mermaid

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

A  is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head and torso and the tail of a fish. Mermaids have a broad representation in folklore, literature, and popular culture.

Overview and etymology

The word is a compound of mere, the Old English word for "sea", and maid, a woman. The male equivalent is a merman.

Much like sirens, mermaids would sometimes sing to people and gods and enchant them, distracting them from their work and causing them to walk off the deck or run their ships aground. Other stories have them squeezing the life out of drowning men while attempting to rescue them. They are also said to take humans down to their underwater kingdoms. In Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, it is said that they forget that humans cannot breathe underwater, while others say they drown men out of spite.^{[citation needed]}

The sirens of Greek mythology are sometimes portrayed in later folklore as mermaid-like; in fact, some languages use the same word for both bird and fish creatures, such as the Maltese word 'sirena'. Other related types of mythical or legendary creatures are water fairies (e.g., various water nymphs) and selkies, animals that can transform themselves from seals to humans.^{[citation needed]}

History

Ancient Near East

The first known mermaid stories appeared in Assyria, ca. 1000 BC. Atargatis, the mother of Assyrian queen Semiramis, was a goddess who loved a mortal shepherd and in the process killed him. Ashamed, she jumped into a lake to take the form of a fish, but the waters would not conceal her divine beauty. Thereafter, she took the form of a mermaid — human above the waist, fish below — though the earliest representations of Atargatis showed her as being a fish with a human head and legs, similar to the Babylonian Ea. The Greeks recognized Atargatis under the name Derketo. Prior to 546 BC, the Milesian philosopher Anaximander proposed that mankind had sprung from an aquatic species of animal. He thought that humans, with their extended infancy, could not have survived early on. This idea reappeared as the aquatic ape hypothesis in the twentieth century.^{[citation needed]}

A popular Greek legend has Alexander the Great's sister, Thessalonike, turn into a mermaid after she died. She lived, it was said, in the Aegean and when she would encounter a ship, she would ask the sailors only one question: "Is King Alexander alive?" (Greek: "Ζει ο Βασιλιάς Αλέξανδρος;"), to which the correct answer would be: "He lives and reigns and conquers the world" (Greek: "Ζει και βασιλεύει και τον κόσμο κυριεύει"). This answer would please her and she would calm the waters and wish the ship farewell. Any other answer would spur her into a rage, whereupon she would raise a terrible storm, with certain doom for the ship and every sailor on board.^{[citation needed]}

Lucian of Samosata in Syria (2nd century AD) in De Dea Syria ("Concerning the Syrian Goddess") wrote of the Syrian temples he had visited:

"Among them - Now that is the traditional story among them concerning the temple. But other men swear that Semiramis of Babylonia, whose deeds are many in Asia, also founded this site, and not for Hera Atargatis but for her own Mother, whose name was Derketo"

"I saw the likeness of Derketo in Phoenicia, a strange marvel. It is woman for half its length, but the other half, from thighs to feet, stretched out in a fish's tail. But the image in the Holy City is entirely a woman, and the grounds for their account are not very clear. They consider fishes to be sacred, and they never eat them; and though they eat all other fowls, they do not eat the dove, for she is holy so they believe. And these things are done, they believe, because of Derketo and Semiramis, the first because Derketo has the shape of a fish, and the other because ultimately Semiramis turned into a dove. Well, I may grant that the temple was a work of Semiramis perhaps; but that it belongs to Derketo I do not believe in any way. For among the Egyptians, some people do not eat fish, and that is not done to honor Derketo."^[2]

Arabian Nights

The Arabian Nights (One Thousand and One Nights) includes several tales featuring "Sea People", such as Djullanar the Sea-girl. Unlike the depiction in other mythologies, these are anatomically identical to land-bound humans, differing only in their ability to breathe and live underwater. They can (and do) interbreed with land humans, the children of such unions sharing in the ability to live underwater.

In another Arabian Nights tale, "Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman", the protagonist Abdullah the Fisherman gains the ability to breathe underwater and discovers an underwater submarine society that is portrayed as an inverted reflection of society on land, in that the underwater society follows a form of primitive communism where concepts like money and clothing do not exist. Other Arabian Nights tales deal with lost ancient technologies, advanced ancient civilizations that went astray, and catastrophes which overwhelmed them.

