THE SHANDWICK MERRYMAID

A young man who lived in Balintore was walking along Shandwick beach one day when he saw a merrymaid – that was Dolly’s name for a mermaid – sitting on a rock. She was very beautiful and he thought she looked as if she’d make a good wife, but he wondered how he could stop her going back to the sea. He remembered something he’d heard – that if you find a merrymaid sitting on a rock and you walk round the rock three times widdershins, her tail will fall away. He thought he’d give it a try. He walked round the rock three times, and indeed her tail did drop off, and she had a good pair of legs underneath it.

The young man grabbed the tail and ran back to his cottage, folded the tail up and hid it behind the plant pots. Then he went into the kitchen and waited. Well, eventually he saw the merrymaid coming up the road, getting used to her land legs. She knocked at his door. When he answered it she asked for her tail back. He wouldn’t give it to her, but he did invite her in. Their shared a pot of tea and ot on quite well together and soon they were married, and in time they had three children.

She was a good mother but she missed her life in the sea. One day the man woke up and there was no sign of the merrymaid. He went down the garden to the shed and looked behind the plant pots, and the tail had gone. Of course she must have found it and slipped it back on and returned to the sea. That was the last the man and the three children ever saw of her.

Bob Pegg was told this story by Dolly MacDonald of Hilton, and put it in his book Highland Folk Tales.

Go to P5's page to hear their song about the mermaid.