152 ScottTisH MERMAIDS. 
his outer covering, but what most made him disconsolate was the 
thought of his forlorn appearance. A mermaid who had ob- 
served the incident took pity on his plight, and her efforts to 
restore to him his lost skin resulted in a sad catastrophe. The 
mermaid became hooked on the fishing line of the boat to which 
the captor of the seal belonged. Although the latter, his con- 
science smiting him for what he had just done, pleaded for the 
release of the mermaid, she was hauled on board and placed in 
the bottom of the boat on the sealskin. In a few minutes a 
sudden squall arose and overturned the boat, drowning the whole 
of her crew. The seal was able to recover his skin; but, alas! 
he had to lament the loss of the friend through whose agency this 
was effected, for the mermaid had become so exhausted by her 
struggles that she was at her last gasp when she was precipitated 
back into her native element. Ever since this happened, the 
legend has it, the seals have constituted themselves the special 
guardians of the mermaid race. 
A still closer relationship, however, than is generally recog- 
nised, subsists between the seals and the semi-human denizens of 
the ocean. In Orkney and Shetland “selkie’’ is the popular 
name for the seal; and those of the larger species are often 
called “selkie-folk,’’ because they are supposed to have the 
power of turning into men and women. According to one state- 
ment, the original “ selkie-folk’’ were fallen angels, who were 
condemned to this condition because of some fault, not serious 
enough to necessitate their consignment to the infernal regions. 
According to another version, they were human beings who, as a 
punishment for some wrong committed, were condemned to 
assume the form of the seal and to live in the sea, being only 
allowed to revert to their human character at certain periods and 
conditions of the tide, when they were on dry land. When they 
have doffed their sealskins, these “ selkie-folk,’’ of both sexes, 
are said to be particularly striking for their beauty of feature and 
fairness of form, and sad havoc have they been known to play 
with the affections of the sons and daughters of the coast. It is 
believed to this day in some parts of the islands of the north 
that a certain horny growth on the palms of the hands and the 
soles of the feet denotes descent from one of the “ selkie-folk,’’ 
this being the result of an attempt to cut away the webbed 
membrane appearing between the fingers and toes of the original 
