Chapter I

In one of an interesting series of papers on "Scottish, Shetlandic, and Germanic Water Tales,"[2] Dr. Karl Blind remarks as follows:--

It is in the Shetland Tales that we hear a great deal of
creatures partly more than human, partly less so, which
appear in the interchangeable shape of men and seals. They
are said to have often married ordinary mortals, so that
there are, even now, some alleged descendants of them, who
look upon themselves as superior to common people.

In Shetland, and elsewhere in the North, the sometimes
animal-shaped creatures of this myth, but who in reality
are human in a higher sense, are called _Finns_. Their
transfiguration into seals seems to be more a kind of
deception they practise. For the males are described as
most daring boatmen, with powerful sweep of the oar, who
chase foreign vessels on the sea. At the same time they are
held to be deeply versed in magic spells and in the healing
art, as well as in soothsaying. By means of a "skin" which
they possess, the men and the women among them are able to
change themselves into seals. But on shore, after having
taken off their wrappage, they are, and behave like, real
human beings. Anyone who gets hold of their protecting
garment has the Finns in his power. Only by means of the
skin can they go back to the water. Many a Finn woman has
got into the power of a Shetlander and borne children to
him; but if a Finn woman succeeded in reobtaining her
sea-skin, or seal-skin, she escaped across the water. Among
the older generation in the Northern isles persons are
still sometimes heard of who boast of hailing from Finns;
and they attribute to themselves a peculiar luckiness on
account of that higher descent.

* * * * *

Tales of the descent of certain families from water beings
of a magic character are very frequent in the ... North. In
Ireland such myths also occur sporadically. In Wales ...
the origin from mermen or mermaids is often charged as a
reproach upon unhappy people; and rows originate from such
assertions. In Shetland the reverse is, or was, the case.
There the descendants of Finns have been wont to boast of
their origin; regarding themselves as favourites of
Fortune....

* * * * *

But who are the Finns of the Shetlandic story? Are they
simply a poetical transfiguration of finny forms of the
flood? Or can the Ugrian race of the Finns, which dwells in
Finland, in the high north of Norway, and in parts of
Russia, have something to do with those tales in which a
Viking-like character is unmistakable?

* * * * *

Repeated investigations have gradually brought me to the
conviction that the Finn or Seal stories contain a
combination of the mermaid myth with a strong historical
element--that the Finns are nothing else than a fabulous
transmogrification of those Norse "sea-dogs," who from eld
have penetrated into the islands round Scotland, into
Scotland itself, as well as into Ireland. "Old sea-dog" is
even now a favourite expression for a weather-beaten,
storm-tossed skipper--a perfect seal among the wild waves.

The assertion of a "higher" origin of still living persons
from Finns ... would thus explain itself as a wildly
legendary remembrance of the descent from the blood of
Germanic conquerors. The "skin" wherewith the Finns change
themselves magically into sea-beings I hold to be their
armour, or coat of mail. Perhaps that coat itself was often
made of seal-skin, and then covered with metal rings, or
scales, as we see it in Norman pictures; for instance, on
the Bayeux tapestry. The designation of Norwegian and
Danish conquerors, in Old Irish history, as "scaly
monsters," certainly fits in with this hypothesis.

* * * * *

But however the Finn name may be explained etymologically,
at all events Norway appears in the Shetland tales, and in
the recollection of the people there, as the home of the
"Finns." And this home--as I see from an interesting bit of
folk-lore before me--is evidently in the south of
Norway....

"Before coming to this important point, I may mention a
Shetlandic spell-song ... [which] refers to the cure of the
toothache; the Finn appearing therein as a magic
medicine-man:--

A Finn came ow'r fa Norraway,
Fir ta pit töth-ache away--
Oot o' da flesh an' oot o' da bane;
Oot o' da sinew an' oot o' da skane;
Oot o' da skane an' into da stane;
An dare may do remain!
An dare may do remain!
An dare may do remain!

