Welcome to “Whats Kraken!” , a podcast produced by four students from UC Santa Cruz studying abroad; Finely, Charles, Shaya, and Naomi. We will dive into three marine myths popular along the Dingle Peninsula; the Selkie, the Sleeping Giant, and the Merrow.
CHARLES. It’s 1673, and you sail in a dark, stormy night sea imagining what lurks below the waves. Maybe there’s a sea monster like the one that just washed up in the harbor. The fishermen at the pub said it had two heads, ten horns, and a body bigger than any horse. You imagine its inky-black tendrils rising up to crush the side of your boat.
FINLEY. This ‘Kraken’ was later identified as a giant squid, but other stories from Dingle, this tiny Irish fishing town, aren’t as easily explained. For centuries, locals have regaled each other with tales of mermaids, seal-people, and sleeping giants. I’m Finley, and these are my fellow hosts…
CHARLES. Charles!
SHAYA: Shaya.
NAOMI: And Naomi
FINLEY. This is a UC Santa Cruz study abroad production. Welcome to What’s Kraken?!
CHARLES. One of the most famous stories fishermen tell is that of the selkies, or sealfolk, who have the top half of a human and the bottom of a seal. Ciara O’Connell grew up in Dingle, hearing much about these mythical creatures.
CIARA. They come up onto the shore to play and dance with their sisters and they shed their seal coats and essentially one of them gets kidnapped and married. And eventually manages to run away (Play Shaya Running) back to her family and her sisters that she’s missed very much.
CHARLES. Huh. Pretty dark…
CIARA. I have also heard of a version where she can’t bring the children and they have to stay on land. She still appears to them at the beach with tears in her eyes. And that’s why seals always look like they’re crying.
SHAYA. Tomas, a guide at the Blasket Center, has another story that parallels the selkie myth– this time, about a mermaid.
TOMAS.“ a man long ago, Mikii, who lived by Smervik Harbour…
SHAYA. He didn’t have much going for him. Except being a farmer. One early morning…
TOMAS. He went to the beach and behold, he saw on a rock, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
SHAYA. A mermaid.
TOMAS. And there she was, combing her sea-green hair, in the morning sunlight. And it reminded him of butter melting on a plate of cabbage.
SHAYA. It’s said that if you were able to capture her diving cap, she would go home with you. The one time she had it off, Mikkel grabbed it.
TOMAS. She says, ‘Man, do not eat me when you bring me home.’ ‘I have no intention of eating you,’ says Mikkel. He had pity for her, and he grabbed her hand and he noticed there was little webs between her fingers, like the foot of a duck. He said, ‘Will you come home?’ She says, ‘I’ll go, I’ll come home with you.’
SHAYA. Since Mikkel had stolen the cap, she lost the power of the sea. Before leaving she left a message to her father, king of the wave. Off they went to get married.
TOMAS. One day, Mikkel, he was away in Dingle.
TOMAS. And the mermaid, she was very house proud. So this day, she decided that she’d clean around the fireplace and the chimney breast. And she pulled back the Hessian sack, and she pulled out the netting, the fishing tackle. And what did she find behind all of that stored? Her diving cap. And she puts it on. And the power of the sea returns to her, and she sees her father’s cassock, and looking around the house, she sees her three kids, and with her sigh, she bids them goodbye, and goes down to Smerwick Harbour, and plunges into the sea.
TOMAS. And she’s never seen again.
NAOMI. Another myth is used to explain the shape of Inishtooskert, one of the Blasket Islands off the Dingle Peninsula. When viewed from the east, the island looks like a person laying on their back. It’s nicknamed ‘the sleeping giant,’ and its story has been around for centuries — most recently as a popular children’s book displayed in every Dingle bookstore. Nicolette Tillery, who works as the Dingle aquarium’s education director, remembers reading that story to her niece all the time.
NICOLETTE. The Blaskets are a big grounding point for a lot of locals. People love this place.
NAOMI. Nicolette even has a tattoo of the island. Anyways, the story goes…
NICOLETTE. “He was stepping on all of the villages and the pubs and the houses and everything. So a druid brewed a potion and put him to sleep. And that’s where he is in the sea.”
FINLEY. However, Ciara told us of a much darker version of the tale, one set in the time of the fairies. After all, the island’s other name is An Fear Marbh: the dead man.
CIARA: “He made friends with the fairies and they invited him to their homeland, Tír na nÓg, the land of the young. But time there was all mixed up. And so he’s there and he’s whiling away the time with them and eventually he’s kind of like, ‘Oh, I best hit the road. Get back to the lads, wife and kids.; And they’re like ‘We’ll give you this horse, but like, just don’t get off the horse, whatever you do.’”
FINLEY: But when the giant returned home, things were different. Everything was smaller than he remembered, and he didn’t recognize the landscape. And then–
CIARA: he sees there’s been a bit of a rock slide and there’s a young boy trapped under a rock. So he leans down to help take the rock and he comes off the horse.
FINLEY: So he saves the boy, but something goes wrong. He starts feeling weak,
CIARA: and he stumbles backward into the ocean, falls and hits his head.
CIARA: And he’s been lying there ever since, waiting for his friends to come wake him.”
NAOMI: That ambiguity over how he fell asleep — whether you believe the children’s story or the darker version — is probably why the story still holds weight today.
NICOLETTE: “There’s a lot of fascination with him with visitors and children nowadays. When my niece comes to visit. She’ll be like, tell me stories about, An Fear Marbh. And so I’ll just kind of make up things. If you ask her where the waves come from, she says that it’s him snoring while he sleeps.”
NICOLETTE. “They take on a little bit of a tale of their own within current day.”
NAOMI: Personally, I’d like to think that the sleeping giant is just waiting patiently to be woken up in Ireland’s hour of greatest need. It’s kind of refreshing for an Irish story to leave room for imagination and hope, which I love. What do you think, Shaya?
SHAYA: I think the myths also have a moral aspect to them. They were used to pass on important messages: don’t take things that aren’t yours, don’t make enemies of the fairies… don’t kidnap women, etc.
CHARLES. I’ll keep that in mind!
FINLEY: Some locals like Ciara say they don’t believe in them, but others, like Tomas and Nicolette’s niece, absolutely do.
CHARLES: I noticed that a lot of them seemed to start as ways to explain natural phenomena– like the seals looking like they’re crying, or the topography of the island!
NAOMI: I agree. I think…people take what they need from these stories. They get passed down through generations and Dingle’s really unique relationship to the sea continues.
FINLEY: That’s all we have for this episode! Next time you’re by the ocean, watch for one of these fantastical beings. I’m Finley!
CHARLES. I’m Charles!
SHAYA. Shaya!
NAOMI: Naomi… And that’s what’s Kraken!
