The Penguin Book of Mermaids

by The Penguin Book of Mermaids (retail) (epub)

  But soon afterward she was filled with regret and, right away when her husband returned, she went down on her knees in front of him to confess her mistake and ask his forgiveness.

  The sailor did not, however, give in to her pleas and decided, even though he loved his wife very much, to punish her.

  “Prepare to die,” he said to her.

  Tearing her hair, the terrified woman begged forgiveness again, implored, cried. . . .

  Her promises were to no avail. . . . Sailors keep their word!

  That same day, accompanied only by his unfaithful wife, he set sail on his ship.

  And when they were far from land and the water was deep, he suddenly grabbed her by the waist and threw her into the waves.

  “I’ve had my vengeance now,” he said, and sailed sadly back to the harbor.

  But the mermaids had pity on the beautiful drowned woman and embraced her, taking her into their care.

  The sight of beauty gives rise to compassion, and it was unacceptable for a woman like her to end her life as fish food.

  So the mermaids took her in and led her to their enchanted palaces, where other beautiful women and charming young men were eager to welcome her: some combed her long and lustrous hair, while others applied perfume to her hands and bosom, adorned her slender neck with a red coral necklace, slipped big shiny rings onto her dainty fingers. . . .

  And they gave her a name: Sea Foam.

  Amazed at such riches and kindnesses, she somewhat let go of her past misfortunes.

  But only a few days later, sorrow for having betrayed her beloved husband returned to torture her soul. Suddenly pale and unable to smile, she was sad and taciturn.

  Distressed, the mermaids taught her to sing their sweet songs in the hopes of consoling her. This was a sign of how special she was to them, since only sirens know how to sing sweetly enough to lure unwary sailors into their nets. The woman thus took her place in the chorus of beautiful sirens.

  But because she liked being alone she did not always join the charming group above water, preferring to wander here and there on her own.

  One night, when the full moon brightened both sea and sky, she spotted a ship approaching, full sail.

  The sirens said, “Come with us, come and sing with us. . . .”

  And from below the ship, the sweetest music ever began to rise. . . .

  Right then, a man was seen throwing himself over the ship’s wooden railing and into the sea: lured by their song, he had fallen prey to the charms of these marine beings.

  But Sea Foam recognized him in the moonlight: that man was her husband.

  So she begged and implored the mermaids not to kill him, not to transform him into red coral or white crystal. She wanted to try out on him a magical transformation of her own . . . if they would only let him live for at least another twenty-four hours.

  Moved to pity by her words, the mermaids consented.

  Once alone, she approached the white palace in which her husband was kept and started to sing ever so sweetly.

  Here are the words of her song:

  I knew you in life, and I was ungrateful; you loved me, taking me from my maiden’s nest to love’s bridal chamber; I betrayed you; many tears, many tears I have cried over my unfaithfulness! Recognize me now; I am your wife, who can no longer return to land. To prove my love, I’m here to save you, and I will save you!

  The unhappy prisoner heard the song and was amazed. Who was it singing so? Could it really be his wife?

  The song continued:

  To save you, I will be put to death, as the mermaids will punish me for freeing one who was destined to die. For you I will die blissfully! Now listen to me. The mermaids are frolicking not far from here, and it’s getting late. The sun is about to rise, and as you know, mermaids rest in daytime and charm sailors into their nets at night. This evening, when the mermaids are far away, I’ll come for you. Embrace me tight and let me take you. Farewell for now, my song ends here.

  The day went by and evening came.

  The seaman waited, anxiously and still doubtful, for his rescuer to come.

  And indeed she did arrive, radiant with joy, and taking him with her, she swam and swam for many hours, until they were close to a big ship.

  “Call for these sailors’ help,” said the woman. And the seaman called out three times. They lowered a rowboat from the ship into the water and rescued the man at sea.

  But once he’d returned home, the man felt unhappy. His love for his wife had been reawakened and was now mingled with gratitude.

  And so he decided to save his wife in turn, or die at sea himself.

