seawife

— Moreover they are informed that the only Ward family living on the island is “Selkie” and his seawife, and “Selkie” was their great-great-grandfather, dead for a hundred years. / Eventually, after encounters with various people whose behaviour they cannot understand, they find “Selkie”, his seawife and their seven children. […] The seawife legend, versions of which are still told in the Orkneys and elsewhere, haunts this tale of the Ward boys on their Johnsmass eve journey home.