Finfolk
The Finfolk (Shetlandic 'Finns') are the hostile, shapeshifting sea-folk of Shetland and Orkney belief, sea-monsters who could take the form of any marine animal or of humans and who pursued boats at sea. An early Shetland account recorded that 'sea monsters are for the most part called Finns in Shetland', that it was 'dangerous in the extreme' to say anything against them, and that silver money was thrown overboard to buy their goodwill, and John Spence gives them a full chapter in 'Shetland Folk-Lore' (1899). The best-known island tale, the Finnman of Fetlar, pits a young Fetlar fisherman ag