Importance of sealskin.

This is in chapter 9. Belonging to a seal-woman, the seal-woman sheds her skin when she comes out of the water and becomes her human aspect. She must have her skin in order to reemerge into her seal aspect. The man, who becomes her husband, hides her skin in order to force the woman to stay in her human form and marry him. The woman's son later finds the skin and returns it to her so that she can become her other aspect, that of a seal.