Mermaids and Mermen
Merfolk, Merpeople, Merrows, Merucha, Sjöjungfru
This is a race of amphibious beings. Probably they originated on the coast of Brittany and swam across the English Channel to Cornwall, where the inhabitants gave them the Anglo-French name of mermaids and mermen, i.e. sea-maids and sea-men.
From Cornwall they spread up the west coast of the British Isles and around northern Scotland to Scandinavia. Merpersons are occasionally sighted along the other coasts of Europe (although the nereids of the Mediterranean are only distant relations) but they seem to prefer the cold water and rugged Atlantic coasts of Britain and Ireland (where they are known as merrows or merucha) and the cliffs and fiords of Scandinavia.
Merpersons are also sighted on other coastlines of the world, including North America and China, but they often differ greatly in appearance from European mermaids. The theory that they are, however, related to dugongs or manatees is incorrect.
Mermaids and mermen live in and beneath the sea but can make themselves at home on land. They have their own language and customs, but are also able to speak the language of humans living on the nearest coastline. They like to make frequent trips ashore, if only to sit on rocks and comb out their long hair, and so they generally live in soundings rather than in the deep sea.
Fishermen often sight merpersons, especially in rough weather. They say that nothing could be more strikingly beautiful than a school of merpersons of all ages frolicking in the great Atlantic rollers, Their silvery bodies glistening amid the tumultuous surf and their green eyes flashing as they glissade down the waves. Contrary to popular belief they are never caught in the fishermen's nets. They are much too sea-wise and agile to become entangled in such obstacles. They live on fish and other seafood but do not resent and never interfere with fishermen - unless ofcourse the humans have offended them in some way.
Most mermaids are strikingly beautiful, even if this beauty sometimes appears a trifle cold. They are blonde, with long tresses ranging in colour from light brown to the tint known as 'strawberry blonde', and possess large green or blue-green eyes. Their skin is an immaculate pearly white, with a silvery sheen when it is slick with seawater. Breasts, arms, shoulders, hips and waist are all in perfect porpotion. The species developes slowly and it is impossible to tell the age of a merperson. The exquisitely beautiful children take a long time to reach adolescence, they enjoy a prolonged maidenhood, and when they reach their prime they retian the appearence of a mature human female for innumeralbe years.
Mermen are stalwart, swarthy, hirsute and muscular, but with softer characters than their appearence would seem to indicate.
Both sexes are human in appearence above the waist and fishlike below, with large tailflukes but no dorsal fins. They are, however, capable of changing their fishlike nether regions into human lower limbs, so that they may walk upon dry land, whenever they so desire. It is even possible that many merpersons spend the greater part of their lives, in or out of the water, with limbs instead of fishtails.
Relationships between merpersons and human beings are exceedingly complex. The two races have a great physical attraction for each other, but their characters are so different that associations between them usually end in disaster. Merpersons do not have souls, they are able to foretell the future, they are vain, jealous, and unforgiving, they have some degree of supernatural power, and they are probably immortal.
There are many accounts of shore-dwelling humans falling in love with merpersons, both male and female. When a woman falls in love with a merman he has the power to make her amphibious, and she goes to live with him under the sea. A mermaid, however, always sheds her tail and goes to live ashore with her human lover or husband.
Initially, such relationships are passionately happy, but the first fine careless rapture soon dies away. A human female starts to long for all her friends and relations ashore, and eventually foresakes her merhusband.
A mermaid begins to yearn for the wild freedom of life among the waves, and finds it is very difficult to adjust to the dry dustiness of life ashore. She scandalises the gossips by stripping off on the seashore and plunging naked into the sea, attracting her old companions to join her and sitting with them on the rocks to sing, chatter, and comb her hair.
Mermaids sing very sweetly, but they are hopeless cooks and mermaid beauty soon palls on her husband who arrives home and finds nothing but raw fish for his tea. They neglect the housework, being so vain that they can spend most of the day admiring themselves in the mirror and trying out new hairstyles. When the children come along they have webbed hands and feet, which makes them expert swimmers but ineffective at most other children's games. On the whole it is a relief for all concerned when a mermaid slips away with her children and rejoins her friends in the sea.
Merpersons always know, by their power of foretelling the future, that marriage with human spouses cannot endure, but nevertheless, they often show jealous fury when a marriage colapses. They tend to blame the human, and often cast a spell or curse upon their wife or husband. A fisherman who takes a merwife may as well stay ashore after she has left him. He will never catch another fish, and there is even a likelihood that he and his boat will be destroyed.
There are numerous relationships with merpersons apart from marriage. The saddest is when a young mermaid falls in love with a human but he does not respond, so that she pines away from hopeless desire. Sometimes a coastal community befriends a mermaid in order to benefit by her powers of futuresight, which she employes in return for such gifts as golden combs and mirrors. It is very useful for a fishing village to have an infallible weather forecaster, and to be told exactly where to fish for the biggest catch.
Occasionally a mermaid who conceives a passion for a human male will endow him with some of her own supernatural power, such as the ability to find treasure in sunken ships. Or a merperson may take a special liking for human child, become its self-appointed guardian, and inflict horrible punishments upon anyone who ill-treats the human ward.
Some members of the clergy have caused great distress by attempting to convert merpersons to Christianity, especially when they are beautiful young mermaids. It is, of course a hopeless endeavour.
Generally it may be said that merpersons are delightful creatures to observe at a distance but uncomfortable on closer association. Their intentions towards human beings are usually amiable, and they are rarely malicious unless they conceive themselves to be offended, but the differences in temperament between person and merpersons are insurmountable.