now for its fairy dwellers)[1] so they argued with the seal who, however, convinced them that he was their relative. He had for his sins done in the body been condemned for a certain time to walk the night as a seal. He bade them to give up murdering seals "who may be nearer to yourselves than you think." The boys, especially his grandson, Tim O'Dowd, firmly believed all this and so convinced their neighbours that they gave the best proof of the faith that was in them by giving up their lucrative seal trade.[2]
One Owen Gallagher ("Tim") before that time used to go seal shooting and got lost at sea in a fog near Portacloy. As he deemed he drew near to some island, which he supposed to be Iniskea, he reached an unknown rock. An old man met him and accused him of being the cause of all his misery, having shot at and blinded him when in the form of a seal. The seal man further explained that his race was under enchantment, but could resume their human form on the island, he warned him (with more than Christian forgiveness) that he should leave before the seal's sons returned as they might avenge their parent's wrongs. "Tim" put out to sea, the fog cleared and he reached Portacloy in safety, ever after warning his neighbours to be cautious what they did for "seals were not natural."
The Portacloy caves, especially those at the great fortified headland of Dunminulla, are full of seals, and a quarter of a century since, Dr. Charles Browne heard there that a man was about to kill a seal in one of them when it turned into a large frog and escaped. His informant was a relative of the hunter, and told it to show how unlucky it was to kill a seal."[3] I found the belief flourishing in 1911, but my hosts the Dohertys and others did not hesitate to kill seals as destructive to fish.
Maxwell tells us, in Wild Sports of the West,[4] in 1832, of a noted seal in Erris called " Shawn a tra buoy," or " John of the yellow strand," who, like the "master otter," used to foretell the weather and bore a charmed life.