In "The Adventures of Bulukiya", the protagonist Bulukiya's quest for the herb of immortality leads him to explore the seas, where he encounters societies of mermaids. "Julnar the Sea-Born and Her Son King Badr Basim of Persia" is yet another Arabian Nights tale about mermaids. When sailors come the mermaids sing, and some men are led straight to their doom. If they follow the mermaids' lovely and beautiful voices, they do not know what they are doing or where they're going.

British Isles

The Fisherman and the Syren, by Frederic Leighton, c. 1856–1858

Mermaids were noted in British folklore as unlucky omens – both foretelling disaster and provoking it. Several variants of the ballad Sir Patrick Spens depict a mermaid speaking to the doomed ships; in some, she tells them they will never see land again, and in others, she claims they are near shore, which they are wise enough to know means the same thing. They can also be a sign of rough weather.

Some mermaids were described as monstrous in size, up to 2,000 feet (610 m).

Mermaids could also swim up rivers to freshwater lakes. One day, in a lake near his house, the Laird of Lorntie saw, as he thought, a woman drowning, and went to aid her; a servant of his pulled him back, warning that it was a mermaid, and the mermaid screamed after that she would have killed him if it were not for his servant.

On occasion, mermaids could be more beneficent, giving humans means of cure.

Some tales raised the question of whether mermaids had immortal souls to answer it in the negative. The figure of Lí Ban appears as a sanctified mermaid, but she was originally a human being transformed into a mermaid; after three centuries, when Christianity had come to Ireland, she came to be baptized.

Mermen were also noted as wilder and uglier than mermaids, but they were described as having little interest in humans.

Warsaw Mermaid

1659, Coat of arms of Old Warsaw on the cover of an accounting book of the city.

The mermaid, or syrenka, is the symbol of Warsaw.Images of a mermaid have been used on the crest of Warsaw as its symbol since the middle of the 14th century.Several legends associate Triton of mythology with the city, which may have been where the association with mermaids originated

Other

Among the Neo-Taíno nations of the Caribbean the mermaid is called Aycayia.Her attributes relate to the goddess Jagua, and the hibiscus flower of the majagua tree Hibiscus tiliaceus. Examples from other cultures are the Mami Wata of West and Central Africa, the Jengu of Cameroon, the Merrow of Ireland and Scotland, the Rusalkas of Russia and Ukraine, the Iara from Brazil and the Greek Oceanids, Nereids, and Naiads. One freshwater mermaid-like creature from European folklore is Melusine, who is sometimes depicted with two fish tails, and other times with the lower body of a serpent. It is said in Japan that eating the flesh of a ningyo can grant unaging immortality. In some European legends mermaids are said to be unlucky.

Mermaids and mermen are also characters of Philippine folklore, where they are locally known as sirena and siyokoy, respectively. The Javanese people believe that the southern beach in Java is a home of Javanese mermaid queen Nyi Roro Kidul.

Mermaids are said to be known for their vanity, but also for their innocence. They often fall in love with human men, and are willing to go to great extents to prove their love with humans (see mermaid problem). Unfortunately, especially with younger mermaids, they tend to forget humans cannot breathe underwater. Their male counterparts, mermen, are rarely interested in human issues, but in the Finnish mythology merpeople are able to grant wishes, heal sickness, lift curses, brew magic potions, and sometimes carry a trident. Mermaids share some of the same characteristics.^{[citation needed]}

Claimed sightings

Claimed sightings of dead or living mermaids have come from places such as Java and British Columbia. There are two Canadian reports from the area of Vancouver and Victoria, one from sometime between 1870 and 1890, the other from 1967.

In August 2009, the town of Qiryat Yam in Israel offered a prize of US$1 million for anyone who could prove the existence of a mermaid off its coast, after dozens of people reported seeing a mermaid leaping out of the water like a dolphin and doing aerial tricks before returning to the depths.

Symbolism

According to Dorothy Dinnerstein’s book, The Mermaid and the Minotaur, human-animal hybrids such as the minotaur and the mermaid convey the emergent understanding of the ancients that human beings were both one with and different from animals:

"[Human] nature is internally inconsistent, that our continuities with, and our differences from, the earth's other animals are mysterious and profound; and in these continuities, and these differences, lie both a sense of strangeness on earth and the possible key to a way of feeling at home here."

