On a fine summer's evening, an inhabitant of Unst happened to be walking along the sandy margin of a voe.[232] The moon was risen, and by her light he discerned at some distance before him a number of the sea-people, who were dancing with great vigour on the smooth sand.

Near them he saw lying on the ground several seal-skins.

As the man approached the dancers, all gave over their merriment, and flew like lightning to secure their garments; then clothing themselves, plunged in the form of seals into the sea. But the Shetlander, on coming up to the spot where they had been, and casting his eyes down on the ground, saw that they had left one skin behind them, which was lying just at his feet. He snatched it up, carried it swiftly away, and placed it in security.

On returning to the shore, he met the fairest maiden that eye ever gazed upon: she was walking backwards and forwards, lamenting in most piteous tones the loss of her seal-skin robe, without which she never could hope to rejoin her family and friends below the waters, but must remain an unwilling inhabitant of the region enlightened by the sun.

The man approached and endeavoured to console her, but she would not be comforted. She implored him in the most moving accents to restore her dress; but the view of her lovely face, more beautiful in tears, had steeled his heart. He represented to her the impossibility of her return, and that her friends would soon give her up; and finally, made an offer to her of his heart, hand, and fortune.

The sea-maiden, finding she had no alternative, at length consented to become his wife. They were married, and lived together for many years, during which time they had several children, who retained no vestiges of their marine origin, saving a thin web between their fingers, and a bend of their hands, resembling that of the fore paws of a seal; distinctions which characterise the descendants of the family to the present day.

The Shetlander's love for his beautiful wife was unbounded, but she made but a cold return to his affection. Often would she steal out alone and hasten down to the lonely strand, and there at a given signal, a seal of large size would make his appearance, and they would converse for hours together in an unknown language; and she would return home from this meeting pensive and melancholy.

Thus glided away years, and her hopes of leaving the upper world had nearly vanished, when it chanced one day, that one of the children, playing behind a stack of corn, found a seal-skin. Delighted with his prize, he ran with breathless eagerness to display it before his mother.

Her eyes glistened with delight at the view of it; for in it she saw her own dress, the loss of which had cost her so many tears. She now regarded herself as completely emancipated from thraldom; and in idea she was already with her friends beneath the waves. One thing alone was a drawback on her raptures. She loved her children, and she was now about to leave them for ever. Yet they weighed not against the pleasures she had in prospect: so after kissing and embracing them several times, she took up the skin, went out, and proceeded down to the beach.

In a few minutes after the husband came in, and the children told him what had occurred. The truth instantly flashed across his mind, and he hurried down to the shore with all the speed that love and anxiety could give. But he only arrived in time to see his wife take the form of a seal, and from the ledge of a rock plunge into the sea.

The large seal, with whom she used to hold her conversations, immediately joined her, and congratulated her on her escape, and they quitted the shore together. But ere she went she turned round to her husband, who stood in mute despair on the rock, and whose misery excited feelings of compassion in her breast. "Farewell," said she to him, "and may all good fortune attend you. I loved you well while I was with you, but I always loved my first husband better."[233]

The water-spirit is in Shetland called Shoopiltee; he appears in the form of a pretty little horse, and endeavours to entice persons to ride on him, and then gallops with them into the sea.

FOOTNOTES:

[226] Description of the Shetland Islands. Edinburgh, 1822.

[227] Edmonston's View, &c., of Zetland Islands. Edin. 1809.

[228] We need hardly to remind the reader that in what precedes Dr.

Hibbert is to be regarded as the narrator in 1822.

[229] Edmonston, _ut supra_.

[230] Dr. Hibbert says he could get but little satisfaction from the Shetlanders respecting this submarine country.

[231] _Stacks_ or _skerries_ are bare rocks out in the sea.

[232] A _voe_ is a small bay.

[233] See below, _Germany_.

ORKNEYS.

Harold was born where restless seas Howl round the storm-swept Orcades.

SCOTT.

Of the Orcadian Fairies we have very little information. Brand[234]

merely tells us, they were, in his time, frequently seen in several of the isles dancing and making merry; so that we may fairly conclude they differed little from their Scottish and Shetland neighbours. One thing he adds, which is of some importance, that they were frequently seen in armour.

Brownie seems to have been the principal Orkney Fairy, where he possessed a degree of importance rather beyond what was allotted to him in the neighbouring realm of Scotland.