In this, though not strictly and correctly, alliterative
song, the Finn is not an animal-shaped creature of the
deep, but a man, a charm-working doctor from Norway....
Presently we will, however, see that the Finns of the
Shetlandic stories are martial pursuers of ships, to whom
ransom must be paid in order to get free from them. This
cannot apply ... to a mere marine animal or sea monster:
for what should such a creature do with ransom money?... As
to their animal form, Mr. George Sinclair writes:--

"Sea monsters are for most part called 'Finns' in Shetland.
They have the power to take any shape of any marine animal,
as also that of human beings. They were wont to _pursue
boats at sea_, and it was dangerous in the extreme to say
_anything against them_. I have heard that _silver money
was thrown overboard to them_ to prevent their doing any
damage to the boat. In the seal-form they came ashore every
ninth night to dance on the sands. They would then cast off
their skins, and act _just like men and women_. They could
not, however, return to the sea without their skins--they
were _simply human beings_, as an old song says:

"'I am a man upo' da land;
I am a selkie i' da sea.
An' whin I'm far fa every strand,
My dwelling is in Shöol Skerry.'"

* * * * *

There are many such folk-tales in the northern Thule. A
man, we learn, always gets possession of the Finn woman by
seizing the skin she has put off. One of these stories says
that the captured Finn woman would often leave her husband
to enjoy his slumber alone, and go down amongst the rocks
to converse with her Finn one: but the inquisitive people
who listened could not understand a single word of the
conversation. She would, it is said, return after such
interviews with briny and swollen eyes.

The human family of this Finn were human in all points
except in hands, which resembled web feet. Had the foolish
man who was her husband burnt or destroyed the skin, the
Finn woman could never have escaped. But the man had the
skin hidden, and it was found by one of the bairns, who
gave it to his mother. Thereupon she fled; and it is said
that she cried at parting with her family very bitterly.
The little ones were the only human beings she cared for.
When the father came home, he found the children in tears,
and on learning what had happened, bounded through the
standing corn to the shore, where he only arrived in time
to see, to his grief, his good wife shaking flippers and
embracing an ugly brute of a seal. She cried:--

"Blissins' be wi' de,
Baith de and da bairns!
Bit do kens, da first love
Is aye da best!"

whereupon she disappeared with her Finn husband and lover.

* * * * *

... I here give what Mr. Robert Sinclair says of the
capture of Finn brides by Shetlanders:

"Each district, almost, has its own version of a case where
a young Shetlander had married a female Finn. They were
generally caught at their toilet in the tide-mark, having
doffed the charmed covering, and being engaged in dressing
their flowing locks while the enamoured youth, by some
lucky stroke, secured the skin, rendering the owner a
captive victim of his passion. Thus it was that whole
families of a mongrel race sprang up, according to
tradition. The Finn women were said to _make good
housewives_. Yet there was generally a longing after some
previous attachment; if ever a chance occurred of
recovering the essential dress, no newly formed ties of
kindred could prevent escape and return to former
pleasures. This was assiduously guarded against on the one
side, and watched on the other; but, as the story goes,
female curiosity and cunning were always more than a match
for male care and caution; and the Finn woman always got
the slip. One or two of these female Finns were said to
have the power to conjure up from the deep a superior breed
of horned cattle; and these always throve well. I have seen
some pointed out to me as the offspring of these
'sea-kye.'"

In answer to my question, the Shetland friend lays great
stress on the fact of the Finn woman being wholly distinct
from the Mermaid....

* * * * *

Of the Finn man my informant says:--

"Stories of the Norway Finns were rife in my younger days.
These were said to be a race of creatures of _human origin_
no doubt, but possessed of some power of enchantment by
which they could, with the use of a charmed seal-skin,
become in every way, to all appearance, a veritable seal;
only _retaining their human intelligence_. It seems that
any seal-skin could not do; each _must have their specially
prepared skin_ before they could assume the aquatic life.
But then they could live for years in the sea. Yet they
were not reckoned as belonging to the natural class of
'amphibia.' As man or seal they were simply Finns, and
could play their part well in either element. Their feats
were marvellous. It was told me as sheer truth that they
could _pull across to Bergen_--nearly 300 miles--in a few
hours, and that, while ordinary mortals were asleep, they
could make the return voyage. Nine miles for every warp
(stroke of the oar) was the traditional speed...."

Here, then, the Finns are men of human origin; remaining
intelligent men in their sea-dog raiment; coming from
Norway; not swimming like marine animals, but rowing
between Shetland and Norway--namely, to the town of Bergen,
which lies in the southern ... part of Norway. As strong
men at sea, they row with magic quickness.... Each one of
them ... must have his specially prepared skin.... There is
nothing here of the swimming and dipping down of a seal.

