If we can trust the Halls (who, unlike Otway's friends and Maxwell, burned to "make a good story" of everything and rarely tell one naturally), there was a wild seal legend on Achill. Its resemblance to genuine legends inclines me to accept it at least in outline. Hall premises that seals embody the souls of those lost in the Deluge, doomed to bear this purgation till the world is burned, when they shall be purged and fit for Heaven. People in Achill believe that the animals can resume their human form once in a century. Usually, however, they are believed to be able to change always or at frequent intervals, usually in the dusk or night. John O'Glin of Achill hearing singing on the shore looked over a rock and saw a score of people dancing with a heap of sealskins beside them. A screeching arose and he and they ran to the skins, of which he secured one. Its owner, a fine and beautiful girl, in a loose dress, tied with golden strings, being unable to escape into the sea, was left weeping in his power. He cheered and comforted her, brought her home and got her to consent to marry him. They had several children; she used to eat raw fish, but cooked food for him and the children; she made him promise never to shoot at one of her people, and used to go and talk long with seals on the shore. One day, in his absence, she disappeared; the children grew up "yellow but clever," and the husband used to hear the lost wife singing to him under the sea. He used to sing back to her but, though she used to sob and cry at his song, he never saw her again.[1]
People on Galway Bay, on Inishbofin and on Inishark believe firmly in the Mac Conghaile, or Coneelys, being of seal blood, and regard shooting a seal as murder and eating its flesh as cannibalism. The belief is strong at Lettermullen, Gorumna, Carna and Mace, but it does not (as I have seen) prevent anyone from firing at a seal.
In Aran we also find the belief, but folk wear a strip of sealskin against colic, to which they are very liable from their food. The Book of Lismore,[2] p. 57, tells a curious legend of St. Brigid