"Not above forty or fifty years ago," says Brand, "almost every family had a Brownie, or evil spirit, so called, which served them, to whom they gave a sacrifice for its service; as, when they churned their milk, they took a part thereof and sprinkled every corner of the house with it for Brownie's use; likewise, when they brewed, they had a stone which they called Brownie's stone, wherein there was a little hole, into which they poured some wort for a sacrifice to Brownie. My informer, a minister of the country, told me that he had conversed with an old man, who, when young, used to brew and sometimes read upon his bible; to whom an old woman in the house said that Brownie was displeased with that book he read upon, which, if he continued to do, they would get no more service of Brownie. But he being better instructed from that book which was Brownie's eyesore, and the object of his wrath, when he brewed, he would not suffer any sacrifice to be given to Brownie; whereupon, the first and second brewings were spilt and for no use, though the wort wrought well, yet in a little time it left off working and grew cold; but of the third browst or brewing, he had ale very good, though he would not give any sacrifice to Brownie, with whom afterwards they were no more troubled. I had also from the same informer, that a lady in Unst, now deceased, told him that when she first took up house, she refused to give a sacrifice to Brownie, upon which, the first and second brewings misgave, but the third was good; and Brownie, not being regarded and rewarded as formerly he had been, abandoned his wonted service: which cleareth the Scripture, 'Resist the devil and he will flee from you.' They also had stacks of corn which they called Brownie's stacks, which, though they were not bound with straw ropes, or any way fenced as other stacks use to be, yet the greatest storm of wind was not able to blow anything off them."

A very important personage once, we are told, inhabited the Orkneys in the character of Brownie.

"Luridan," says Reginald Scot, "a familiar of this kind, did for many years inhabit the island of Pomonia, the largest of the Orkades in Scotland, supplying the place of manservant and maid-servant with wonderful diligence to those families whom he did haunt, sweeping their rooms and washing their dishes, and making their fires before any were up in the morning. This Luridan affirmed, that he was the _genius Astral_ of that island; that his place or residence in the days of Solomon and David was at Jerusalem; that then he was called by the Jews Belelah; after that, he remained long in the dominion of Wales, instructing their bards in British poesy and prophecies, being called Wrthin, Wadd, Elgin; 'and now,' said he, 'I have removed hither, and, alas! my continuance is but short, for in seventy years I must resign my place to Balkin, lord of the Northern Mountains.'

"Many wonderful and incredible things did he also relate of this Balkin, affirming that he was shaped like a satyr, and fed upon the air, having wife and children to the number of twelve thousand, which were the brood of the Northern Fairies, inhabiting Southerland and Catenes, with the adjacent islands. And that these were the companies of spirits that hold continual wars with the fiery spirits in the mountain Heckla, that vomits fire in Islandia. That their speech was ancient Irish, and their dwelling the caverns of the rocks and mountains, which relation is recorded in the antiquities of Pomonia."[235]

Concerning Luridan, we are farther informed from the Book of Vanagastus, the Norwegian, that it is his nature to be always at enmity with fire; that he wages war with the fiery spirits of Hecla; and that in this contest they do often anticipate and destroy one another, killing and crushing when they meet in mighty and violent troops in the air upon the sea. And at such times, many of the fiery spirits are destroyed when the enemy hath brought them off the mountains to fight upon the water. On the contrary, when the battle is upon the mountain itself, the spirits of the air are often worsted, and then great moanings and doleful noises are heard in Iceland, and Russia, and Norway, for many days after.[236]

The Water-spirit called Tangie, from Tang, the sea-weed with which he is covered, appears sometimes as a little horse, other times as a man.

FOOTNOTES:

[234] Description of Orkney, Zetland, &c. Edin. 1703.

[235] Reg. Scot. Discoverie of Witchcraft, b. 2. c. 4. Lond. 1665.

[236] Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. p. 367.

ISLE OF RuGEN.

Des Tagscheins Blendung druckt, Nur Finsterniss begluckt; Drum hausen wir so gern Tief in des Erdballs Kern.

MATTHISSON.

Day's dazzling light annoys Us, darkness only joys; We therefore love to dwell Deep underneath earth's shell.

We now return to the Baltic, to the Isle of Rugen, once a chief seat of the Vendish religion; but its priests were massacred by the Scandinavians, and all traces of their system effaced. Its fairy mythology now agrees with that of its Gothic neighbours, and Mr.

Arndt,[237] a native of the island, has enabled us to give the following tolerably full account of it:--

The inhabitants of Rugen believe in three kinds of Dwarfs, or underground people, the White, the Brown, and the Black; so named from the colour of their several habiliments.[238]

The White are the most delicate and beautiful of all, and are of an innocent and gentle disposition. During the winter, when the face of nature is cold, raw, and cheerless, they remain still and quiet in their hills, solely engaged in the fashioning of the finest works in silver and gold, of too delicate a texture for mortal eyes to discern.

Thus they pass the winter; but no sooner does the spring return than they abandon their recesses, and live through all the summer above ground, in sunshine and starlight, in uninterrupted revelry and enjoyment. The moment the trees and flowers begin to sprout and bud in the early days of spring, they emerge from their hills, and get among the stalks and branches, and thence to the blossoms and flowers, where they sit and gaze around them. In the night, when mortals sleep, the White Dwarfs come forth, and dance their joyous roundels in the green grass, about the hills, and brooks, and springs, making the sweetest and most delicate music, bewildering travellers, who hear and wonder at the strains of the invisible musicians. They may, if they will, go out by day, but never in company; these daylight rambles being allowed them only when alone and under some assumed form. They therefore frequently fly about in the shape of party-coloured little birds, or butterflies, or snow-white doves, showing kindness and benevolence to the good who merit their favour.

The Brown Dwarfs, the next in order, are less than eighteen inches high.