a young Setauket native woman spotted a handsome English woodsman, named Hugh Birdsall.
When the two locked eyes, they were entranced.
But Tuskawanta’s father, chief of the Setauket tribe, forbade her from seeing the woodsman, and thus a Romeo-and-Juliet romance ensued.
Every day for the next seven years, Tuskawanta rowed to the middle of the lake and wrote love notes on bits of bark. She entrusted the wind and the water to deliver her vows to her beloved on the opposite side of the lake.
After years of waiting for a response that never came, the heartbroken Tuskawanta rowed to the middle of the lake one last time, before stabbing herself with a knife.
It’s said that Tuskawanta roams Lake Ronkonkoma in desperate search of a soulmate in death whom she was never allowed in life.
Between the mid-1800s and late 1970s, there were at least 160 drownings in Lake Ronkonkoma. That averages out to be more than one drowning per year.
And eerily enough, only three of those 160 drownings were women.
Even former Lake Ronkonkoma lifeguard David Igneri said in the 34 years he guarded the lake, 30 people drowned.
All of whom were male.
An abyss of lore
Eerily similar stories of forlorn women haunting bodies of water percolate globally.
In Dallas, Texas, a polite young woman in a soaking wet dress has been said to baffle lake-goers by explaining she’s been in a boating accident and would love a ride home.
But as people drive off with the woman in their car, she vanishes, leaving behind a wet car seat as the only sign she really existed.
Halfway across the world in Hong Kong, the idyllic, silvery waterfall called Bride’s Pool got its name when a bride drowned on her way to her wedding.
She was traveling to meet her betrothed in a sedan chair, which is an enclosed chair carried on two poles by two porters. When they reached the falls, one of the porters slipped, causing the bride to tumble down the waterfall and into the rapids below.
Her body was never found. But her spirit can be seen, brushing her hair and wearing a red cheongsam, waiting for a wedding that never came and will never come.
So, what is it about women and water that intrigues us, so?
Perhaps it’s because they both share unexplored frontiers.
About 71 percent of Earth’s surface is covered in water, yet 99 percent of Earth’s biosphere is unknown, and less than 5 percent of the seafloor has been mapped.
Whether you believe in the supernatural or not, it’s easy for anyone’s imagination to conjure frightening or unbelievable creatures that lurk in our watery depths.
As for water’s counterpart, women, specifically women’s physical and emotional wellbeing, is — to this day — wildly understudied.
Healthcare, the military, even marriage are systems designed by and for men.
It makes sense that when frightening or mystifying personal accounts become world-renowned tales of lore, its subjects are those that are grossly misunderstood.
Don’t get me wrong — I love a spooky legend, just as much as the next person. But in addition to walking away with a fun chill down our spines, we can interpret today’s stories as a kind of invitation. One where we strive to better understand the world and those who live in it.
Maybe then, the ladies in the water can finally be free.
*This essay and podcast was first published via BuzzSprout one year ago.
Wow, that selkie story really got me. How terrible for her that she'll never be truly happy - either missing her home or missing her family. 🥺