"Away she went with a sea-gull's scream,
And a splash of her saucy tail,"[ [61] ]
for it instantly plunged with a scream into the sea.
From Irish legends we learn that those sea-nereids, the "Merrows," or "Moruachs" came occasionally from the sea, gained the affections of men, and interested themselves in their affairs; and similar traditions of the "Morgan" (sea-women) and the "Morverch" (sea-daughters) are current in Brittany.
In English poetry the mermaid has been the subject of many charming verses, and Shakspeare alludes to it in his plays no less than six times. The head-quarters of these "daughters of the sea" in England, or of the belief in their existence, are in Cornwall. There the fisherman, many a time and
"Oft, beneath the silver moon,[ [62] ]
Has heard, afar, the mermaid sing,"
and has listened, so they say, to
"The mermaid's sweet sea-soothing lay
That charmed the dancing waves to sleep."[ [62] ]
Mr. Robert Hunt, F.R.S., in his collection of the traditions and superstitions of old Cornwall,[ [63] ] records several curious legends of the "merrymaids" and "merrymen" (the local name of mermaids), which he had gathered from the fisher-folk and peasants in different parts of that county.
And, in a pleasant article in 'All the Year Round,'[ [64] ] 1865, "A Cornish Vicar"[ [65] ] mentions some of the superstitions of the people in his neighbourhood, and the perplexing questions they occasionally put to him. One of his parishioners, an old man named Anthony Cleverdon, but who was popularly known as "Uncle Tony," having been the seventh son of his parents, in direct succession, was looked upon, in consequence, as a soothsayer. This "ancient augur" confided to his pastor many highly efficacious charms and formularies, and, in return, sought for information from him on other subjects. One day he puzzled the parson by a question which so well illustrates the local ideas concerning mermaids, and the sequel of which is, moreover, so humorously related by the vicar, that I venture to quote his own words, as follows:—