The Equinox (Volume I, Number I)

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, 339