Meremaids
This chapter explores a very particular form of British faery being, the freshwater mermaid or water sprite. I have chosen to use the label “meremaid” to emphasise the difference to the merfolk. The subjects of this chapter are predominantly female and are to be found in inland lakes and pools. “Mere,” meaning a body of water, is an Old English word that forms the basis of mermaid, but of course that word is now used in reference to marine beings, making some separate term necessary. Some faeries, especially the gwragedd annwn of Wales, live in or under lakes, such as those at Llyn Cwellyn, Llyn Corwrion, and Llyn Barfog, and it’s important for us to distinguish these as well. These faery women use the lake for concealment, but they are not aquatic and do not live in the body of water itself, neither do they share the predatory nature of most of the meremaids.
The idea of the inland “meremaid” is very ancient, the very oldest of these very likely being found in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, in the ghastly shape of the mother of the monster Grendel, a being who is fierce and giant-like. Beowulf uses various terms to describe the monstrous mother, one of which is “mere-wife.” Her son’s name seems to be preserved in the meremaid today called the grindylow. Despite this pedigree, illustrations and paintings seem to prefer to suggest that these creatures are sexually alluring nymph-like beings. On the whole, it is safest to assume that the meremaids are perilous, if not outright fatal, to humankind.88
Meremaids will be found across Britain, although the strength of the tradition varies considerably. For example, on the Isle of Man, the name of the water sprite called the croghan or crogan is preserved but, other than knowing that she was found in wells and springs, nothing else is now recalled about her.89
Drownings at Midnight
In the Peak District of England is found Mermaid Pool, at the foot of a rock called the Downfall. A beautiful mermaid who lives on the other side of Kinder Scout peak is said to come to bathe there daily. However, visiting at midnight on Easter Eve in order to see the mermaid at her ablutions is extremely unwise. Although normally favourable to humans, on this night of the year she will endeavour to entice watchers into the water with her—and then drag them beneath the surface. Animals are said not to want to drink from the pool—in large measure perhaps because the waters are reputed to be inexplicably salty, but also because of the aura of menace that hangs about the place, a feature of many meremaids’ haunts.
Other mere maidens include those of the ponds, pools, meres, and even wells at Fordham, Cambridgeshire, and in Suffolk at Rendlesham, and most notably at the Mermaid Pits, Fornham All Saints. The latter is allegedly the spirit of a lovesick girl who perished there, reminding us how often faery beasts are associated with ghosts. One of these East Anglian meremaids was described by a witness as “a great big thing like a fish.” Local children are warned by their parents to stay away from the pools, or to always be alert if they play near them, as the creatures are always on the watch to “croom” (hook) the unwary into the depths. At Halliwell in East Yorkshire, it is said to be a boggart rather than a maiden that haunts the local spring and pool. In fact, it is reported that every sandpit in the county has its goblin, such as the bogie in the form of a white dog that infested the hollow at Brigham Lane End (see chapter 9).90
As with the meremaid of Mermaid Pool, it’s normal for these beings to hunt unwary humans at night. Most are anonymous, but a few have been given names—for example Jenny Greenteeth, who has been encountered at Ellesmere in Shropshire as well as in Lancashire, Cumbria, and as far away as Somerset; Grindylow in Yorkshire; Jenny Hurn, a seallike creature with long hair in Lincolnshire; Nelly Long Arms in Cheshire; Mary Hosies in Lanarkshire; and the widespread pair Rawhead and Bloodybones. Jenny Greenteeth is especially widespread in England, being reputed to emerge at full moon to lurk near ponds, wells, rivers, or abandoned workings or to sit moaning in the trees nearby. She looks like an ugly old woman with hair like coarse grass and long claws, and she will invariably snatch and devour careless young prey who stray too near the brink—a habit which doubtless gave rise to the name of another northern water-witch called Peg wi’ t’ Iron Teeth.91
In Scotland, one encounters the fideal, an evil meremaid who haunts Loch na Fideil near Gairloch, in the northwest Highlands. These freshwater monsters often lurk in wait for children under lawn-like mats of pond weed and the fideal exemplifies this: she uses entangling bog grasses and water weeds on the loch’s shore to snare her victims. By one account, a man decided to take her on and, at the end of a long struggle, both lay dead: although he had overcome the fideal, wrestling with her entwining weeds so sapped his strength that he succumbed and drowned anyway.92
