In the Shetland Isles mermaids are said to dwell among the fishes, in the depths of the ocean, in mansions of pearl and coral. They resemble human beings, but greatly excel them in beauty. When they wish to visit the earth they put on the ham or garb of some fish, but if they lose this garment, all hopes of return are annihilated and they must stay where they are.
A mermaid was found by a fisherman called Pergrin at St. Dognael's, near Cardigan, and he took her prisoner, but she wept bitterly and said to him, "If you will let me go, Pergrin, I will call to you three times at the moment of your greatest need." Moved by her distress, he obeyed and almost forgot the incident, but some weeks later he was fishing on a hot, calm day, when he heard distinctly, the call, thrice repeated, "Pergrin, take up thy nets." This he did in great haste, and by the time he reached the harbour a terrible storm had come up, and all the other fishermen who had not been warned were drowned. This story, it is claimed, belongs to other parts of Wales also.
There is said to be a castle in Finland, on the borders of a small lake, out of which, previously to the death of the Governor, an apparition in the form of a mermaid arises and makes sweet melody.
One of the most charming descriptions of a Sea-maiden is found in Hans Andersen's well-known story of "The Little Mermaid." Her skin is as soft and delicate as a rose-leaf, her eyes are as deep a blue as the sea, but like all other mermaids, she has no feet; her body ends in a tail like that of a fish. For many years she plays happily in the enchanted palace of the Mer-king, her father, but when she reaches years of discretion she visits the earth and falls in love with a handsome prince, forsaking her home and family and giving away her beautiful voice for love of him. But she does more even than this, for she has to appeal to a witch to transform her into a maiden like the others who walk on land, and the process is a terribly painful one. The witch prepares a drink she has to take with her on her journey to the unknown country, and she is told that she must sit down on the shore and swallow the draught, and that then her tail will fall and shrink up "to the things which men call legs." When she walks or dances the pain will be as though she were walking on the sharp edge of swords or the edges of ploughshares. But she braves all these terrors and dances more gracefully than ever any earth-maiden could do, hoping that her prince will marry her and so give her the right to an immortal soul. Then the real tragedy occurs, for the prince loves her only as a beautiful child, and he marries a princess of his own kind, so that the mermaid's sacrifice seems to be thrown away. If she wishes to return to her original state she has to kill the prince, but when she holds the knife over him as he sleeps beside his beautiful bride she cannot find it in her heart to harm him, and sooner than think of her own forlorn condition, she throws the knife into the sea and gives up, as she believes, her last hope of happiness. But then her reward comes, for she is borne into the air by the daughters of that element, and the story ends with a promise of a new and a lovelier existence.
Mr. H. G. Wells, among recent writers, has used the idea of the mermaid in his quaint story "The Sea Lady."
The famous mermaid figures in the coat-of-arms of several well-known families. Sometimes she holds a mirror, sometimes a mirror and comb. A red mermaid with yellow hair on a white field appears in the arms of the family living at Glasfryn in the south of Carnarvonshire.
Other marine monsters besides mermaids are sometimes found in the sea, which, without corresponding exactly to man, yet resemble him more than any other animals. However, like the rest of the brutes, they lack mind or soul. They have, says Paracelsus, the same relations to man as the ape and are nothing but the apes of the sea.
Merovingian princes traced their origin to a sea-monster, and Druid priestesses claimed to be able to assume animal form and to rule wind and wave. Indeed, since men first sought to classify other living organisms, they have credited nature with producing strange and weird monsters, half-human, half-animal, which exist either in their own imaginations or in realms beyond the material plane of everyday cognisance.
In the third Calmuc tale, a man who possesses but one cow unites himself to her in order that she may become fruitful, and a tailed monster is born having a man's body and a bull's head. This man-bull, who is Minotaur, goes into the forest and picks up three companions, one black, one green, one white, who accompany him. He overcomes the enchantments of a dwarf witch, and when lowered into a well by his companions, he manages to escape. Presently he meets a beautiful maiden drawing water, at whose every footstep a flower springs, and following her, finds himself in heaven.