  He went far into a forest and sat down under a chestnut tree where fairies were known to gather.

  He waited and waited. Suddenly, he noticed an ugly old woman next to him. She was smiling.

  “Who are you?” asked the strange hag.

  “I am an unhappy man,” the melancholy sailor exclaimed.

  “Let’s hear about what causes your unhappiness. . . .”

  The man realized she was a fairy who could help him out of his predicament and so, opening up his heart to her, he told the fairy about his life.

  “Well,” said the old woman, having heard him out, “you seem like a fine young man and I want to help you get your wife back. But there is a condition. Do you agree?”

  “I will do whatever you say.”

  “Come back here deep at night and leave under this tree the flower that can only be found in one of the mermaids’ palaces, which is called ‘il più bello’—the most beautiful.”

  “But how can I, just a wretched man, take such a flower from the bottom of the sea?”

  “If you want to be reunited with your wife, you must deliver that flower here.”

  “All right, I’ll try,” said the man. And off he went to his magnificent ship and set sail.

  When he was out at sea, he called to his wife. The beautiful woman answered him right away.

  “My love,” he said, “I want to save you.”

  “But how?” asked the poor woman, moved by his words.

  “If you are able to give me a flower that is found in one of the mermaids’ palaces and is called ‘il più bello’—‘the most beautiful’—you will be free to return home with me.”

  “Ah, this is impossible. There is such a flower, and its scent is heavenly, but it was once stolen from the fairies, and on the day when it is returned to them, one hundred mermaids will die. I would surely be among them.”

  “You won’t die,” the sailor reassured her, “because the fairies would save you.”

  “Come back tomorrow, and I will give you an answer.”

  The sailor returned the next day.

  “Well?” he asked his wife.

  And she answered, “In order for me to bring you the flower, you must agree to a sacrifice. . . .”

  “What will it be?”

  “You must sell all your belongings and use the money to buy all the most beautiful jewels that goldsmiths have in the main cities of the kingdom. Attracted by such fine jewelry, the mermaids will leave their palace, and I will be able to steal the flower.”

  “All right,” the husband replied and went back to town.

  Within just a few days he’d sold all his belongings; he then bought the most splendid jewels in the kingdom. With these, he sailed, and once he was out at sea he exhibited them in the sunlight.

  A multitude of mermaids started to follow the ship, begging him for jewels.

  While this was happening, there was a sudden and deep rumble, and the sea water rose to immense heights.

  The mermaids understood. . . .

  One hundred of them died.

  And one could see, high up in the sky, a fairy riding her broomstick and carrying away the beautiful woman, the sail
or’s wife, and with her the stolen flower. . . .

  Cola Pesce1

  Cola Pesce was a great swimmer from Torre Faro, half fish, half man: from the belly up, he was a human like us and could come out of the water; from the belly down he was a fish and never came out of the water. He would swim around under water most of the time and dive down to the bottom of the sea. When he came to shore, people would ask him, “Why don’t you come out of the water? Why is it that you can’t be on land?” And he would answer, “Can’t you see what kind of a creature I am? And anyway, underwater there are many sharks and ferocious beasts that fear me, and thus do not damage your fishnets. But the biggest fish is the conger eel, whose tail is in the west while its head is in the east.”

  Once, at the king’s request, he descended to the bottom of the sea and never returned, and perhaps he is still on his journey.2

  The Sailor and the Mermaid of the Sea1

  Once, it is said, that a sailor became friendly with the Mermaid of the sea, and that he wagered I don’t know what that she would not be able to touch the bottom of the sea and retrieve a ring. This sailor knew that the Mermaid could not remain long underwater without having trouble breathing; this is something the Mermaid had told him once in confidence. They made their bet, and the Mermaid said to the sailor, “I am about to dive underwater, and if in half an hour’s time you don’t see me coming back, and in my place some blood drops rise to the surface, I will be dead, and you should go.”

