the tales have this fact as their basis. Here is a particularly
charming one—the story of Gioga’s son:
One day, as a boat’s crew were completing a successful
raid on the seals, a great storm came on, and one of the party,
who had become separated from the rest, was unavoidably
left behind on the Skerry. The waves were dashing against
the low rocks, and the unfortunate man had resigned him-
self to his fate, when he saw several of the surviving seals
approaching. The moment they landed they threw off their
skins, and appeared before him as Sea-trows or Sea-folk.
And even those seals who had lately been skinned by the
boat-men also revived in time, and took their human form,
Among the Mermaids
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but they mourned the loss of their sea-vestures, which
would for ever prevent them from returning to their homes
beneath the ocean. Most of all did they lament for the son
of Gioga, their queen. He, too, had lost his skin, and would
be banished for ever from his mother’s kingdom. But, seeing
the forsaken boatmen, who sat watching the rising waters in
despair, Gioga suddenly conceived a plan to retain her son.
She would carry the man on her back to
the mainland, if he, in his turn, would
restore the missing skin. She even con-
sented to his cutting some gashes in her
flanks and shoulders that he might more
easily retain his hold; so the mariner,
leaving his perilous position, started on
his scarcely less perilous voyage through
the storm. But at length Gioga landed
him safely, and he, for his part, kept the bargain and restored
the skin of her son, so that there was great rejoicing on the
Skerry that night.
There is one other story of particular interest, in that it
contains features not generally found amongst the bulk of
the Sea-folk legends. It is the story of the Wounded Seal.
There was once an islander who made his living by the
killing of seals. One night, as he sat by the fire, resting af-
ter his day’s work, he heard a knocking at the door, and,
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73
on opening it, found a man on horseback. The stranger ex-
plained that he had come on behalf of one who wished to
buy a large number of skins, and then told him to mount up
behind. Hoping to effect a good sale, the seal-hunter obeyed,
and was carried away at a wild gallop, which ended on the
brink of a precipice. There his strange companion grasped
him, and plunged him into the sea. Down they went, and
down, till at length they reached the abode of the Seal-folk.
Here, after a not unfriendly reception, the hunter was shown
a huge jack-knife. It was his own—one which, that very
Among the Mermaids
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morning, he had left in the back of a seal, and this seal, so he
learned, was the father of the horseman. He was then taken
to an inner cavern, where the wounded creature lay, and was
requested to touch the wound. This he did, and the seal was
forthwith cured. Great rejoicings followed, and the hunter
was given a safe conduct home, after swearing never to slay
a seal again. The return was effected in the same way as the
previous journey, and the horseman, on his departure, left
sufficient gold to compensate the islander for the loss of his
means of livelihood.
This story is the only one out of the scores told to me in
which the seal may be said to take the offensive, and I cannot
trace it to any foreign source.
Mr. Walter Traill Dennison in his “Orcadian
Sketches” tells us that the seal held a far higher place among
the Northmen than any of the lower animals. He had a mys-
terious connection with the human race, and had the power
of assuming the human form and faculties, and every true
descendant of the Vikings looks upon the seal as a kind of
second cousin in disgrace. Old beliefs die hard, and, in illus-
tration of this, the following paragraph from a Scottish daily
newspaper may be appropriately given:
A Mermaid on an Orkney Isle.—A strange story of
the mermaid comes from Birsay, Orkney. The other
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75
day a farmer’s wife was down at the seashore there,
and observed a strange marine animal on the rocks.
When she returned with her better half, they both
saw the animal clambering amongst the rocks, about
four feet of it being above water. The woman, who
had a splendid view of it, describes it as a “good-
looking person,” while the man says it was “a woman
covered over with brown hair.” At least the couple
tried to get hold of it, when it took a header into the
sea and disappeared. The man is confident he has
seen the fabled mermaid, but people in the district
are of opinion that the animal must belong to the
seal tribe. An animal of similar description was seen
by several people at Deerness two years ago.
Mr. Dennison, in the above-mentioned book, only touches
on seals once, but the story he gives is new to me and I have
translated it and curtailed it from the Orcadian dialect. I
wonder if the old Norseman who told it had ever heard of
Androcles?
