Roane is the Gaelic name for a seal, but the old people believed, as the Shetlanders believed of their selkies, that these were a kind of fairy creature, who wore their skins to travel through the sea, but could cast them off and appear in human shape. The Roane were the gentlest of all the fairy people. The selkies avenged the death of their kin by raising storms and sinking the boats of the seal-catchers, but the Roane seem to have borne little resentment against their persecutors.

Grant Stewart, in his "Highland Superstitions and Amusements" (843: p.65-71), tells of a seal-catcher who lived near John O'Groats, who had one day lost his clasp-knife in the attempt to kill a large dog-seal:

That night there came a knock at his door and a stranger leading a fine horse asked his name and told him that he had been sent to order a large number of sealskins from him. The customer was at hand, and would make the bargain with him himself. The two got on, and the horse plunged away at such a pace that the following wind seemed to blow in their faces. They rode along the wild coast until they reached a great crag above the sea. "Where are you taking me?" — said the fisherman. "Get down, and you'll soon see", — said the stranger, and as their feet touched the land he seized the fisherman and leapt with him right over the crag. Down and down they went into the depths of the sea until they came to a cave which was full of the seal people, and the fisherman perceived that he himself had become a seal. His companion was a seal too, but he and all the rest spoke and behaved like human mortals. They were all very sad. The fisherman was in great terror, for he knew that he must have killed many of their friends. His guide showed him a clasp-knife. "Do you know this knife?" — he said, and the fisherman had no choice but to confess that it was his, though he feared that in a moment it would be plunged into him. "It was with this knife that you wounded my father", — said the stranger, — "and only you can heal him". He led the fisherman into an inner cave where the big dog-seal that had escaped that day lay in great pain. The seal people told him what to do, and with the knife he made a circle round the wound and smoothed it with his hand, wishing with all his heart that it might be healed. And so it was, and the old seal got up from his couch as well as he had ever been. The fisherman still feared that he would be punished, but they told him not to be afraid; if he would swear a solemn oath never to kill a seal again he should be taken back to his wife and children. He took the oath with full solemnity; the stranger took him back to the cliff where their horse was waiting, and left him at his own door, with a gift of money that was worth the price of many seal-skins (843: p.65-71; 1290: p.340).

It is the seal maidens, too, who sometimes cast off their seal-skins and dance together on the shore. There are many tales in the Scottish Highlands, as well as in the Orkneys and Shetlands, of how mortal fishermen have sometimes seized a skin and taken captive one of the Roane as a wife. But the wife always recovers her skin and escapes back to the sea, just as the Gwragedd Annwn of Wales always leave their mortal husbands in the end. There is no lasting union between fairies and mortals (1290: p.340-341).