  And so the sailor took a ring off his finger and threw it in the water and the Mermaid dove down into the depths of the sea; but she was not to be seen again. A half hour later the water turned reddish, and the sailor understood.2

  LITERARY TALES

  Legend of Melusina1

  Jean d’Arras produced the first literary version of Mélusine, or Melusina, at the end of the fourteenth century, and it remains one of the most well-known mermaid stories.2 Summarized here in Thomas Keightley’s nineteenth-century account, this French medieval romance emphasizes how deeply taken Raymondin (Raymond in this translation) is with Mélusine’s beauty when he first meets her at a fountain in the forest. He marries her and cares for her to the point that, when he first discovers her snake tail, he is not horrified but only saddened. Like the Sirens in the Odyssey, Mélusine, with her serpent tail, is not originally represented as a mermaid. A fairy who has been cursed with turning into a half snake, half woman every Saturday, she keeps her secret hidden, and makes it a condition of their marriage that Raymondin must not see her on Saturdays. Overall, she is presented as powerful and noble, as she makes Raymondin wealthy and magically builds him a castle. When he breaks his promise, she leaves, flying away in her winged-snake or dragon form; however, she continues to appear to her descendants, reasserting her ghostly presence in the castle. While in other folkloric and literary Mélusine tales, the husband immediately denounces her shape as demonic, d’Arras allows for more complexity in the couple’s relationship—both by making Mélusine’s snake tail the result of a curse and by depicting her as a good wife and mother.

  Mélusine’s tale is part of the category of mermaid stories that focuses on a water being’s life in the human social world. Other animal brides, like the selkie wives, when married to humans have human bodies, but Mélusine continues to shape-shift on Saturdays. She is not a captive, having made a pact with her husband. More generally, the nature of her hybridity fluctuates: in illustrations, her dragonlike or serpentine tail gives way over time to a mermaid’s tail, and eventually to two fishtails. This transformation from a half snake, half woman into a mermaid may be tied to d’Arras’s situating her near water—a fountain and her bath—and to the fact that dragons and serpents have scales, just like fish. In a Christian framework, this transformation also helps to make her a more positive character, since fish and water hold a redemptive symbolism, while dragons are more demonic. Starting in the nineteenth century, a version of this story became part of Luxembourg’s foundational national myth, featuring the split-tailed Mélusine with the nation’s founder, Siegfroid, in the part of Raymondin.

  Elinas, king of Albania, to divert his grief for the death of his wife, amused himself with hunting. One day, at the chase, he went to a fountain to quench his thirst: as he approached it he heard the voice of a woman singing, and on coming to it he found there the beautiful Fay Pressina.

  After some time the Fay bestowed her hand upon him, on the condition that he should never visit her at the time of her lying-in. She had three daughters at a birth: Melusina, Melior, and Palatina. Nathas, the king’s son by a former wife, hastened to convey the joyful tidings to his father, who, without reflection, flew to the chamber of the queen, and entered as she was bathing her daughters. Pressina, on seeing him, cried out that he had broken his word, and she must depart; and taking up her three daughters, she disappeared.

  She retired to the Lost Island;3 so called because it was only by chance any, even those who had repeatedly visited it, could find it. Here she reared her children, taking them every morning to a high mountain, whence Albania might be seen, and telling them that but for their father’s breach of promise they might have lived happily in the distant land which they beheld. When they were fifteen years of age, Melusina asked her mother particularly of what their father had been guilty. On being informed of it, she conceived the design of being revenged on him. Engaging her sisters to join in her plans, they set out for Albania: arrived there, they took the king and all his wealth, and, by a charm, inclosed him in a high mountain, called Brandelois. On telling their mother what they had done, she, to punish them for the unnatural action, condemned Melusina to become every Saturday a serpent, from the waist downwards, till she should meet a man who would marry her under the condition of never seeing her on a Saturday, and should keep his promise. She inflicted other judgements on her two sisters, less severe in proportion to their guilt. Melusina now went roaming through the world in search of the man who was to deliver her. She passed through the Black Forest, and that of Ardennes, and at last she arrived in the forest of Colombiers, in Poitou, where all the Fays of the neighbourhood came before her, telling her they had been waiting for her to reign in that place.

