The Seal-Catcher
- A Folk tale from Scotland
There was once a man who lived at the very north of Scotland. He made his living by catching fish of all sizes and types, but he had a particular liking for killing those wonderful animals, half-dog, half-fish, called Seals. No doubt he liked killing the seals so much because he got a fancy price for their skins.
Now one day the fisherman stabbed a seal with his hunting knife, but he failed to kill it completely. The seal let out a loud cry of pain and slipped off the rocks and into the sea, taking the knife with it.
After that the fisherman returned home. Later that night, a stranger came to visit him in his cottage. The man said that he had been sent by his master who wanted to buy a large number of seal skins. The fisherman was very glad to hear this news. The two men both mounted the stranger’s horse, and rode off at great speed, their faces cutting through the sharp, salty air. Finally they reached a great cliff that overhung the sea, and the stranger told the fisherman that they had arrived.
“But where is the person who want to buy seal skins?” asked the astonished seal-catcher.
“Soon you shall see!” replied the stranger, and with that the stranger seized the fisherman with irresistible force, and they both plunged over the cliff and headlong down into the sea. After sinking down and down, nobody knows how far, they at last reached a pearly gate which opened onto a palace. The rooms of the palace were filled not with people, but with seals those could speak and feel like human. And the seal-catcher was surprised to find that he had been changed himself into the form of a seal.
