[402] Folklore Journal, ii. 259; Folklore Record, iv. 104. Miss Ffennell kindly informed me at the meeting of the Folklore Society where I read a paper on the subject, that she had frequently heard the islanders of Achill, off the coast of Ireland, state their belief that they were descended from seals.
[403] Published by the Irish Archæological Society, p. 27; there is a Seal Island off the coast of Donegal (Joyce, Irish Place-Names, ii. 282); and some Shetland legends of the seal will be found in Soc. Antiq. Scot., i. 86-89. Seals are eaten for food in the island of Harris (see Martin, Western Islands, 36), and one called the Virgin Mary's Seal is offered to the minister (Reeves, Adamnan Vita. Columb., 78, note g). The attitude of the Irish to seals is shown by the two following notes:— "At Erris, in Ireland, seals are considered to be human beings under enchantment, and they consider it unlucky to have anything to do with seals, and to have one live near their dwelling is considered as productive of evil to life and property. A story current, in 1841, describes how a young fisherman came in a fog upon an island whereon lived these enchanted men in their human form, but when they quitted it they turned to seals again" (Otway, Sketches of Erris, 398, 403). Off Downpatrick Head they used to take seals, but have given up the practice, because once two young fellows had urged their curraghs into a cave where the seals were known to breed, and they were killing them right and left when, in the farthest end of the cave and sitting up on its bent tail in a corner, there sat an old seal. One of the boys was just making ready to strike him, when the seal cried out, "Och, boys! och, ma bouchals, spare your old grandfather, Darby O'Dowd." He then proceeded to tell the boys his story. "It's true I was dead and dacently buried, but here I am for my sins turned into a sale as other sinners are and will be, and if you put an end to me and skin me maybe it's worser I'll be, and go into a shark or a porpoise. Lave your ould forefather where he is, to live out his time as a sale. Maybe for your own sakes you will ever hereafter leave off following and parsecuting and murthering sales who may be nearer to yourselves nor you think." The story is universally believed, and on the strength of it the people have given up seal hunting (Otway, Sketches of Erris, 230).
[404] Kinship and Marriage in Arabia, 188. Cf. Mr. Jacobs' articles in Archæological Review, "Are there totem clans in the Old Testament?" vol. iii. pp. 145-164.
[405] Origins of English History, 297.
[406] Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., x. 436; Lang's Custom and Myth, 265; Elton's Origins of English History, 299-300; Revue Celtique, i. 50; iii. 176.
[407] Rev. Celtique, vi. 232.
[408] Aubrey's Remaines of Gentilisme, 102.
[409] Folklore Record, i. 243.
[410] Xiphilinus in Mon. Hist. Brit., p. lvii.
[411] Choice Notes, Folklore, p. 16.