Art and literature

 

16th century Zennor mermaid chair

One influential image was created by John William Waterhouse, from 1895 to 1905, entitled A Mermaid, (see the top of this article). An example of late British Academy style artwork, the piece debuted to considerable acclaim (and secured Waterhouse's place as a member of the Royal Academy), but disappeared into a private collection and did not resurface until the 1970s. It is currently in the collection of Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

The most famous in more recent centuries is Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale The Little Mermaid (1836), which has been translated into many languages. Andersen's portrayal, immortalized with a famous bronze sculpture in Copenhagen harbour, has arguably become the standard and has influenced most modern Western depictions of mermaids since it was published. The mermaid, as conceived by Andersen, appears to represent the Undines of Paracelsus, which also could only obtain an immortal soul by marrying a human being.

The best known musical depictions of mermaids are those by Felix Mendelssohn in his Fair Melusina overture and the three "Rhine daughters" in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Lorelei, the name of one of the Rhine mermaids, has become a synonym for a siren. A more recent depiction in contemporary concert music is The Weeping Mermaid by Taiwanese composer Fan-Long Ko.

Sue Monk Kidd has written a book called The Mermaid Chair. The title comes from a mermaid who becomes a (fictional) saint.

Movie depictions include the comedy Splash (1984) starring Daryl Hannah. A 1963 episode of the hit television series Route 66, featured an episode The Cruelest Sea about a real mermaid working at Weeki Wachee aquatic park. Mermaids also appeared in the popular supernatural drama television series Charmed, and were the basis of its spin-off series Mermaid. Animated films include Disney's popular musical version of Andersen's tale, and Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo.

Heraldry

Coat of arms of Warsaw

In heraldry, the charge of a mermaid is commonly represented with a comb and a mirror, and blazoned as a 'mermaid in her vanity'. Merfolk were used to symbolize eloquence in speech.^{[citation needed]}

A shield and sword-wielding mermaid (Syrenka) is on the official Coat of arms of Warsaw, the capital of Poland. The city of Norfolk, Virginia also uses a mermaid as a symbol, and a civic art project with variously decorated mermaid sculptures has been displayed all over the municipal area. The capital city of Hamilton, Bermuda has the mermaid in its coat of arms, displayed across the city.^{[citation needed]}

The personal coat of arms of Michaëlle Jean, Canada's Governor General, features two Simbi, mermaid-like spirits from Haitian Vodou, as supporters.

Hoaxes

During the Renaissance and Baroque eras, dugongs, frauds and victims of sirenomelia were exhibited in wunderkammers as mermaids.^{[citation needed]}

In the 19th century, P. T. Barnum displayed in his museum a taxidermal hoax called the Fiji mermaid. Others have perpetrated similar hoaxes, which are usually papier-mâché fabrications or parts of deceased creatures, usually monkeys and fish, stitched together for the appearance of a grotesque mermaid. In the wake of the 2004 tsunami, pictures of Fiji "mermaids" circulated on the Internet as supposed examples of items that had washed up amid the devastation, though they were no more real than Barnum's exhibit.

Sirenia

Sirenia is an order of fully aquatic, herbivorous mammals that inhabit rivers, estuaries, coastal marine waters, swamps, and marine wetlands. Sirenians, including manatees and the Dugong, have major aquatic adaptations: arms used for steering, a paddle used for propulsion, hind limbs (legs) are two small bones floating deep in the muscle. They appear fat, but are fusiform, hydrodynamic, and highly muscular. Prior to the mid 19th century, mariners referred to these animals as mermaids.

Sirenomelia

Sirenomelia, also called "mermaid syndrome", is a rare congenital disorder in which a child is born with his or her legs fused together and the genitalia are reduced. This condition is about as rare as conjoined twins, affecting one out of every 100,000 live births^[26] and is usually fatal within a day or two of birth because of kidney and bladder complications. Four survivors were known to have been alive as of July 2003.

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

The Mermaid of the magdalenes by Bliden Moonlore

There are also stories of a mermaid in the ocean, seen once a year on the first of May. She appears on the shore combing her long hair and singing sadly. She seeks to lure the local people, who stay hidden in their homes. At one time the mermaid in the ocean was as human as they.

One day, perhaps inevitably, a ship sank and it's cargo of canned sardines washed up on one of the Magdalenes. A young girl found the wreckage and anxiously tried to open one of the cans.

