The Merrow

Ireland

The Merrow, or if you write it in the Irish,MoruadhorMurrúghach,frommuir,sea, andoigh,a maid, is not uncommon, they say, on the wilder coasts. The fishermen do not like to see them, for it always means coming gales.

The male Merrows (if you can use such a phrase -- I have never heard the masculine of Merrow) have green teeth, green hair, pig’s eyes, and red noses; duck-like scale between their fingers.

1938 Weird Tales artwork by Virgil Finlay

Sometimes they prefer, small blame to them, good-looking fishermen to their sea lovers. Near Bantry in the last century, there is said to have been a woman covered all over with scales like a fish, who was descended from such a marriage. Sometimes they come out of the sea, and wander about the shore in the shape of little hornless cows.

They have, when in their own shape, a red cap, called a cohullen druith, usually covered with feathers. If this is stolen, they cannot again go down under the waves. Red is the color of magic in every country, and has been so from the very earliest times. The caps of fairies and magicians are well-nigh always red.

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• Source: W. B. Yeats, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (London: Walter Scott, 1888), p. 61.

• Compare Yeats’s etymology with the following words, all of which mean, respectively, sea-woman (or maid) and sea-man:

  • Danish: havfrue, havmand.

  • English: mermaid, merman.

  • German: Meerfrau, Meermann.