the way he puffed at it that he was full of pity and con-
tempt for my skepticism.
“Come now,” I said: “did you ever see a mermaid?”
“I did not,” said Peter, “but my mother was acquainted
with one. That was in Inishmore, where I was born and
reared.”
I waited. The chance of getting Peter to tell an interest-
ing story is to wait patiently. Any attempt to goad him on by
asking questions is like striking before a fish is hooked. The
chance of getting either story or fish is spoiled.
“There was a young fellow in the island them times,” said
Peter, “called Anthony O’Flaherty. A kind of uncle of my fa-
ther’s he was, and a very fine man. There wasn’t his equal at
running or lepping, and they say he was terrible daring on
Among the Mermaids
6
the sea. That was before my mother was born, but she heard
tell of what he did. When she knew him he was like an old
man, and the heart was gone out of him.”
At this point Peter stopped. His pipe had gone out. He
relit it with immense deliberation. I made a mistake. By way
of keeping the conversation going I asked a question.
“Did he see a mermaid?”
“He did,” said Peter, “and what’s more he married one.”
There Peter stopped again abruptly, but with an air of
finality. He had, so I gathered, told me all he was going to tell
me about the mermaid. I had blundered badly in
asking my question. I suppose that some note of
unsympathetic skepticism in my tone suggested
to Peter that I was inclined to laugh at him. I did
my best to retrieve my position. I sat quite silent
and stared at the peak of the mainsail. The block
on the horse rattled occasionally. The sun’s rim touched the
horizon. At last Peter was reassured and began again.
“It was my mother told me about it, and she knew, for
many’s the time she did be playing with the young lads, her
being no more than a little girleen at the time. Seven of them
there was, and the second eldest was the one age with my
mother. That was after herself left him.”
“Herself ” was vague enough; but I did not venture to ask
another question. I took my eyes off the peak of the mainsail
The Emerald Sea
7
and fixed them inquiringly on Peter. It was as near as I dared
go to asking a question.
“Herself,” said Peter, “was one of them ones.”
He nodded sideways over the gunwale of the boat. The
sea, though still calm, was beginning to be moved by that
queer restlessness which comes on it at sunset. The tide ed-
died in mysteriously oily swirls. The rocks to the eastward
of us had grown dim. A gull flew by overhead uttering wail-
ing cries. The graceful terns had disappeared. A cormorant,
flying so low that its wing-tips broke the water, sped across
our bows to some far resting-place. I fell into a mood of real
sympathy with stories about mermaids. I think Peter felt the
change which had come over me.
“Anthony O’Flaherty,” said Peter, “was a young man
when he saw them first. It was in the little bay back west of
the island, and my mother never rightly knew what he was
doing there in the middle of the night; but there he was. It
Among the Mermaids
8
was the bottom of a low spring tide, and there’s rocks off
the end of the bay that’s uncovered at the ebb of the springs.
You’ve maybe seen them.”
I have seen them, and Peter knew it well I have seen more
of them than I want to. There was an occasion when Peter
and I lay at anchor in that bay, and a sudden shift of wind
set us to beating out at three o’clock in the morning. The
rocks were not uncovered then, but the waves were breaking
fiercely over them. We had little room for tacking, and I am
not likely to forget the time we went
about a few yards to windward of
them. The stretch of wild surf un-
der our lee looked ghastly white in
the dim twilight of the dawn. Peter
knew what I was thinking.
“It was calm enough that night
Anthony O’Flaherty was there,” he
said, “and there was a moon shining,
pretty near a full moon, so Anthony
could see plain. Well, there was three of them in it, and they
playing themselves.”
“Mermaids?”
This time my voice expressed full sympathy. The sea all
round us was rising in queer round little waves, though there
was no wind. The boom snatched at the blocks as the boat
The stretch of wild
surf under our
lee looked ghastly
white in the dim
twilight of the
dawn.
The Emerald Sea
9
rocked. The sail was ghostly white. The vision of a mermaid
would not have surprised me greatly.
“The beautifulest ever was seen,” said Peter, “and neither
shift nor shirt on them, only just themselves, and the long
hair of them. Straight it was and black, only for a taste of
green in it. You wouldn’t be making a mistake between the
like of them and seals, not if you’d seen them right the way
Anthony O’Flaherty did.”
