IN THE HEBRIDES SEA BEANS ARE supposed to be fairies’ eggs. Whether this is a correct belief or not it is certain that all peoples of the world living near the ocean have entertained faith that its waters were inhabited by human-like creatures more or less supernatural. Mermen and mermaids have figured in song and story from the most ancient times. Many of the accounts given respecting them are highly circumstantial. On one occasion a Shetland fishermen saw a group of mermaids dancing on the strand. He ran and picked up the seal-skin belonging to one of them before she could secure it. Then she was at his mercy and was obliged to marry him. One of her children found the sealskin subsequently and showed it to her. She immediately put it on and escaped into the water, being afterward seen by her husband in the form of a seal.     Mermaids have been said to commonly appear in the form of seals while in the water, divesting themselves of the skins when they come on shore and assuming the aspect of beautiful girls. Sometimes they are of an amiable disposition, while on other occasions they are extremely mischievous. In Russia they are disposed to tickle bathers to death. Water sprites in that country are imagined to be the ghosts of still-born and unbaptised children or of drowned persons. They light the mysterious jack-o’-lantern. Sometimes they raise storms, and ordinarily they have much influence upon the luck of fishermen.
    Columbus described three mermaids which he himself saw floating on the waves. Many other early navigators give similar accounts. In the writings of Hendrik Hudson that bold mariner says: “One of are company looking overboard saw a mermaid. She came close to the ship’s side, looking earnestly at the men. Soon after a sea came and overturned her. From the navel up her back and breasts were like a woman’s, her body as big as one of us, and long black hair hanging down behind. When she dived we saw her tail, which was like that of a porpoise, speckled like mackerel.” Undoubtedly these mermaids, beheld by old-time voyagers were dugongs and manatees. Seals and walrus seen by persons unfamiliar with those animals have given rise to many such tales.
    Scoresby says that the front view of a young walrus without tusks resembles a human face so remarkably that it required very little stretch of the imagination to mistake the head reared above the water for that of a human being. The French call the manatee “sea woman.” and the dugong is named by the Dutch “little man.” Stories of mermaids singing or talking may have arisen from hearing the cries of seals, which resemble those of children somewhat.
    In a learned report respecting a mermaid caught in Denmark, who was taught to knit. Dr. Kerschur describes the creature as having a pretty face, mild eyes a small nose, fingers joined by cartilage like a goose’s foot and breasts round and hard. He asserted that mermaids and mermen constitute a submarine population, which, partaking of the skill of the ape and the beaver, build grottoes of stone in places inaccessible to divers. In 1611 a sea woman was taken alive near the island of Boro. She was five feet long. After surviving four days she died, not having eaten anything. Her head was like that of a woman, the eyes light blue and the hair sea green. The upper parts of her body were almost as white as a woman’s, but the lower part was like the tail of fish.     It is related that in 1493 a mermaid swimming in the Zuyder Zee during a period of tempest and very high tides was carried through a hole in a broken dyke and could not find her way out again. She was captured and taken to the town of Edam, where she wan washed and cleansed from the sea moss which had grown about her. She then appeared like any woman of the land, adopting proper dress an partaking of ordinary food. She tried often to escape and to make her way to the water, but was closely guarded. People came from great distances to see her. Supposing this story to be true, the woman was either a fraud or a demented outcast. In the Faroe Islands it is believed that on every ninth night the seals cast off their skins, assume human forms and dance on the beach. But if they lose their sealskins in any way they cannot resume the shapes of seals.     Numerous instances are related of these people of the sea having carried off human beings, conveying them to their pearl-lined grottoes in the depths. Mermen have in this manner often obtained human girls for brides, while mermaids not infrequently seek to secure for husbands good-looking youths from dry land. Sometimes the individuals who are entrapped or seduced into taking up a submarine manner of life have found it much more enjoyable than their former terrestrial existence, but in a majority of the cases on record they have sought to escape sooner or later. In Denmark one day a merman enticed a maiden to the bottom of the ocean. She became his wife and bore him several children, but she always felt a longing to go up when she heard the bells in the steeple, of her native village. Finally her husband permitted her to go, on promise that she would return, but she never did come back, and his wails from the depths are often heard.     The Arabs believe that certain fishmen live on islands in the Indian ocean and eat drowned people. In a Japanese story a boy has his fish carried off by a large fish. A merman appears and sets him afloat in a basket, in which he sinks to the palace of the sea dragon, whose daughter he falls in love with and marries. In the tale of the Lord of Dunkerron he encounters a mermaid.

“For a beautiful spirit of ocean, ’tis said.
The Lord of Dunkerron would win to his bed.
When by moonlight the waters were hushed to repose
The beautiful spirit of ocean arose.
Her hair, full of luster, just floated and fell
O’er her bosom, that heaved with a billowy swell.”     It is said that a mermaid asked a Scotchman who was reading the Bible if there was any comfort in the book for her. He replied that there was mercy for the sons and daughters of Adam, whereupon she screamed and disappeared. In the year 1619 two councillors of Christian IV of Denmark, while sailing between Norway and Sweden, discovered a merman swimming about with a bunch of grass on his head. They threw out a hook and line, baited with a slice of bacon, which the merman seized. Being caught, he threatened vengeance so loudly that he was thrown back into the sea. One extraordinary tale relates to a maiden who while on a voyage is seen and beloved by a merman. He bores a hole in the ship and transforms her into a serpent, thus enabling her to escape through the hole, after which he changes her into a mermaid and makes her his wife. In a Sicilian story a maiden treacherously thrown into the sea is carried off by a merman and chained to his tail. On one occasion a peasant is said to have chalked a cross upon a water sprite’s back, preventing him from going into his natural element until the cross was removed.
    A Party of fishermen once found a lump of ice in the sea and gave it to St. Theobald, their bishop, to cool his gouty feet. He heard a voice inside and succeeded by saying thirty masses in liberating and saving the soul of the spirit within. Every lake, river and pond in Germany is inhabited by water spirits. Some are good and others bad. They often come ashore, when they may be known by the wet hem of their garments. Norwegian sailors believe in a mysterious water goblin who singes their hair while they are asleep, knots ropes and commits all sorts of absurdities. He is a small man, with fiery red hair and green teeth, dressed in yellow breeches, tall boots and a steeple-crowned hat. He often helps the sailors in their work, but to see him is certain death.

Evening Star. (Washington, D.C.), 09 April 1892. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.