Note 17 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Contemporary Review, August, 1881. In the Archæological Review (June, 1889, pp. 219-220) Mr. G. L. Gomme gives various references of this kind, Irish and Shetlandic. One instance describes the "Merrow" ancestress as "half fish and half woman," which corresponds with the Shetlandic "sêlkie-wife," or seal-woman. More extreme still is the tradition that the Irish clan of Coneely, like the natives of Burra Firth, in Unst, are actually descended from "seals."