  Raymond having accidentally killed the count, his uncle, by the glancing aside of his boar-spear, was wandering by night in the forest of Colombiers. He arrived at a fountain that rose at the foot of a high rock. This fountain was called by the people the Fountain of Thirst, or the Fountain of the Fays,4 on account of the many marvellous things which had happened at it. At the time, when Raymond arrived at the fountain, three ladies were diverting themselves there by the light of the moon, the principal of whom was Melusina. Her beauty and her amiable manners quickly won his love: she soothed him, concealed the deed he had done, and married him, he promising on his oath never to desire to see her on a Saturday. She assured him that a breach of his oath would for ever deprive him of her whom he so much loved, and be followed by the unhappiness of both for life. Out of her great wealth, she built for him, in the neighbourhood of the Fountain of Thirst, where he first saw her, the castle of Lusignan. She also built La Rochelle, Cloitre Malliers, Mersent, and other places.

  But destiny, that would have Melusina single, was incensed against her. The marriage was made unhappy by the deformity of the children born of one that was enchanted; but still Raymond’s love for the beauty that ravished both heart and eyes remained unshaken. Destiny now renewed her attacks. Raymond’s cousin had excited him to jealousy and to secret concealment, by malicious suggestions of the purport of the Saturday retirement of the countess. He hid himself; and then saw how the lovely form of Melusina ended below in a snake, gray and sky-blue, mixed with white. But it was not horror that seized him at the sight, it was infinite anguish at the reflection that through his breach of faith he might lose his lovely wife for ever. Yet this misfortune had not speedily come on him, were it not that his son, Geoffroi with the tooth,5 had burned his brother Freimund, wh
o would stay in the abbey of Malliers, with the abbot and a hundred monks. At which the afflicted father, count Raymond, when his wife Melusina was entering his closet to comfort him, broke out into these words against her, before all the courtiers who attended her:—“Out of my sight, thou pernicious snake and odious serpent! thou contaminator of my race!”

  Melusina’s former anxiety was now verified, and the evil that had lain so long in ambush had now fearfully sprung on him and her. At these reproaches she fainted away; and when at length she revived, full of the profoundest grief, she declared to him that she must now depart from him, and, in obedience to a decree of destiny, fleet about the earth in pain and suffering, as a spectre, until the day of doom; and that only when one of her race was to die at Lusignan would she become visible.

  Her words at parting were these:

  “But one thing will I say unto thee before I part, that thou, and those who for more than a hundred years shall succeed thee, shall know that whenever I am seen to hover over the fair castle of Lusignan, then will it be certain that in that very year the castle will get a new lord; and though people may not perceive me in the air, yet they will see me by the Fountain of Thirst; and thus shall it be so long as the castle stands in honour and flourishing—especially on the Friday before the lord of the castle shall die.” Immediately, with wailing and loud lamentation, she left the castle of Lusignan,6 and has ever since existed as a spectre of the night. Raymond died as a hermit on Monserrat.

  Fortunio and the Siren1, 2

  The Pleasant Nights, a collection of tales by Giovan Francesco Straparola (1550–1553), includes a few tales that are recognizably fairy tales, though such a genre had not been named yet.

  “Fortunio and the Siren” intertwines popular fairy-tale motifs and events: the unpromising hero, grateful animals, a bride contest, and a supernatural abduction. The hero’s encounter with the sirena (the Italian word sirena is the equivalent of both “Siren” and “mermaid” in English) appears to be serendipitous, but it results from his adoptive mother’s curse—that is, his own bad fortune. The mermaid’s song, somewhat reminiscent of Homer’s Sirens, seduces Fortunio, obliging him to spend several years with her in the depths of the ocean, but we have no details about her undersea world or their time together. As his name suggests, in the end, good fortune is on his side and brings him success. Fortunio is rescued by his bold and loyal wife, who brings their son as well as precious objects to aid her in her quest. As Fortunio is quick to demonstrate his desire to return to his wife, she stands in contrast to both his mother and the mermaid.