Dr. Hibbert's valuable work on the Shetland Islands[226] fortunately enables us to give a tolerably complete account of the fairy system of these islands.

The Shetlanders, he informs us, believe in two kinds of Trows, as they call the Scandinavian Trolls, those of the land and those of the sea.

The former, whom, like the Scots, they also term the guid folk and guid neighbours, they conceive to inhabit the interior of green hills. Persons who have been brought into their habitations have been dazzled with the splendour of what they saw there. All the interior walls are adorned with gold and silver, and the domestic utensils resemble the strange things that are found sometimes lying on the hills. These persons have always entered the hill on one side and gone out at the other.

They marry and have children, like their northern kindred. A woman of the island of Yell, who died not long since, at the advanced age of more than a hundred years, said, that she once met some fairy children, accompanied by a little dog, playing like other boys and girls, on the top of a hill. Another time she happened one night to raise herself up in the bed, when she saw a little boy with a white nightcap on his head, sitting at the fire. She asked him who he was. "I am Trippa's son," said he. When she heard this, she instantly sained, i. e. blessed herself, and Trippa's son vanished.

Saining is the grand protection against them; a Shetlander always sains himself when passing by their hills.

The Trows are of a diminutive stature, and they are usually dressed in gay green garments. When travelling from one place to another they may be seen mounted on bulrushes, and riding through the air. If a person should happen to meet them when on these journeys, he should, if he has not a bible in his pocket, draw a circle round him on the ground, and in God's name forbid their approach. They then generally disappear.[227]

They are fond of music and dancing, and it is their dancing that forms the fairy rings. A Shetlander lying awake in bed before day one morning, heard the noise of a party of Trows passing by his door. They were preceded by a piper, who was playing away lustily. The man happened to have a good ear for music, so he picked up the tune he heard played, and used often after to repeat it for his friends under the name of the Fairy-tune.

The Trows are not free from disease, but they are possessed of infallible remedies, which they sometimes bestow on their favourites. A man in the island of Unst had an earthen pot that contained an ointment of marvellous power. This he said he got from the hills, and, like the widow's cruise, its contents never failed.

They have all the picking and stealing propensities of the Scandinavian Trolls. The dairy-maid sometimes detects a Trow-woman secretly milking the cows in the byre. She sains herself, and the thief takes to flight so precipitately as to leave behind her a copper pan of a form never seen before.

When they want beef or mutton on any festal occasion, they betake themselves to the Shetlanders' scatholds or town-mails, and with elf-arrows bring down their game. On these occasions they delude the eyes of the owner with the appearance of something exactly resembling the animal whom they have carried off, and by its apparent violent death by some accident. It is on this account that the flesh of such animals as have met a sudden or violent death is regarded as improper food.

A Shetlander, who is probably still alive, affirmed that he was once taken into a hill by the Trows. Here one of the first objects that met his view was one of his own cows, that was brought in to furnish materials for a banquet. He regarded himself as being in rather a ticklish situation if it were not for the protection of the Trow-women, by whose favour he had been admitted within the hill. On returning home, he learned, to his great surprise, that at the very moment he saw the cow brought into the hill, others had seen her falling over the rocks.

Lying-in-women and "unchristened bairns" they regard as lawful prize. The former they employ as wet-nurses, the latter they of course rear up as their own. Nothing will induce parents to show any attention to a child that they suspect of being a changeling. But there are persons who undertake to enter the hills and regain the lost child.

A tailor, not long since, related the following story. He was employed to work at a farm-house where there was a child that was an idiot, and who was supposed to have been left there by the Trows instead of some proper child, whom they had taken into the hills. One night, after he had retired to his bed, leaving the idiot asleep by the fire, he was suddenly waked out of his sleep by the sound of music, and on looking about him he saw the whole room full of fairies, who were dancing away their rounds most joyously. Suddenly the idiot jumped up and joined in the dance, and showed such a degree of acquaintance with the various steps and movements as plainly testified that it must have been a long time since he first went under the hands of the dancing-master. The tailor looked on for some time with admiration, but at last he grew alarmed and sained himself. On hearing this, the Trows all fled in the utmost disorder, but one of them, a woman, was so incensed at this interruption of their revels, that as she went out she touched the big toe of the tailor, and he lost the power of ever after moving it.[228]

