The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

The Seal. 471
drunk deeply of love, and was inexorable—but offered her
protection beneath his roof as his betrothed spouse. The
mer-lady, perceiving that she must become an inhabitant of
the earth, found that she could not do better than accept of
the offer. This strange connubial attachment subsisted for
man)' \-cars, and several children were the fruits of it, who
retained no farther marks of their origin than in the resem-
blance which a sort of web between their fingers, and a
particular bend of their hands, bore to the fore feet of a seal
—this peculiarity being possessed by the descendants of
the family at the present day" (1822). The mer-lady,
though a dutiful and careful wife, was always anxious to
return to her ocean home. She was like the mermaid who,
according to a Shetland ballad, was frcquentl}- heard to
sing— " Den gie me back my bonnic coral caves,
O gie dem back ta me !
For tough dis be my home, I still love to roam
O'er da shells o' da deep blue sea !"
One day a child found a seal skin concealed under a stack,
and brought it with pride to his mother. It was the same
caul she had doffed long years ago, before engaging in the
moonlight dance at the margin of the voe. Her eyes
glistened with rapture as she gazed upon it, for in it she
beheld the means by which she could once again return to
her ocean home. She bade her children farewell, and
carrying the caul with her, hastened towards the shore.
Her husband, who had meantime heard of her discovery,
ran to overtake her, but only arrived in time to see her, in
the form of a seal, bound from the ledge of a rock into the
sea, and forthwith engage in joyous raptures with an
ancient Haaf-fish that was there to receive her, and make
her once more welcome to her submarine abode.
But to return to our Hebridean lore. Here is a seal
story from South Uist :
—
A North Uist man named Mackeegan (" Fear a
mhuinntir a' Chinne Tuath"), said m\' informant, was seal