ScoTtTisH MERMAIDS. 147 
from his man arrested his action. “ Bide, Lornty,’’ he shouted, 
seizing his master by the arm and dragging him to the shore, 
“bide a blink; that waulin?’ madam was nae ither-—-God sauf 
us—than a mermaid.’’ Fortunately the laird realised his danger 
in time. For as he prepared to mount his horse and ride off the 
woman rose in the water and addressed him in tones full of anger 
and baffled hate :— 
“‘Tornty, Lornty, 
Were it na your man, 
I’d gart your heart’s bluid 
Skirl in my pan!” 
That, however, the allurements of the mermaid do not 
always entail the ruin of their victims we are reminded by the 
story of Macphail of Colonsay and the mermaid of Corrievrekin 
(between the islands of Jura and Scarba), which Leyden adapted 
in his ballad, entitled “The Mermaid,’’ from a Gaelic tradition. 
One day when Macphail is out in his boat there comes— 
‘‘ Floating o’er the deep 
The mermaid’s sweet, sea-soothing lay, 
That charmed the dancing waves to sleep 
Before the bark of Colonsay. 
That sea-maid’s form, all pearly light, 
Was whiter than the downy spray, 
And round her bosom, heaving bright, 
Her glossy, yellow ringlets play. 
Borne on a foamy-crested wave, 
She reached amain the bounding prow, 
Then, clasping fast the chieftain brave, 
She, plunging, sought the deep below.” 
He is carried down into a coral cave, and the mermaid asks him 
to forget his maid of Colonsay and marry her. At first Macphail 
refuses, but in a short time he yields to her entreaties. They live 
happily together for several years, in the course of which five 
children are born to them. After a while, however, Macphail 
begins to tire of his life beneath the waves, and prevailing upon 
his consort to carry him near the shore of Colonsay, he escapes 
to land. . 
“* And ever as the year returns, 
The charm-bound sailors know the day, 
When sadly still the mermaid mourns 
The lovely chief of Colonsay.”’ 