In the Scottish story of Lorntie, the meremaid’s vicious and bloodthirsty nature is starkly exposed. Riding by a lake, Lorntie sees a woman floundering and apparently drowning in the water. He dashes to save her, but fortunately his squire sees the trap and holds him back. In a rage, the maiden declares:
“Lorntie, Lorntie, were it not for your man,
I’d have got your heart’s blood, skirling in my pan.”93
The fatal nature of meremaids is also clear from the ballad of Clerk Colvill. Despite his wife’s warnings, the hero decides to visit a well beneath a hawthorn tree. The hawthorn is a tree intimately associated with the faeries, so its presence here immediately alerts us to the faery nature of the spring. Clerk Colvill predictably encounters a meremaid there who is washing a silk shirt for him in the out-flowing stream. (Her laundry activities link her to the banshee, who is described in the next chapter.) The meremaid has sleeves of green (the quintessential faery colour), and Colvill immediately falls under her spell and forgets his wife. In due course, the man falls ill, blighted by her presence, at which point his faery lover loses interest in him, turns into a fish, and abandons him to struggle home to die. In another version of the song, Clerk Colvill develops a headache and cuts a strip from the silk shirt to wrap around his head—but rather than soothing his malady, it only makes matters worse.94
Guardians of Treasure
Most of the meremaids prey upon passing mortals. Despite this bad reputation (or possibly because of it) some were also connected to hidden hoards of precious metals or jewels in some way. A beautiful maiden with a lovely voice appeared at Child’s Ercall in Shropshire and offered two men gold if they would enter the water to take it from her. As they began to wade out to her, they commented upon their luck and she instantly disappeared, surely a variation of the common idea of keeping quiet about faery favours. We must wonder, too, whether, if they had reached her, the outcome might not have been as happy as they had anticipated. Jenny Greenteeth has also been linked to treasure in one story from Newton Chapelry in Manchester.
At Marden (Herefordshire) and Rostherne Mere (Cheshire) the meremaids are said to be guarding bells submerged beneath the pool. Attempts to retrieve the Marden bell from the River Lugg have been defeated by the meremaid’s interventions. In the second case, it’s also believed that a long tunnel connects the pool to the sea, which is where the meremaid actually lives (although this may just be a more recent confusion of meremaid and mermaid).95
Other Good Fortune
If you saw the meremaid of Mermaid Pool in Derbyshire bathing, you would become immortal. Predicting the future appears to be another part of the makeup of the many meremaids: the White Lady of Wellow in Somerset haunted St. Julian’s Well there and served as a sort of banshee to the family of the lords of Hungerford.96
The cattle belonging to lake-dwelling spirits are often very valuable livestock. I’ll mention a Welsh example later, but at Bowerhope near Yarrow in Scotland a lake cow bred with a nearby farmer’s stock and produced a very fine herd. In due course, however, some neglect or offence on his part annoyed the mother cow, and she emerged from St. Mary’s Loch and called all nineteen of her offspring to join her beneath the waters.97
Threats and Fear
Often, local people want to rid themselves of their dangerous neighbours, and almost always these enterprises fail. A very good example is the fishtailed creature dwelling in the Black Mere at Morridge in Staffordshire. No animals will drink the water, and birds are said to avoid landing upon or flying over the lake. This is probably because, just as the meremaid is known to seize passersby at midnight and drown them, local wildlife sense it is a perilous place to be. When an attempt was made to drain the Mere, the creature emerged and threatened to engulf the whole of the nearby town of Leek in its waters. Wisely, the work was abandoned and never restarted. There are local suggestions that the water sprite may be a suicide or a murdered woman, connecting us once again to the spirits of the dead.98
The meremaid at Wildmere Pool, Newport in Shropshire would rise to the surface of her pool to warn of impending calamities. Once, when an attempt was made to dredge the pool, she scared off the workmen with a threat to drown Newport and Meretown.99
From Wales comes a similar episode involving the faery woman of Llyn y Fan Fach. After a period of married life, she deserted her human husband and returned to her home with all his cattle, leaving him so distraught after her departure that he tried to drain the lake to get her back again. A monster rose from the waters and warned him to desist or see the town of Brecon drowned.100
