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In the wink of an eye she was by his side. When he got hold of her hand in both his hands, he let his foot down on the egg, and the sea-maiden died. What Irish man, woman, or child has not heard of our renowned Hibernian Hercules, the great and glorious Fin M'Coul? Not one, from Cape Clear to the Giant's Causeway, nor from that back again to Cape Clear.
And there was, too, this account of a housewife in her "kyrtil": The dress-train was trailing, The skirt had a blue tint; Her brow was brighter, Her neck was whiter Than pure new fallen snow. In other words, that one glance at Nancy in the garden, when he had risen at her entrance, had disclosed to Olaf the fundamental in her. He had known her as a sea-maiden.
But the sea-maiden took the princess, his wife. Sorrowful was each one that was in the town on this night. Her man was mournful, tearful, wandering down and up about the banks of the loch, by day and night. The old soothsayer met him.
The soothsayer told him that there was no way of killing the sea-maiden but the one way, and this is it: "In the island that is in the midst of the loch is the white-footed hind of the slenderest legs and the swiftest step, and though she be caught, there will spring a hoodie out of her, and though the hoodie should be caught, there will spring a trout out of her, but there is an egg in the mouth of the trout, and the soul of the sea-maiden is in the egg and if the egg breaks she is dead."
The boatmen, too, were continually whispering to one another in dismay, and eying their three superiors with distrust, while even the servants began more and more to form dismal surmises, and to watch their master and mistress with looks of suspicion. Huldbrand often said in his own mind, "This comes when like marries not like when a man forms an unnatural union with a sea-maiden."
The soothsayer told him that there was no way of killing the sea-maiden but the one way, and this is it "In the island that is in the midst of the loch is the white-footed hind of the slenderest legs and the swiftest step, and though she be caught, there will spring a hoodie out of her, and though the hoodie should be caught, there will spring a trout out of her, but there is an egg in the mouth of the trout, and the soul of the sea-maiden is in the egg, and if the egg breaks, she is dead."
And he told the story-teller never to trouble for fresh stories, but every night as long as he lived he listened again and he laughed afresh at the tale of the lank grey beggarman. There was once a poor old fisherman, and one year he was not getting much fish. On a day of days, while he was fishing, there rose a sea-maiden at the side of his boat, and she asked him, "Are you getting much fish?"
Our whole West Country is full of the most wonderful stories one might seek in vain for among the world of books and scholars of giants and dwarfs, fairies, wizards, water-horse, and sea-maiden.
For like the Nymphs of old, and the Hamadryads who lived, in trees, and Undine, and the little Sea-maiden, she would have no soul; no reason; no power to say why.
Everything happened as the sea-maiden said, and he himself got plenty of fish; but when the end of the twenty years was nearing, the old man was growing more and more sorrowful and heavy-hearted, while he counted each day as it came. He had rest neither day nor night. The son asked his father one day, "Is any one troubling you?"
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