P. 494.
"On the west coast of Ireland the fishermen are loth to kill the seals, which once abounded in some localities, owing to a popular superstition that they enshrined 'the souls of thim that were drowned at the flood.' They were supposed to possess the power of casting aside their external skins and disporting themselves in human form on the sea-shore. If a mortal contrived to become possessed of one of these outer coverings belonging to a female, he might claim her and keep her as his bride." Charles Hardwick, Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-Lore, chiefly Lancashire and the North of England, p. 231. (G.L.K.)
506 a, last paragraph but one. So in Douns Lioð, Strengleikar, ed. Kayser and Unger, p. 52 ff. (G.L.K.)
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