We have followed Dr. Karl Blind so far. But, while recognizing the value of his statements and comments up to this point, it is necessary to give only a modified assent to some of his subsequent deductions, and to flatly deny the correctness of others; because his researches in "Shetlandic folk-lore" have clearly been too limited in their extent, or rather, he has omitted to check those traditions by any possible contemporary records. Some of those tales were received from a Shetland woman "who strongly believed in the Finns, and declared herself to be a descendant of them.... She was, she said, the 'fifth from the Finns,' and she attributed great luckiness to herself, although she was as poor as poor could be." One of her stories is of her father's great-grandfather; and as this ancestor of the woman's is not spoken of as a "Finn," it would seem that she was "fifth from the Finns" through another branch of her lineage. But, at any rate, this progenitor in the fourth degree cannot have belonged to a much later period than the middle of the eighteenth century. However, we shall see these Shetland Finns more plainly described if we turn to the latter part of the seventeenth century.

In "A Description of the Isles of Orkney," written by the Rev. James Wallace, A.M., Minister of Kirkwall, about the year 1688, one reads as follows:--

Sometime about this Country [Orkney] are seen these Men
which are called _Finnmen_; In the year 1682 one was seen
sometime sailing, sometime Rowing up and down in his little
Boat at the south end of the Isle of _Eda_, most of the
people of the Isle flocked to see him, and when they
adventured to put out a Boat with men to see if they could
apprehend him, he presently fled away most swiftly: And in
the Year 1684, another was seen from _Westra_, and for a
while after they got few or no Fishes, for they have this
Remark here, that these _Finnmen_ drive away the fishes
from the place to which they come.

Again, in Brand's "Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, etc." (1701), it is stated:--

There are frequently _Fin-men_ seen here upon the Coasts,
as one about a year ago on _Stronsa_, and another within
these few Months on _Westra_, a gentleman with many others
in the Isle looking on him nigh to the shore, but when any
endeavour to apprehend them they flee away most swiftly;
Which is very strange, that one man sitting in his little
Boat, should come some hundred of Leagues, from their own
Coasts, as they reckon _Finland_ to be from _Orkney_; It
may be thought wonderfull how they live all that time, and
are able to keep the Sea so long. His Boat is made of
Seal-skins, or some kind of leather, he also hath a Coat of
Leather upon him, and he sitteth in the middle of his Boat,
with a little Oar in his hand, Fishing with his Lines: And
when in a storm he seeth the high surge of a wave
approaching, he hath a way of sinking his Boat, till the
wave pass over, lest thereby he should be overturned. The
Fishers here observe that these _Finmen_ or _Finland-men_,
by their coming drive away the Fishes from the Coasts. One
of their Boats is kept as a Rarity in the _Physicians Hall
at Edinburgh_.

This last fact was first stated by Wallace (1688; previously quoted), who remarks:

One of their Boats sent from Orkney to Edinburgh is to be
seen in the Physitians hall with the Oar and the Dart he
makes use of for killing Fish, [and it is stated by Mr.
John Small, M.A., &c., in his edition[3] of this book that
the boat spoken of was "afterwards presented to the
University Museum, now incorporated with the Museum of
Science and Art, Edinburgh"; and a note appended to the
second edition also states that "there is another of their
boats in the Church of Burra in Orkney."]

Wallace's book has also a note ascribed to the author's son, to the following effect:

I must acknowledge it seems a little unaccountable how
these _Finn-men_ should come on this coast, but they must
probably be driven by storms from home, and cannot tell,
when they are any way at sea, how to make their way home
again; they have this advantage, that be the Seas never so
boisterous, their boats being made of Fish Skins, are so
contrived that he can never sink, but is like a Sea-gull
swimming on the top of the watter. His shirt he has is so
fastned to the Boat, that no water can come into his Boat
to do him damage, except when he pleases to untye it....

There is, it will be seen, some difference of opinion as to the place whence these Finn-men came. The Shetlandic folk-lore indicates Bergen, on the south-western coast of Norway; Brand regards Finland as their home; while Wallace takes a still wider range. This last writer (who is the first in point of time) says this of them:--"These _Finn-men_ seem to be some of these people that dwell about the _Fretum Davis_ [Davis Straits], a full account of whom may be seen in the natural and moral History of the _Antilles_, Chap. 18." At first sight, and according to modern nomenclature, the connection between the Antilles and Davis Straits seems very remote. But it must be remembered that the traditional country of "Antilla," or the "Antilles," probably included the modern Atlantic seaboard of North America; and that, when that territory was invaded by the Norsemen of the tenth century, it was found to contain a population of exactly the same description as those "Finn" races--people of dwarfish stature, who traversed their bays and seas in skin-covered skiffs.[4] However, Wallace's theory is obviously untenable. It is most improbable that any Eskimo of Davis Straits would attempt the trans-Atlantic passage in his tiny _kayak_, supporting life on the voyage by eating raw such fish as he might catch. Indeed, the feat is almost an impossibility. Moreover, it is quite clear that those Finn-men were voluntary and frequent visitors to the Orkneys, and (more especially) to the Shetlands; and the "Fin-land" from which they came is stated by the Shetlanders to have been no further off than Bergen, on the Norwegian coast.[5]