Among the Mermaids
76
The Selkie That Deud No’ Forget
by Norman Roe
A long time ago, one Mansie Meur was gathering limpets at
the ebb tide, off Hackness, when he heard a strange sound
coming from the rocks some distance off. Sometimes it
would be like the sob of a woman, and sometimes louder,
like the cry of a dying cow, but it was always a most pitiful
sound. For a while Mansie could see nothing except a big
seal close in to the rocks, who was craning his neck above the
surface, and peering at a creek some distance off. And Man-
sie noticed that the seal was not frightened and never ducked
his head once, but gazed continually at that creek. So Mansie
crossed an intervening rock, and there, in a crevice, he saw a
mother-seal lying in labour. And it was she who was moan-
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77
ing, whilst the father-seal lay out in the water watching her.
Mansie stayed and watched her too, and after a while, she
gave birth to two fine sea-calves, who were no sooner on the
rocks than they clutched at their mother. Mansie thought to
himself that the calf-hides would make a
nice waistcoat, so he ran forward, and the
seal-mother rowed herself over the face of
the rock with her fins into the sea, but the
two young ones had not the wit to flee. So
Mansie seized them both and the distress of the mother was
terrible to see. She swam about and about, and beat herself
with her fins like one distracted; and then she would clamber
up, with her fore-fins on the edge of the rock, and glower at
Mansie’s face. He turned to go off with the two young ones
under his ar
m—they were sucking at his coat the while—
when the mother gave such a cry of despair, so human, so
desolate, that it went straight to Mansie’s heart, and turning
again, he saw the mother lying on her side with her head
on the rock, and the tears were streaming from her eyes. So
he stooped down and placed the little selkies near her, and
the mother clasped them to her bosom with her megs and
then she looked up into Mansie’s face, and all the happiness
in the world was in that look: for on that day the selkie did
everything but speak.
Among the Mermaids
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Mansie was a young man then, and some time after-
wards he married and settled on the west of Eday. One eve-
ning when he was fishing for sillocks on an ebb-rock, which
could only be reached dry-shod at low water, the fish took
unusually well, so that he stood and filled his basket. Indeed
they took so well that he forgot all about the tide, and soon
found himself cut off from the land. Mansie shouted and
shouted, but he was far from any house, and nobody heard
him. The water rose until it reached his knees, and then his
hips, and then his shoulders. He shouted until he was hoarse,
and then gave up all hope of life. But just as the sea was en-
circling his neck and coming now and then in little ripples
to his mouth, just as the sea had almost lifted him from his
rock, he felt something grip him by the collar of his coat, and
in a few moments he found himself in shallow water. Look-
ing round, he saw a big seal swimming to the rock, where she
dived, picked up a basket of fish, and then swam back to the
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79
land. He took the basket from her mouth and then said with
all his heart, “Geud bless the selkie that deus no’ forget,” for it
was the same seal which he had seen on Hackness forty years
before. She was a very old seal now but Mansie would have
known her motherly face amongst a thousand.
In the folklore of the Hebrides, also, the seal occupies a
prominent place. Not only has a certain mystery been woven
into his life, but even in death his carcass has been accredited
with various magical properties. The
Highland Monthly
for
November 1892 contained an article dealing with this sub-
ject, by Mr. William Mackenzie, Secretary to the Crofters’
Commission.
That the skin, after being dried, should sometimes have
been made into waistcoats, is only natural, but it appears
that it was also put to a more esoteric use, for persons suf-
fering from sciatica wore girdles of it, with a view of driving
that malady away.
The smoker and chewer, Mr. Mackenzie tells us, cut the
skin into small squares, and converted them into spleuchain,
or tobacco pouches, whilst the husbandman made thongs,
which he used for the harness of his primitive plough.
Seal oil was also thought to possess medicinal virtues of
no mean order, and, until quite recently, a course of oal-roin
was a favourite, if not a never-failing, specific for all chest dis-
eases. Furthermore, it is asserted by Martin (
circa
1695) that
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seal liver, pulverized and taken with aqua vitae, or red wine,
is a good prescription for diarrhoetic disorders.
The animal was also very popular as an article of food.
The natives of the Western Islands, says Martin, used to salt
the flesh of seals with burnt seaware. This flesh was eaten by
the common people in the spring-time “with a pointed long
stick instead of a fork, to prevent the strong smell which their
hands would otherwise have for several hours afterwards.”