Among the Mermaids
10
Peter made this reflection a little bitterly. I was afraid
the recollection of my unfortunate remark about seals might
have stopped him telling the story, but it did not.
“Once Anthony had seen them,” he said, “he couldn’t
rest content without he’d be going to see them again. Many
a night he went and saw neither sight nor light of them, for
it was only at spring tides that they’d be there, on account
of the rocks not being uncovered any other time. But at the
bottom of the low springs they were there right enough,
and sometimes they’d be swimming in the sea and some-
times they’d be sitting on the rocks. It was wonderful the
songs they’d sing—like the sound of the sea set to music was
what my mother told me, and she was
told by them that knew. The people
did be wondering what had come
over Anthony, for he was differ-
ent like from what he had been,
and nobody knew what took him
out of his house in the middle of
the night at the spring tides. There was
a girl that they had laid down for him to
marry, and Anthony had no objection to her before he seen
them ones; but after he had seen them he wouldn’t look at
the girl. She had a middling good fortune too but sure he
didn’t care about that.”
The Emerald Sea
11
I could understand Anthony’s feelings. The air of wind
which Peter had promised, drawn from its cave by the lure of
the departing sun, was filling our head-sails. I hauled in the
main-sheet gently hand over hand and belayed it. The boat
slipped quietly along close-hauled. The long line of islands
> which guards the entrance of our bay lay dim before use.
Over the shoulder of one of them I could see the lighthouse,
still a distinguishable patch of white against the looming
grey of the land. The water rippled mournfully under our
bows and a long pale wake stretched astern from our coun-
ter. “Fortune,” banked money,
good heifers and even endur-
ingly fruitful fields seemed
very little matters to me then.
They must have seemed still
less, far less, to Anthony
O’Flaherty after he had seen
those white sea-maidens with
their green-black hair.
“There was a woman on the island in those times,”
said Peter, “a very aged woman, and she had a kind of plas-
ter which she made which cured the cancer, drawing it
out by the roots, and she could tell what was good for the
chin cough, and the women did like to have her with them
when their children was born, she being knowledgeable in
They must have seemed
still less, far less, to
Anthony O’Flaherty
after he had seen those
white sea-maidens with
their green-black hair.
Among the Mermaids
12
them matters. I’m told the priests didn’t like her, for there
was things she knew which it mightn’t be right that anyone
would know, things that’s better left to the clergy. Whether
she guessed what was the matter with Anthony, or whether
he up and told her straight my mother never heard. It could
be that he told her, for many a one used to go to her for a
charm when the butter wouldn’t come, or a cow, maybe, was
pining; so it wouldn’t surprise me if Anthony went to her.”
Peter crept aft. He took a pull on the jib-sheet and be-
layed it again; but I do not believe that he really cared much
about the set of the sail. That was his excuse. He wanted
to be nearer to me. There is something in stories like this,
told in dim twilight, with dark waters sighing near at hand,
which makes men feel the need of close human companion-
ship. Peter seated himself on the floorboards at my feet, and
I felt a certain comfort in the touch of his arm on my leg.
“Well,” he went on, “according to the old hag—and what
she said was true enough, however she learnt it—them ones
doesn’t go naked all the time, but only when they’re playing
themselves on the rocks at low tide, the way Anthony seen
them. Mostly they have a kind of cloak that they wear, and
The Emerald Sea
13
they take the same cloaks off of them when they’re up above
the water and they lay them down on the rocks. If so be that
a man could pat his hand on e’er a cloak, the one that owned
it would have to follow him whether she wanted to or not. If
it was to the end of the world she’d have to follow him, or to
Spain, or to America, or wherever
he might go. And what’s more, she’d
have to do what he bid her, be the
same good or bad, and be with him
if he wanted her, so long as he kept
the cloak from her. That’s what the
old woman told Anthony, and she
was a skilful woman, well knowing
the nature of beasts and men, and of
them that’s neither beasts nor men.
You’ll believe me now that Anthony
wasn’t altogether the same as other
men when I tell you that he laid his mind down to get his
hand down on one of the cloaks. He was a good swimmer,
so he was, which is what few men on the island can do, and
he knew that he’d be able to fetch out to the rock where them
ones played themselves.”