She tried to force it open with her fingers, and wood from the wreak. When that didn't work she banged it violently against a rock. Little did she know that the lobster lived under that rock and the knocking attracted his attention.

Crawling out, he saw the girl and heard her complaining to herself. He saw the cans of dead sardines and remembered their plight. Angrily, he grabbed the girl by the wrist and dragged her into the ocean.

No one knows what the lobster did with her. Some say he gave her to the merman to be his bride. That each year she lives beneath the sea she comes to look more and more like a fish. Once a year, she seeks unsuccessfully to restore her link to the race of men. Some day she will become forever a mermaid in the ocean.

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

According to the online New World Encyclopedia, "... A mermaid (from the Middle English mere meaning "sea" and maid, meaning "girl") is a legendary aquatic creature with the head and torso of a human female and a fish-like tail. The male version of a mermaid is known as a merman, and the gender-neutral plural is merfolk or merpeople. Merfolk appear in a plethora of cultures worldwide—legends often tell of mermaids singing to sailors, enchanting them, and luring them to their death. The origin of the mermaid legend is often traced to the manatee or dugong, large aquatic mammals that can sometimes have human-like characteristics. "


Resource:

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Mermaid

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

According to the online New World Encyclopedia, "... A mermaid (from the Middle English mere meaning "sea" and maid, meaning "girl") is a legendary aquatic creature with the head and torso of a human female and a fish-like tail. The male version of a mermaid is known as a merman, and the gender-neutral plural is merfolk or merpeople. Merfolk appear in a plethora of cultures worldwide—legends often tell of mermaids singing to sailors, enchanting them, and luring them to their death. The origin of the mermaid legend is often traced to the manatee or dugong, large aquatic mammals that can sometimes have human-like characteristics. "


Resource:

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Mermaid

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

“In Japan, it is said that eating the flesh of a mermaid can grant immortality. Icelandic folklore tells of mermen known as Marbendlar, and tales of mermaids and mermen were often found in the folklore and legends of the British Isles.


Mermaids were noted in British folklore as ominous: foretelling disaster as well as provoking it. Some were described as monstrous in size, up to 160 feet. Mermaids could also swim up rivers to freshwater lakes. As one legend goes, the Laird of Lorntie thought he saw a woman drowning in a lake. As he went to aid her, a servant pulled him back, warning that the woman was actually a mermaid. The mermaid then screamed that she would have killed him if it were not for his servant.



In Irish folklore, tales of mermaids tend to be more romantic. It was believed that mermaids could transform into human form through the removal of a cap or sea-skin. Instead of mermaids who lure men to their death, Irish mermaid legends often tell of men who hide the cap or sea-skin of a mermaid in order to marry them and bring them home. There are several Irish families who claim mermaids as ancestors, and include mermaid images on their family crests and arms.


Mermaids were often featured in the decoration of Medieval churches, particularly in the British Isles. Often shown holding a comb and mirror, mermaids not only embodied the sins of pride and vanity, but were also often used to represent the sin of lust. Images of mermaids holding a fish or starfish were used to represent a Christian soul that had been lost to the deadly sin of lust, and were placed in churches to warn churchgoers not to be seduced by such evils.”


Resource:

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Mermaid

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Christine Narducci 3:36in the evenin' Jan 20
The Maid-of-the-Wave

The mermaid, or, as she is called in Gaelic, Maid-of-the-Wave, has great beauty and is sweet-voiced. Half her body is of fish shape, and glitters like a salmon in sunshine, and she has long copper-coloured hair which she loves to comb as she sits on a rock on a lonely shore, gazing in a mirror of silver, and singing a song in praise of her own great beauty. Sometimes, on moonlight nights, she takes off her skin covering and puts on sea-blue garments, and then she seems fairer than any lady in the land.

Once a young crofter was wandering below the cliffs on a beautiful summer night when the wind was still and the silver moon shone through the clear depths of ocean, casting a flood of light through Land-under-Waves. He heard sounds of song and laughter. He crept softly towards a shadowy rock, and, climbing it, looked down on a bank of white sand. There he beheld a company of mermaids dancing in a ring round a maid who was fairest of the fair. They had taken off their
skin coverings, and were gowned in pale blue, and, as they wheeled round about, their copper tresses streamed out behind their backs, glistening in the moonlight. He was delighted by their singing and amazed at their beauty.

