Selkies are found in northern Celtic & Norse belief. They are able to shed their skin, changing from a seal to a human. Their name means seal folk (Scottish: selkie fawk). They also have the variant names of: silkies, sylkies, or selchies. They are Fey and a form of Therianthrope. Many stories tell of female selkies where a man will steal and/or hide the seal skin to force the female selkie to stay, and then marry her. In many of the stories the selkie will find the skin again, and return to the sea, usually after years of being on land. In Gaelic the names are: maighdeann-mhara in Scottish Gaelic, maighdean mhara in Irish, and moidyn varrey in Manx.   Some beliefs are that any children between a human and selkie would lead to a child with webbed hands & feet, and in Scottish Isles only in the most direst times would a person kill a seal to eat, believing it would bring misfortune to the perpetrator. Sometimes it is believed they had to shed their skins every seven years due to them being filled with condemned souls (though this seems to be only after Christianity in some regions).