It is quite evident that "the Finns of the Shetlandic story" formed a branch of the "Ugrian race of the Finns"; and that some of them "came ow'r fa Norraway"--whether as "wizards," or as fishermen, or as pirates (for they figure in all these characters). The description of their skin-covered canoes is of itself quite sufficient to show that those "Finns" of Orkney and Shetland were of the Eskimo races. So that those "sea-skins," without which the captive Finn women could not make their escape, were simply their canoes. And the exaggerated stories of the speed with which the Finns could cross from Shetland to Bergen have their foundation in the fact that those little skiffs can be propelled through the water at such a rate that the hunted Finn was enabled to "flee away most swiftly" from the clumsier boats of his pursuers. The speed of the kayak is very clearly illustrated in an account of the doings of one of "these people that dwell about the _Fretum Davis_," who was brought to this country in 1816, and who, in that year, showed the great superiority of his skiff in a contest with a six-oared whale-boat at Leith. "He paddled his canoe from the inner harbour," says the _Scots Magazine_ of that year (p. 656), "round the Martello Tower and back in sixteen minutes, against a whale-boat with six stout rowers, and evidently shewed his ability to outsail his opponents by the advantages he frequently gave them, and which he redeemed as often as he chose." This, it will be seen, was simply a repetition of the scenes described a hundred and twenty years earlier, in the Orkney and Shetland groups; the chief difference being that those earlier Eskimos had their home in Europe, and not in any part of the western hemisphere. Of course, the Shetland belief that the Finns could "pull across to Bergen in a few hours," and that "nine miles for every warp (stroke of the oar) was the traditional speed," is obviously an exaggeration. But the distance (which is nearer 200 than "300" miles) might almost be traversed in the course of the long midsummer day of those northern latitudes--by such seafarers, and in such craft.[6]

But, while the "seal-skin" of the traditional Finn was primarily his skin kayak, it is likely enough that he is also remembered as the wearer of a seal-skin garment; and that from this has arisen the confusion of ideas regarding this magic "skin." "His boat is made of seal-skins, or some kind of leather," says Brand, in describing the Finn-man; but he adds that "_he_ also hath a coat of leather upon him." And Dr. Wallace tells us that the Finns "have this advantage, that be the seas never so boisterous, their boats being made of fish skins, are so contrived that he can never sink, but is like a sea-gull swimming on the top of the water." And he continues: "His shirt he has is so fastened to the boat that no water can come into his boat to do him damage, except when he pleases to untie it." Dr. Rink, in referring to the kayaks of those "Finn-men" who inhabit the regions surrounding the Fretum Davis, uses similar terms: "The deck alone was not sufficient; the sea washing over it would soon fill the kayak through the hole, in which its occupant is sitting, if his clothing did not at the same time close the opening around him. This adaptation of the clothing is tried by degrees in various ways throughout the Eskimo countries, but it does not attain its perfection except in Greenland, where it forms in connection with the kayak itself a water-tight cover for the whole body excepting the face."[7] But, in making this last statement, Dr. Rink is speaking of the nineteenth-century representatives of this race; and in ignorance of the fact that the "Eskimos" of the North Sea had long ago realized the necessity for this waterproof covering.[8]