At length he crept stealthily down the rock, and ran towards the skin coverings lying on the sand. He seized one and ran off with it. When the mermaids saw him they screamed and scattered in confusion, and snatching up their skin coverings, leapt into the sea and vanished from sight. One maid remained behind. This was the fair one round whom the others had been dancing. Her skin covering was gone, and so she could not return to her sea home.

Meanwhile the crofter ran to his house and hid the skin covering in a box, which he locked, placing the key in his pocket. He wondered what would happen next, and he had not long to wait. Someone came to his door and knocked softly. He stood listening in silence. Then he heard the knocking again, and opened the door. A Maid-of-the-Wave, clad in pale sea-blue garments, stood before him, the moonlight glistening on her wet copper hair. Tears stood in her soft blue eyes as she spoke sweetly saying: "O man, have pity and give me back my skin covering so that I may return to my sea home."

She was so gentle and so beautiful that the
crofter did not wish her to go away, so he answered: "What I have got I keep. Do not sorrow, O fair one. Remain here and be my bride."

The mermaid turned away and wandered along the shore, but the crofter did not leave his house. In the morning she returned again, and the crofter said to her: "Be my bride."

The mermaid consented saying: "I cannot return to my fair sea home. I must live now among human beings, and I know no one except you alone. Be kind to me, but do not tell man or woman who I am or whence I came."

The crofter promised to keep her secret, and that day they were married. All the people of the township loved Maid-of-the-Wave, and rejoiced to have her among them. They thought she was a princess from a far country who had been carried away by the fairies.

For seven years the crofter and his wife lived happily together. They had three children, two boys and a girl, and Maid-of-the-Wave loved them dearly.

When the seventh year was drawing to a close the crofter set out on a journey to Big Town, having business to do there. His wife was lonely without him, and sat often on the shore singing songs to her baby girl and gazing over the sea.

One evening, as she wandered amidst the rocks, her eldest boy, whose name was Kenneth, came

to her and said: "I found a key which opened Father's box, and in the box I saw a skin like the skin of a salmon, but brighter and more beautiful, and very large."

His mother gasped with surprise and secret joy, and asked softly: "Will you give me the key?"

Kenneth handed the key to her, and she hid it in her bosom. Then she said: "It is getting late. The moon will not rise till near midnight. Come home, little Kenneth, and I shall make supper, and put you to bed, and sing you to sleep."

As she spoke she began to sing a joyous song, and Kenneth was glad that his mother was no longer sad because his father was from home. He grasped his mother's hand, and tripped lightly by her side as they went homeward together.

When the two boys had supper, and were slumbering in bed, the crofter's wife hushed her girl-baby to sleep, and laid her in her cradle. Then she took the key from her bosom and opened the box. There she found her long-lost skin covering. She wished to return to her fair sea home, yet she did not care to leave her children. She sat by the fire for a time, wondering if she should put on the skin covering or place it in the box again. At length, however, she heard the sound of singing coming over the waves, and the song she heard was like this:--
Maid-of-the-Wave, the dew mist is falling,
Thy sisters are calling and longing for thee;
Maid-of-the-Wave, the white stars are gleaming,
Their bright rays are streaming across the dark sea.
Maid-of-the-Wave, would thou wert near us!
Come now to cheer us--Oh, hear us! Oh, hear us!

Maid-of-the-Wave, a sea-wind is blowing,
The tide at its flowing hath borne us to thee;
Maid-of-the-Wave, the tide is now turning--
Oh! we are all yearning our sister to see.
Maid-of-the-Wave, come back and ne'er leave us,
The loss of thee grieves us--believe us! believe us!

Maid-of-the-Wave, what caredst thou in childhood
For moorland or wildwood? thy home was the sea.
Maid-of-the-Wave, thine exile and sorrow
Will end ere the morrow, and thou shalt be free.
Maid-of-the-Wave, to-night from our sea-halls
A heart-spell on thee falls--the sea calls! the sea calls!

She kissed the two boys and wept over them. Then she knelt beside her little baby girl, who smiled in her sleep, and sang:

Sleep, oh! sleep my fair, my rare one,
Sleep, oh! sleep nor sigh nor fret thee.
Though I leave thee it doth grieve me--
Ne'er, oh! ne'er will I forget thee.

Sleep, oh! sleep, my white, my bright one,
Sleep, oh! sleep and know no sorrow.
Soft I kiss thee, I who'll miss thee
And thy sire who'll come to-morrow.

