TO ORKNEY AND SHETLAND. If 



than a particular bend of the hand, and the rudi- 

 ments of a web between the fingers ; which peculia- 

 rity is said to be possessed by their descendants 

 to the present day. The Shetlander's love for his 

 fairy bride was unbounded, but his affection was 

 coldly returned. The lady would often steal 

 unobserved to a particular part of the sea-shore, 

 and on a signal being given, a large seal would 

 make his appearance, with whom she held in an 

 unknown tongue an anxious conference. Years 

 glided away in this manner, when one of her 

 children found concealed beneath some rubbish 

 near the house a seal's skin, and delighted at the 

 discovery ran with the prize to its mother; her 

 eyes glistened with rapture, she recognised it as 

 her own, and gazed on it as the means by which 

 she could pass through the ocean to her original, 

 her native home. She burst forth into an ecstasy 

 of joy, which was only moderated when she beheld 

 her children whom she was about to leave for ever, 

 and after hastily embracing them, she fled with all 

 speed to the sea-side. Her husband entered im- 

 mediately afterwards, and having been informed of 

 the discovery that had taken place, ran to over- 

 take his wife, but only arrived in time to witness 

 her transformation into the form of a seal, and see 

 her bound from a ledge of rock into the sea 5 the 



