FISHES IN MODERN FOLK-LORE. 85 



a sealskin or other " ham " lying on the rock, he ought at 

 once to seize it, for there will come to claim it bye-and-bye 

 the pretty Nereid to whom it belongs, and who, without it, 

 cannot return to her caves and her friends. He must be 

 careful, of course, not to jump rashly to conclusions, and 

 carry off a bather's clothes, or some fisherman's oilskin laid 

 down for a moment by the owner, who has perhaps just 

 gone round the corner. But if he finds the real thing, it 

 will all happen just as I have said, and the maiden will beg 

 very prettily for her skin, and if he refuses it she will accept 

 her destiny, put her hand in his, and if he does not mind 

 being seen walking along a turnpike road with a girl in the 

 garb of Eve, he may lead her back into the town and 

 straight to the altar of the little church that overlooks the 

 billowy sea where his bride's friends live but which she, 

 so long as he hides her skin from her, will never be able to 

 remember again. But sometimes it happens that husbands 

 of mermaids, grown careless by the lapse of time, leave 

 the " ham " (as the sea-nymph's fish-tail covering is called) 

 lying about in an attic or an unlocked box, and then, alas ! 

 all is grief for the motherless bairns. For one unlucky day 

 the wife finds her old garment, and there comes upon her 

 the sudden recollection of another world which she once 

 lived in, and a longing that she cannot understand, and 

 still less resist to put on the familiar thing overtakes her. 

 She yields, and lo ! in a twinkling, she has forgotten all 

 her earth-life, her husband's love, and her children, and 

 hurries away straight to the sea, and is gone for ever. 



So " gone back to the sea " is a pretty and decorous 

 euphemism for " run away from home." 



To refuse to marry a mermaid, when in your power, is 

 what no man should do who has any regard for his family. 