There was a fearsome spirit that demanded human sacrifice infesting Lochan-nan-Deean in the Highlands near Tomintoul. The local people resolved to drain the lochan to recover the bodies of the dead, but as soon as work began, a man in a red cap emerged from the waters, very angry and roaring horrifically. The workers fled, the sprite threw all their abandoned tools into the water, and then he himself sank back into the waters of the loch, which were said to resemble boiling blood. In another version of this tale, small black creatures appeared at night and filled in the drainage channel that had been cut during the day.101
Something similar happened to a man who tried to drain the lochan at Kildonan in Sutherland. After a day’s excavation, he was harassed all night long by a black dog barking and howling outside his cottage. The next day he gave up his attempt and filled in the channel he’d started to dig. It was said that, because of this premature abandonment of the work, he never discovered the pot of gold buried at the bottom of the pool. Another black dog guards a treasure in a pool at Dean Combe in Devon; that hoard will be safe until someone manages to drain the pool using a hazelnut shell with a hole in it. I’ll return to discuss black dogs as a separate category of faery beast later on in this book.102
Given the ferocious and vengeful nature of many of the meremaids, it’s unsurprising to find there is a longstanding tradition of making offerings to the sprites living in freshwater springs, doubtless to ensure that the faery, meremaid, or imp living there maintains the supply of clean and drinkable water. There is also a concomitant belief that revenge will be taken if the proper respect isn’t shown and suitable dedications aren’t made. For example, the “faeries” of a well in the Ochil Hills were offended by a local farmer. Soon afterwards, his dairy maid went to the well to wash the farm’s butter before taking it to market. A hand snatched it away, declaring, “Your butter’s awa’ to feast our band in the faery ha’. ” 103
Even quite small bodies of water have their guardian spirits who have to be appeased and respected. On Orkney a propitiatory ceremony was performed at the Helga Water, circling the lake three times sun-wise and then pouring water over the head. At Loch Wan in the Scottish Uplands, the local farmers offered the first lamb of the flock each year to the loch—otherwise they knew that half their sheep would drown in its waters before the season was out.104
Tobar-na-glas a Coille well near Corgarff in the Highlands was inhabited by a spiteful sprite called ‘Duine-glas-bheg’ (“the Little Grey Man”). He expected an offering to be made for every draught of water taken from the well, even if the donation was only a pin or a small coin. If a person failed to “pay,” the little man would stop them drawing water from the spring ever again and would hound them until they died of thirst.105
White Ladies
There’s a constant element in British folklore tradition, the beings called “white ladies.” They can take a number of forms: they might be seen as faeries, they are very often linked to the ghosts of murdered or slighted women, but very many are water spirits of some description. For example, in Shropshire the sprite called the Lady of Kilsall haunts the Dark Walk by the pool there.106
There are many examples of this type of meremaid from around England. The White Lady of Lewtrenchard in Devon haunts wells and riverbanks, but also has a part-time job protecting local orchards from thieves. At Buckland in Surrey a white lady was sometimes seen sitting on a stone by a stream that marks the spot where a man stabbed himself to death after being rejected by a young woman. The spirit lingers there at midnight, scaring those that want to cross the brook at this point. Rather similar is the White Lady at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire, who appears at midnight and spends her time sitting on a stile, with an occasional trip to a nearby stream for a drink.
The White Lady of Longnor in the same county lives in the Black Pool by the road to Leebotwood and also comes forth at night and wanders the roads. However, according to a servant of the local vicar who met her crossing the footbridge over the brook in 1881, she’s said to be “a nice young wench” and not to be feared at all. The man, being an amorous youth, decided to be forward as they passed each other on the narrow bridge and tried to give her a squeeze round the waist: he found to his alarm that there was nothing there. Luckily, he suffered no ill-consequences for his cheeky advances. The White Lady’s insubstantial, supernatural nature was confirmed by another sighting, during which she joined a dance at a local public house. Lots of the men present attempted to take her hand to make her their partner, but they could never catch hold of her. That she was some sort of faery being was demonstrated by her sudden disappearance from the room at the end of the evening.107
The “white lass” of Thirsk haunted a small watercourse, which came to be known as White Lass Beck. Sometimes also she’s seen at a stile, like her Ragley Hall cousin, but at other times she shape-shifts into a white dog and prowls the town, alarming residents with the sound of her claws on the street cobbles.
