OF mermen and merwomen many strange
stories are told in the Shetland Isles. Beneath the depths of the ocean,
according to these stories, an atmosphere exists adapted to the
respiratory organs of certain beings, resembling in form the human race,
possessed of surpassing beauty, of limited supernatural powers, and liable
to the incident of death. They dwell in a wide territory of the globe, far
below the region of fishes, over which the sea, like the cloudy canopy of
our sky, loftily rolls, and they possess habitations constructed of the
pearl and coral productions of the ocean. Having lungs not adapted to a
watery medium, but to the nature of atmospheric air, it would be
impossible for them to pass through the volume of waters that intervenes
between the submarine and supramarine world, if it were not for the
extraordinary power they inherit of entering the skin of some animal
capable of existing in the sea, which they are enabled to occupy by a sort
of demoniacal possession. One shape they put on is that of an animal human
above the waist, yet terminating below in the tail and fins of a fish, but
the most favourite form is that of the larger seal or Haaf-fish; for, in
possessing an amphibious nature, they are enabled not only to exist in the
ocean, but to land on some rock, where they frequently lighten themselves
of their sea-dress, resume their proper shape, and with much curiosity
examine the nature of the upper world belonging to the human race.
Unfortunately, however, each merman or merwoman possesses but one skin,
enabling the individual to ascend the seas, and if, on visiting the abode
of man, the garb be lost, the hapless being must unavoidably become an
inhabitant of the earth.
A story is told of a boat’s crew who
landed for the purpose of attacking the seals lying in the hollows of the
crags at one of the stacks. The men stunned a number of the animals, and
while they were in this state stripped them of their skins, with the fat
attached to them. Leaving the carcases on the rock, the crew were about to
set off for the shore of Papa Stour, when such a tremendous swell arose
that every one flew quickly to the boat. All succeeded in entering it
except one man, who had imprudently lingered behind. The crew were
unwilling to leave a companion to perish on the skerries, but the surge
increased so fast that after many unsuccessful attempts to bring the boat
close in to the stack the unfortunate wight was left to his fate. A stormy
night came on, and the deserted Shetlander saw no prospect before him but
that of perishing from cold and hunger, or of being washed into the sea by
the breakers which threatened to dash over the rocks. At length he
perceived many of the seals, who in their flight had escaped the attack of
the boatmen, approach the skerry, disrobe themselves of their amphibious
hides, and resume the shape of the sons and daughters of the ocean. Their
first object was to assist in the recovery of their friends, who, having
been stunned by clubs, had, while in that state, been deprived of their
skins. When the flayed animals had regained their sensibility, they
assumed their proper form of mermen or merwomen, and began to lament in a
mournful lay, wildly accompanied by the storm that was raging around, the
loss of their sea-dress, which would prevent them from again enjoying
their native azure atmosphere and coral mansions that lay below the deep
waters of the Atlantic. But their chief lamentation was for Ollavitinus,
the son of Gioga, who, having been stripped of his seal’s skin, would be
for ever parted from his mates, and condemned to become an outcast
inhabitant of the upper world. Their song was at length broken off by
observing one of their enemies viewing, with shivering limbs and looks of
comfortless despair, the wild waves that dashed over the stack. Gioga
immediately conceived the idea of rendering subservient to the advantage
of her son the perilous situation of the man. She addressed him with
mildness, proposing to carry him safe on her back across the sea to Papa
Stour, on condition of receiving the seal-skin of Ollavitinus. A bargain
was struck, and Gioga clad herself in her amphibious garb; but the
Shetlander, alarmed at the sight of the stormy main that he was to ride
through, prudently begged leave of the matron, for his better
preservation, that he might be allowed to cut a few holes in her shoulders
and flanks, in order to procure, between the skin and the flesh, a better
fastening for his hands and feet. The request being complied with, the man
grasped the neck of the seal, and committing himself to her care, she
landed him safely at Acres Gio in Papa Stour; from which place he
immediately repaired to a skeo [Hut for drying fish] at Hamna Voe, where
the skin was deposited, and honourably fulfilled his part of the contract
by affording Gioga the means whereby her son could again revisit the
ethereal space over which the sea spread its green mantle.