I was quite prepared to believe that Anthony was in-
spired by a passion far out of the common. I know nothing
If so be that a man
could pat his hand
on e’er a cloak, the
one that owned it
would have
to follow him
whether she wanted
to or not.
Among the Mermaids
14
more terrifying than the chill embrace of the sea at night-
time. To strike out through the slimy weeds which lie close
along the surface at the ebb point of a spring tide, to clamber
on low rocks, half awash for an hour or two at midnight,
these are things which I would not willingly do.
“The first time he went for to try it,” said Peter, “he felt a
bit queer in himself and he thought it would do him no harm
if he was to bless himself. So he did, just as he was stepping
off the shore into the water. Well, it might as well have been
a shot he fired, for the minute he did it they were off and
their cloaks along with them; and Anthony was left there. It
was the sign of the cross had them frightened, for that same
is what they can’t stand, not having souls that religion would
be any use to. It was the old woman told Anthony that after,
and you’d think it would have been a warning to him not
to make or meddle with the like of them any more. But it
only made him the more determined. He
went about without speaking to man
or woman, and if anybody spoke to
him he’d curse terrible, till the time
of the next spring tide. Then he was
off to the bay again, and sure enough
them ones was there. The water was
middling rough that night, but it
The Emerald Sea
15
didn’t daunt Anthony. It pleased him, for he thought he’d
have a better chance of getting to the rocks without them
taking notice of him if there was some noise loud enough to
drown the noise he’d be making himself. So he crept out to
the point of the cliff on the south side of the bay, which is as
near as he could get to the rocks. You remember that?”
I did. On the night when we beat out of the bay against
a rising westerly wind we went about once under the shad-
ow of the cliff, and, almost before we
had full way on the boat, stayed her
again beside the rocks. Anthony’s
swim, though terrifying, was short.
“That time he neither blessed
himself nor said a prayer, but slipped
into the water, and off with him,
swimming with all his strength.
They didn’t see him, for they were
too busy with their playing to take much notice, and of
course they couldn’t be expecting a man to be there. With-
out Anthony had shouted they wouldn’t have heard him, for
the sea was loud on the rocks and their own singing was
louder. So Anthony got there and he crept up on the rock
behind them, and the first thing his hand touched was one
of the cloaks. He didn’t know which of them it belonged to,
Among the Mermaids
16
and he didn’t care. It wasn’t any one of the three in particular
he wanted, for they were all much about the same to look
at, only finer than any woman ever was seen. So he rolled
the cloa
k round his neck, the way he’d have his arms free for
swimming, and back with him into the water, heading for
shore as fast as he was able.”
“And she followed him?” I asked.
“She did so. From that day till the day she left him she
followed him, and she did what she was bid, only for one
thing. She wouldn’t go to mass, and when the chapel bell
rang she’d hide herself. The sound of it was what she couldn’t
bear. The people thought that queer, and there was a deal of
The Emerald Sea
17
talk about it in the bland, some saying she must be a Protes-
tant, and more thinking that she might be something worse.
But nobody had a word to say against her any other way. She
was a good enough housekeeper, washing and making and
mending for Anthony, and minding the children. Seven of
them there was, and all boys.”
The easterly breeze freshened as the night fell I could see
the great eye of the lighthouse blinking at me on the weather
side of the boat. It became necessary to go about, but I gave
the order to Peter very reluctantly. He handled the head-
sheets, and then, instead of settling down in his old place,
leaned his elbows on the coaming and stared into the sea.
We were steadily approaching the lighthouse. I felt that I
must run the risk of asking him a question.
“What happened in the end?” I asked.
“The end, is it? Well, in the latter end she left him. But
there was things happened before that. Whether it was the
way the priests talked to him about her—there was a priest
in it them times that was too fond of interfering, and that’s
what some of them are—or whether there was goings-on
within in the inside of the house that nobody knew any-
thing about—and there might have been, for you couldn’t
tell what one of them ones might do or mightn’t. Whatever
way it was, Anthony took to drinking more than he ought.
There was poteen made on the island then, and whisky was
Among the Mermaids
18
easy come by if a man wanted it, and Anthony took too
much of it.”
Peter paused and then passed judgment, charitably, on