Sleep, oh! sleep my near, my dear one,
While thy brothers sleep beside thee.
They will waken all forsaken--
Fare-thee-well, and woe betide me!
When she had sung this song she heard voices from the sea calling low and calling sweet:

Maid-of-the-Wave, oh! list to our singing;
The white moon is winging its way o'er the sea.
Maid-of-the-Wave, the white moon is shining,
And we are all pining, sweet sister, for thee.
Maid-of-the-Wave, would thou wert near us!
Come now to cheer us--Oh, hear us! Oh, hear us!

The weeping mother kissed her boys and her baby-girl once again. Then she put on her skin covering and, hastening down the beach, plunged into the sea. Ere long, sounds of joy, and laughter were heard far out amongst the billows, and they grew fainter and fainter until they were heard no more. The moon rose high and fair, and shone over the wide solitary ocean, and whither the mermaids had gone no one could tell.

When the crofter returned next morning he found the children fast asleep. He wakened Kenneth, who told him about finding the key and opening the box.

"Where is the key now?" the crofter asked.

"I gave it to Mother," said the boy.

The crofter went towards the box. It was open, and the skin covering was gone. Then he knew what had happened, and sat down and sorrowed because Maid-of-the-Wave had gone.

It is told that the lost mother often returned at night-time to gaze through the cottage windows

on her children as they lay asleep. She left trout and salmon for them outside the door. When the boys found the fish they wondered greatly, and their father wept and said: "Your mother is far away, but she has not forgotten you."

"Will Mother return again?" the boys would ask.

"No, Mother will not return," their father would say. "She now dwells in the home of her people, to which you and I can never go."

When the boys grew up they became bold and daring seamen, and no harm ever came to them in storm or darkness, for their mother, Maid-of-the-Wave, followed their ship and protected it from all peril.

A mermaid has power to grant three wishes, for she is one of the fairy folk of ocean and a subject of Queen Beira's.

Once a seaman saw a Maid-of-the-Wave sitting on a rock. He crept towards her unheard and unseen, and seized her in his arms.

"Let me go!" the mermaid cried, "or I shall drag you into the sea."

"I shall not let you go," said the seaman, who was very strong, "until you have granted me three wishes."

"What are your wishes?" asked the mermaid.

"Health, wealth, and prosperity."

"Your wishes are granted," exclaimed the mermaid,
who, being then released, plunged into the sea and vanished from sight.

Sometimes a mermaid will give good advice to human beings. There was once a man in Galloway who had skill as a curer of diseases, and it was said that he received some of his knowledge from a mermaid. A beautiful girl named May was ill with consumption. The Galloway herbalist tried in vain to cure her, and as he loved her dearly and wished to marry her, his heart was very sad when he found that his herbs did not do her any good. One evening as he sat sorrowing on the shore, a mermaid raised her head above the waves and sang:

Would you let bonnie May die in your hand
And the mugwort 1 flowering in the land?

Then she vanished. The man went at once and gathered the flowers of the mugwort, and made a medicine. This he gave to May, who was soon restored to health.

A mermaid may be offended by anyone who interferes with her, and if she is offended she may do harm.

An old family once lived in a house called Knockdolion, which stood on the banks of the Water of Girvan in Ayrshire. There was a black stone at
the end of the house, and a mermaid used to come and sit on it, combing her hair and singing for hours on end. The lady of the house could not get her baby to sleep because of the loud singing of the mermaid, so she told her men-servants to break up the stone. This they did, and when the mermaid came on the night that followed she found no stone to sit upon. She at once flew into a rage, and cried to the lady of the house:--

Ye may think on your cradle--
I think on my stane;
There will ne'er be an heir
To Knockdolian again.

Not long after this the baby died. He was the only child in the house, and when his father and mother died the family became extinct.

Once a Forfarshire landowner nearly lost his life by rushing into a lake towards a mermaid. He thought she was a young lady who had got beyond her depths while bathing. As she struggled in the water she called to him: "Help! help! or I'll drown." When the landowner entered the lake his man-servant followed him and hauled him back. "That wailing woman," the servant said, "is not a human being but a mermaid. If you had touched her, she would have dragged you down and drowned you." As he spoke the sound of laughter came over the lake, and the mermaid was seen swimming away in the dusk.