AMONGST THE MERMAIDS
as she sported on the shore with her first husband, who was,
of course, the large seal.
That is the story as'they tell it to-day in Orkney, and that
is the story as told by Haroun al Raschid. Only, in the
“Arabian Nights” it is called the “The Melancholy Youth,”
and the seal is replaced by a dove, but all the essentials—the
maidens, the bathing, the skins, the wedding, the flight—
remain as they do to-day.
The seal is well known to be an animal in which the
maternal instinct is abnormally developed, and many of the
tales have this fact as their basis. Here is a particularly
charming one—the story of Gioga’s son:
One day, as a boat’s crew were completing a successful raid
on the seals, a great storm came on, and one of the party, who
had become separated from the rest, was unavoidably left
behind on the Skerry. The waves were dashing against the
low rocks, and the unfortunate man had resigned himself to his
fate, when he saw several of the surviving seals approaching.
The moment they landed they threw off their skins, and
appeared before him as Sea-trows or Seal-folk. And even
those seals who had lately been skinned by the boat-
men also revived in time, and took their human form, but
they mourned the loss of their sea-vestures, which would for
ever prevent them from returning to their homes beneath
the ocean. Most of all did they lament for the son of Gioga,
their queen. He, too, had lost his skin, and would be
banished for ever from his mother’s kingdom. But, seeing
the forsaken boatman, who sat watching the rising waters in
despair, Gioga suddenly conceived a plan to retain her son.
She would carry the man on her back to the mainland, if he,
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