In these cases of paralysis they believe that the Trows have taken away the sound member and left a log behind. They even sometimes sear the part, and from the want of sensation in it boast of the correctness of this opinion.[229]

With respect to the Sea-Trows, it is the belief of the Shetlanders that they inhabit a region of their own at the bottom of the sea.[230] They here respire a peculiar atmosphere, and live in habitations constructed of the choicest submarine productions. When they visit the upper world on occasions of business or curiosity, they are obliged to enter the skin of some animal capable of respiring in the water. One of the shapes they assume is that of what is commonly called a merman or mermaid, human from the waist upwards, terminating below in the tail of a fish. But their most favourite vehicle is the skin of the larger seal or Haaf fish, for as this animal is amphibious they can land on some rock, and there cast off their sea-dress and assume their own shape, and amuse themselves as they will in the upper world. They must, however, take especial care of their skins, as each has but one, and if that should be lost, the owner can never re-descend, but must become an inhabitant of the supramarine world.

The following Shetland tales will illustrate this:—

Gioga's Son.

A boat's-crew landed one time upon one of the stacks[231] with the intention of attacking the seals. They had considerable success; stunned several of them, and while they lay stupefied, stripped them of their skins, with the fat attached to them. They left the naked carcases lying on the rocks, and were about to get into their boat with their spoils and return to Papa Stour, whence they had come. But just as they were embarking, there rose such a tremendous swell that they saw there was not a moment to be lost, and every one flew as quickly as he could to get on board the boat. They were all successful but one man, who had imprudently loitered behind. His companions were very unwilling to leave him on the skerries, perhaps to perish, but the surge increased so fast, that after many unsuccessful attempts to bring the boat in close to the stacks, they were obliged to depart, and leave the unfortunate man to his fate.

A dark stormy night came on, the sea dashed most furiously against the rocks, and the poor deserted Shetlander saw no prospect before him but that of dying of the cold and hunger, or of being washed into the sea by the breakers, which now threatened every moment to run over the stack.

At length he perceived several of the seals, who had escaped from the boatmen, approaching the skerry. When they landed they stripped off their seal-skin dresses and appeared in their proper forms of Sea-Trows. Their first object was to endeavour to recover their friends, who lay stunned and skinless. When they had succeeded in bringing them to themselves, they also resumed their proper form, and appeared in the shape of the sub-marine people. But in mournful tones, wildly accompanied by the raging storm, they lamented the loss of their sea-vestures, the want of which would for ever prevent them from returning to their native abodes beneath the deep waters of the Atlantic. Most of all did they lament for Ollavitinus, the son of Gioga, who, stripped of his seal-skin, must abide for ever in the upper world.

Their song was at length broken off by their perceiving the unfortunate boatman, who, with shivering limbs and despairing looks, was gazing on the furious waves that now dashed over the stack. Gioga, when she saw him, instantly conceived the design of rendering the perilous situation of the man of advantage to her son. She went up to him, and mildly addressed him, proposing to carry him on her back through the sea to Papa Stour, on condition of his getting her the seal-skin of her son.

The bargain was soon made, and Gioga equipped herself in her phocine garb; but when the Shetlander gazed on the stormy sea he was to ride through, his courage nearly failed him, and he begged of the old lady to have the kindness to allow him to cut a few holes in her shoulders and flanks, that he might obtain a better fastening for his hands between the skin and the flesh.

This, too, her maternal tenderness induced Gioga to consent to. The man, having prepared everything, now mounted, and she plunged into the waves with him, gallantly ploughed the deep, and landed him safe and sound at Acres Gio, in Papa Stour. He thence set out for Skeo, at Hamna Voe, where the skin was, and honourably fulfilled his agreement by restoring to Gioga the means of bringing back her son to his dear native land.

The Mermaid Wife.

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.