Finally, there are reports from the Isle of Man of “white ladies” who emerge from the sea at Germans and Michael and have married local men. These seem to be some sort of mermaid or selkie, rather than a sprite coming from a body of water onto the land. To add to the confusion, there are several Manx spectres in pale silk robes seen flitting around wells who also bear this label. One in white silk is often encountered near Lewaigue Bridge and may waylay passersby or enter people’s homes. A man travelling from Ramsey to Laxey once met with a greyish woman accompanied by a low shaggy dog. At first, they approached each other along the road in the normal manner but, before they met and passed each other, the woman and dog suddenly vanished, leaving the man feeling weak and trembling. Lastly, it’s intriguing to notice that certain standing stones on the island were whitewashed and called “white ladies” as well.108
Most of these “white ladies” seem harmless enough, but this was not the case with the sprite of the Maiden Well in the Ochil Hills in Scotland. This meremaid produces a mist that hangs over the well, in which you will encounter a beautiful woman. Anyone who tries to woo this lovely vision is certain to die.109
As may be apparent, there’s definitely uncertainty as to whether these beings are ghosts or faery. Their name implies a white apparition of some description, which the association of several of the ladies with the scenes of murders or burials only reinforces, leaving them on the boundary between the classes of supernatural entity. The White Lady of Gunton Hall in Norfolk resembles a banshee (see the next chapter), for she is only heard screaming and lamenting when a death is imminent in the Suffield family. In contrast to these functions, the ladies’ active attempts to catch and devour prey suggest a rather more physical nature than the spirit of a deceased person.110
Asrai
The last meremaid to mention is perhaps the most intriguing because of her evanescent nature. This is the asrai or ashray of Cheshire and Shropshire (no specific locations seem to be identified). This creature combines many of the features already mentioned; however, she is portrayed as far more vulnerable than those described so far. If she is caught at night in a fisherman’s nets, the asrai does not fight back like some of the creatures mentioned. Instead, she pleads for release in an incomprehensible language and, when she is not returned to the water, she curls up moaning at the bottom of her captor’s boat and melts away before he returns to land at dawn. Where her hands have touched the fisherman, he’s burned and marked for life. Interestingly, in Somerset it’s believed that marine mermaids would likewise fade away to a bit of “brackish water and some seaweed” if they were caught.111
Other accounts of the asrai depict them as being more like mermaids, with green hair and either a fish tail or webbed feet. They are reputed to live for many hundreds of years, emerging from beneath the lake waters once each century to bathe in the moonlight, which helps them to grow. Very much like a marine mermaid, this version of the asrai will use promises of gold and jewels to lure men into the water, where they will be drowned or, at least, cheated of the promise of riches. The asrai is said not to be able to tolerate human coarseness and vulgarity, and this will be enough to frighten her away. (Some faeries are said to share this sensitivity to bad language.)112
Scottish poet Robert Williams Buchanan described the asrai evocatively, if not wholly in line with oral tradition. In his poem “The Asrai (Prologue to the Changeling)” he said she grew from the three elements of fire, water, and air and, not being earthly, chose to live in or by rivers, on the seashore and in damp places like caves. In his sequel poem, “The Changeling,” Buchanan wrote that “of the dew and the crystal air, / And the moonray mild, were the Asrai / made.” Because of the risk of fading away in sunlight, the asrai were forced to retreat “far away in the darkened places, / Deep in the mountains and under the / meres.”113
The most intriguing aspect of the asrai belief is their combination of predatory danger and vulnerability when caught. Perhaps they’re a symbol (and a warning) of the dangers of travelling between elements or dimensions. Humans who visit faeryland can suffer both physically and mentally, and these stories demonstrate that the reverse is just as true. The supernatural stranded in the physical world loses his or her power and is prey to mortality.