This waterproof "shirt" is also specially mentioned in connection with the Finn kayak that the two Scotch writers of the seventeenth century refer to. Wallace, it will be remembered, says of the Orkney Finn-men that "one of their boats sent from Orkney to Edinburgh is to be seen in the Physicians' Hall, with the oar and the dart he makes use of for killing fish." At the time when Wallace wrote, in or about the year 1688, there is no doubt that the boat was so deposited. But, although the second writer, Brand, makes the same statement, it is evident that he only did so on the authority of his predecessor. Because, four or five years before Brand's book appeared, the Finnman's kayak had been presented by the Royal College of Physicians to the University of Edinburgh. The way in which the Physicians' College had obtained the boat was through the president of the college, Sir Andrew Balfour, eminent as a physician, botanist and naturalist, and a great collector of all sorts of curiosities. At his death in 1694, his collection passed to the University of Edinburgh, by bequest. But, for one reason or another, the Finnman's boat still remained in the Physicians' College. This will be seen from the following extract from the Minute Book of that College, which records the transfer of the boat to the University of Edinburgh, two years after Sir Andrew Balfour's death. The date of the Minute is 24th September, 1696.[9] "The qlk [whilk] day y^e colledge considering y^t dr Balfour's curiositys are all in y^e Colledge of Edr & amongst them y^e oars of y^e boat & y^e Shirt of y^e barbarous man y^t was in y^e boat belonging to y^e Colledge of physitians & y^t the same boat is likly to be lost they having noe convenient place to keep it in doe give the s^d boat to y^e colledge of Edr ther to be preserved & y^t it be insert there y^t its gifted by y^e royall Colledge."

From this extract we gain the additional information that the "Shirt" or "Coat of Leather" of the "barbarous man" himself had also found its way to the University Museum of Edinburgh; presumably through Sir Andrew Balfour also, or perhaps through his friend and colleague, Sir Robert Sibbald (known as the author,[10] _inter alia_, of a "Description" of the Orkney and Shetland Isles).[11]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Contributed to _The Contemporary Review_ of 1881, and _The Gentleman's Magazine_ of 1882.

[3] A reprint of 1883: William Brown, Edinburgh.

[4] _Antiquitates Americanæ._ _See_ Appendix B.

[5] It may be from them that an inlet at Bergen is called "_Fens_ Fiord." Bergen is so much associated with the "Finns" of Shetlandic tradition that it is at least worthy of notice that a special caste, known as _Strils_ (pronounced "Streels"), who are very primitive in character, and who are regarded by the neighbouring Norwegians as of a different stock from their own, still inhabit the numerous islands that protect Bergen from the ocean. "They speak Norwegian after a fashion of their own, but it is very difficult to understand them, and there is reason to suppose that their idioms have a Samoyede root." ("Bergen," by Lieut. G. T. Temple, R.N., in _Good Words_, 1880, p. 767 _et seq._)

[6] A recent visitor to the Greenland branch of that family states that "a skilled Eskimo can, in his kayak, go even eighty miles in one day." The length of the day is, of course, an important matter. Dr. Nansen, the traveller referred to (who made the above statement in his paper read before the Scottish Geographical Society at Edinburgh on 1st July, 1889) gained his experience of kayaks during winter, when the Greenland day is very short. If the eighty miles were done _then_, the speed is marvellous. It is so, indeed, in any case. When Dr. Nansen reached Godthaab in October, the nearest Europe-bound ship was lying at a place 240 miles to the south, and a "kayaker" was despatched thither to try and detain the vessel, which was to sail in the middle of the month. Though unsuccessful in his mission, he reached the vessel in plenty of time. The dates of his journey are not given. But the mere fact of the man being thus sent as an express messenger argues that a very high rate of speed was relied upon.

[7] "The Eskimo Tribes," Copenhagen, 1887, p. 6.

[8] It may be mentioned that the variety worn by the Alaskan Eskimo is not of seal-_skin_. It is described as a "peculiar waterproof coat called a camalinkie, made from the entrails of the seal, and is nearly as fine as tissue paper, almost every inch of it being quilted, to strengthen it. The Aleut wears this curious garment when seated in his canoe." ("Seal Hunting in Behring Sea"; contributed to the _Scotsman_ of Sep. 20, 1889, by Edward C. Richards.)

[9] For this extract I am indebted to the courtesy of the President and Council of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

[10] More correctly, the editor and publisher of a previous MS.

[11] It is an unfortunate circumstance that, owing to the lamentable indifference of the custodiers of the Finnman's canoe subsequent to the year 1696, it seems impossible to say whether or not that vessel is still preserved. In 1865 the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art became possessed of the collection of the University, and in that collection were two kayaks, with regard to which nothing definite was known at the time of transference. If the University "preserved" the Finnman's kayak, as the College of Physicians expected, then it must be one of these two, as these were the only kayaks in the University Museum in 1865. (In the hope of obtaining a definite solution of this question, I have given a description of that kayak which appears to be the most likely to be the Finnman's, in a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on 10th February, 1890.)