Persons of quality made hams of the seal flesh, and broth,
made from the young seals, served the same purpose medici-
nally, but in a minor degree, as sea oil. In Roman Catholic
districts the common people ate seals in Lent, on the ground
that they were fish and not flesh! Annual raids were made on
the seals after dark, usually in the autumn, and large num-
bers were captured. All, however, did not belong to the cap-
tors, for other persons of prominence were entitled to share.
The parish minister, according to Martin, “hath his
choice of all the young seals, and that which he takes is called
by the natives Cullen-Rory, that is, the Virgin Mary’s seal.
The Steward of the Island hath one paid to him, his Officer
hath another; and this by virtue of their offices.”
In the Hebrides, as in Orkney, the seal is regarded not
as an animal of the ordinary brute creation, but as one en-
dowed with great wisdom, and closely allied to man. One of
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the old beliefs is that seals are human beings under magic
spells.
The seal was credited with being able to assume human
form. While in human guise, he contracted marriages with
human beings, and if we are to credit tradition, the Mac-
Codrums of North Uist are the offspring of such a union. In
former times the MacCodrums were known in the Western
Islands as
Sliechd nan Ron
, or the offspring of the seals. As
a seal could assume the form of a man and make his abode
on land, so a MacCodrum could assume the form of a seal
and betake himself to the sea! While in this guise we are told
that several MacCodrums had met their death.
There is one local story which stands out from the rest,
in that it contains a song by the animal:
A band of North Uist men slaughtered a number of
seals on the Heisker rocks, and brought them to the main
island. They were spread out in a row on the strand. One
of the party was left in charge of them over night. To vary
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the monotony of his vigil he wandered a little distance away
from the row of dead seals. When sitting under the shelter
of a rock he beheld coming from the sea a woman of surpass-
ing beauty, with her rich yellow tresses falling over her shoul-
ders. She was dressed in an emerald robe, and, proceeding to
the spot where the dead seals lay, she identified each as she
went alone soliloquising as follows:
Speg Spaidrig,
Spog mo chulein chaoin chaidrich,
Spog Fhienngala,
Speg me ghille fada fienna—gheala,
’S minig a bheis a’greim de rudain,
A Mhic Unhdainn, ’ic Amhdainn,
Speg a ghille mhoir ruaidh
’S olc a rinn an fhaire ’n raier.
Translated:
The paw (or hand) of Spaidrig,
The paw of my tenderly cherished darling,
The paw of Fingalia,
The paw of my long-legged, fair-haired lad,
Who frequently sucked his finger—
Son of Œdan, son of Audan,
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83
The paw of the big red-haired lad
Who badly kept the watch last night.
The watchman surmised that the beautiful woman who now
stood before him was a “spirit from the vasty deep,” and re-
solving to kill her, hurried off for his weapons. She saw him,
fled towards the sea, and in the twinkling of an eye assumed
the guise of a seal and plunged beneath the waves.
Although tales about sea-trows and mermaids are still
plentiful in the islands of Orkney, the land fairies are ac-
knowledged to have departed for ever. This is the story of
their departure as it has been pieced together by Mr. R.
Menzies Fergusson.
Among the Mermaids
84
Once upon a time, many years ago, the trows became
dissatisfied with their residence upon Pomona. They deter-
mined, therefore, to leave the Pomona hills and knowes, and
take up their dwelling beside the Dwarfie Stone on the is-
land of Hoy.
The change was to be effected one evening at midnight,
when the moon would be full and everything in favour of
their flitting. The fateful night arrived, and the fairy train
set out upon their journey. They bade farewell to the grassy
hillocks upon which they had danced so often, and to the
rocky caverns, the scene of their nightly revels, and all hied to
the trysting-place, which was the Black Craig of Stromness,
chanting an elfin song as they went.
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85
There they made the preparations necessary for cross-
ing the intervening sea. They took a number of
simmons
, or
straw bands used in thatching houses, and, tying them to-
gether, made a long rope of sufficient length to stretch across
the sound. One end was fastened to the top of the Black
Craig, and a sentinel was told off to watch that it did not
slip. The other end was seized by a long-legged trow called
“Hempie,” the “Ferry-leuper,” who made an enormous leap
and alighted upon the opposite shore. There he secured his
end of the straw bridge and made ready to receive his fellow
trows as they crossed.
At length a start was made and all the trows were soon
upon the rope, but just as they reached the middle, he who