Conclusions
The meremaids of inland bodies of water are very different from the marine merfolk. To begin with, they are largely solitary beings. Secondly, their interactions with us are more limited: as a rule, they appear either to try to catch us or to warn us. In this, they are typical of very many of the faery beasts to be examined in the remainder of this book.
88. Ann Radcliffe, “The Sea Nymph,” in The Mysteries of Udolpho, a Romance; Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry (London: G. G. and J. Robinson), 1794; Dathen, Somerset Faeries, 81.
89. W. Gill, A Second Manx Scrapbook (London: Arrowsmith, 1932), chapter 6.
90. James Reynolds Withers, “The Pond in the Meadow,” in Poems Upon Various Subjects (Fordham, 1864), 117; Robert Chambers, Book of Days, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers, 1869), 678; Eveline Camilla Gurdon, County Folk-lore, 37, Printed Extracts No. 2, Suffolk: Collected and Edited by The Lady Eveline Camilla Gurdon with Introduction by Edward Clodd (London: D. Nutt, 1893), 34.
91. Simon Young, “Folklore Pamphlet: The Sources for Jenny Greenteeth and Other English Freshwater Fairies,” (July 2019): 1–54.
92. Donald Mackenzie, Scottish Folk-Lore and Folk Life: Studies in Race, Culture, and Tradition (London: Blackie & Sons, 1935), 235-36; Edward Nicholson, Golspie: Contributions to its Folklore […] (London: D. Nutt, 1897), 78–79.
93. Douglas, Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales, 196–197.
94. Francis James Child, ed., “42: Clerk Colvill,” in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, vol. 1 (New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1886), 371–389.
95. Westwood and Simpson, The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England’s Legends, From Spring-Heeled Jack to the Witches of Warboys (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2005), 326, 87.
96. Ruth Tongue, Somerset Folklore, ed. Kathleen Briggs (London: Folk-lore Society, 1965), 120.
97. Mackinlay, Folklore of Scottish Lochs, 180.
98 . Charles Poole, The Customs, Superstitions and Legends of the County of Stafford (London, Rowney & Co., 1875), 100–2.
99 . Mackinlay, Folklore of Scottish Lochs, 160; Charlotte Sophia Burne, Shropshire Folk-lore, A Sheaf of Gleanings (London: Trübner & Co., 1883), 640; Davies, Folk-lore of West, 100.
100. Davies, Folklore of West and Mid Wales, 100.
101. McPherson, Primitive Beliefs, 69; W. Gregor, “Guardian Spirits of Wells and Lochs,” Folklore 3 (1892): 68.
102. Mackinlay, Folklore of Scottish Lochs, 181.
103. County Folk-lore 7, 312; A. Fraser, “Northern Folklore: Wells and Springs,” Celtic Magazine 3 (1878): 18, 31; see Spence, Minor Traditions, 34–37 for faery wells generally.
104. McPherson, Primitive Beliefs, 69.
105. W. Gregor, “Guardian Spirits,” Folklore 3 (1892): 68.
106. Tongue, Somerset Folklore, 120; Choice Notes & Queries—Folklore (1859), 26, from the Isle of Man.
107. Burne, Shropshire Folk-lore, 76–7.
108. Gill, Second Manx Scrapbook, chapter 6, section 2; Gill, Third Manx Scrapbook, part 2, chapter 3, section 3.
109. Fraser, “Northern Folklore: Wells and Springs,” Celtic Magazine 3 (1878): 31.
110. “Gunton Park and House (partly destroyed by fire in 1882)—White Lady,” Paranormal Database, accessed May 11, 2020, www.paranormaldatabase.com/m/detail.php?address=7714.
111. Briggs, Dictionary of Fairies, “Asrai”; Dathen, Somerset Faeries, 84.
112. Rosalind Kerven, English Fairy Tales and Legends (Swindon: National Trust, 2008), 121–3, 186–7.
113. Robert Buchanan, Ballads of Life, Love, and Humour (London: Chatto & Windus, 1862), 131.