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.