y were freebooters, who lived by plunder and
robbery, and this Columba soon discovered. He advised them to forsake
that course, and to be converted to his doctrines, to which they all
assented, and in the morning they accompanied the Saint on his voyage
homeward. This circumstance created a high veneration for the cave among
the disciples and successors of Columba, and that veneration still
continues, in some degree. In one side of it there was a cleft of the
rock, where lay the water with which the freebooters had been baptized;
and this was afterwards formed by art into a basin, which is supplied
with water by drops from the roof of the cave. It is alleged never to be
empty or to overflow, and the most salubrious qualities are ascribed to
it. To obtain the benefit of it, however, the votaries must undergo a
very severe ordeal. They must be in the cave before daylight; they stand
on the spot where the Saint first landed his boat, and nine waves must
dash over their heads; they must afterwards pass through nine openings in
the walls of the cave; and, lastly, they must swallow nine mouthfuls out
of the holy basin. After invoking the aid of the Saint, the votaries
within three weeks are either relieved by death or by recovery. Offerings
are left in a certain place appropriated for that purpose; and these are
sometimes of considerable value, nor are they ever abstracted. Strangers
are always informed that a young man, who had wantonly taken away some of
these not many years since, broke his leg before he got home, and this
affords the property of the Saint ample protection.

THE MERMAID WIFE.

A story is told of an inhabitant of Unst, who, in walking on the sandy
margin of a voe, saw a number of mermen and mermaids dancing by
moonlight, and several seal-skins strewed beside them on the ground. At
his approach they immediately fled to secure their garbs, and, taking
upon themselves the form of seals, plunged immediately into the sea. But
as the Shetlander perceived that one skin lay close to his feet, he
snatched it up, bore it swiftly away, and placed it in concealment. On
returning to the shore he met the fairest damsel that was ever gazed upon
by mortal eyes, lamenting the robbery, by which she had become an exile
from her submarine friends, and a tenant of the upper world. Vainly she
implored the restitution of her property; the man had drunk deeply of
love, and was inexorable; but he offered her pr