A Victorian Mermaid Tale
Environmental changes over the years have led to dramatic changes in animal populations. Millions of species have gone extinct. Current studies posted by the Smithsonian list 15,000 species currently threatened by extinction, out of an estimated eight million species on earth.
Conservation efforts for seals alone, have been working to replenish their numbers and to save the animals from the threats of pollution, fishing, and the destruction of their natural habitats. There are, however, certain places where the seal populations have been able to maintain healthy numbers. The Shetland islands, an archipelago in Scotland, are among those locations.
According to Shetland Nature, their seal population is estimated to be around 3,500. The overall population for the United Kingdom is 105,000 seals, making up about 50% of the world’s total population. If seals can be seen in large numbers now, just imagine how many inhabited the islands prior to the 20th century. It is from these large number of marine creatures, that the folktale of the mermaid of the north has grown and matured.
The Mermaid of the North
Atlantic Monthly (1865)
One summer’s eve, a Shetlander walked along the shore of a little inlet. By the moonlight he saw, at some distance before him, a number of these sea-people who had “left unsounded depths to dance on sands.” Near them, on the ground, he saw several seal-skins.
As he approached, the disturbed dancers precipitately made to their garments, drew them on, and, in the form of seals, plunged into the sea. When he came up, he saw one seal-skin still there; he snatched it up, ran away, and secured it. He then returned. There he met upon the shore the fairest maiden that eye ever gazed upon. She was lamenting piteously the loss of her seal-skin robe, without which she could never rejoin her friends or each her watery home. He endeavored to console her. She implored him to restore her dress; but her beauty had decided that. At last, as he continued inexorable, she consented to become his wife.
They were married and had several children. The only mark on the children of their mother’s ancestry was a thin web between their fingers and a strange bend to their hands.
The man loved her dearly, but she only loved the sea. Often, she would go out at night and converse with a large seal in an unknown language. Her hopes dwindled that she would ever be able to return to the sea, until one day, her children found a seal-skin. Amazed, they showed their mother their prize. Even though she loved her children, she still said goodbye with many embraces; before she returned to the sea.
The husband ran out in enough time to see her plunge back into the sea with the seal. She waved back, letting the saddened man know that she loved him well while she was there; but she loved her first husband more.
In other versions of the tale, the mermaid does come back to visit her children and she would bring them fish to eat.
Primary Source
Deep-Sea Damsels (1865) Atlantic Monthly. AM1865-Mermaids.pdf (victorianvoices.net)
References
Thomason, Brydon (1/4/2013) Grey Seal Pupping Season, Shetland Nature: Wildlife, Birding & Photography Holidays. (12/6/2023). Grey Seal pupping season – Shetland Nature
Extinction Over Time. (12/6/2023) Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Extinction Over Time | Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (si.edu)
The Bedlington Legend
Through the appearance of the works of Charles Dickens and their subsequent popularity, it can be concluded that the Victorians enjoyed a good ghost story. Even in modern times, as of 2023, there are at least sixteen movie and TV adaptations of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The best time to speak of ghosts was not at Halloween, as one may be led to believe. Instead, it was at Christmas time. The dark, cold ravages of Christmas Eve presented the ideal spooky atmosphere to speak about the dead.
Or as Victorian humorist Jerome K. Jerome stated in Told After Supper (1891), “Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about spectres. It is a genial, festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and murders, and blood.”
Speaking of love and musing over a grave, brings a reminder of a story from Bedlington, Northumberland, England. A tale of love so deep, not even death can separate it.
A contemporary introduction to Bedlingtonshire from John Robinson’s (1894) Illustrated Handbook to the Rivers Tyne, Blyth, & Wansbeck; Also a guide to Tynemouth, Cullercoats, Whitley, Monkseaton, St. Mary’s Isle, Hartley, Seaton Delaval, Blyth, Newbiggin, with the Legends and Traditions of the Coast; and a Glance Guide to Newcastle reads as follows:
THE ancient village of Bedlington can also be easily reached, and is worthy of the visitors, attention. It has the honour of being one of the places where the sacred body of St. Cuthbert had a temporary resting place…back to Blyth the Church of St. Mary’s, Horton, ought to be visited. The present building has no architectural beauties, yet it stands on the site of a very ancient chapel. Built into the south wall of the Church is an old grave-cover, with an illustration of a pair of shears and the inscription— ” Orate pro anima anne barbowl S.I.O.”— Pray for the Soul of Anne Barbowl. Beneath the tower in a recess, are two stone coffins, one large, no doubt the above-named Anne Bar-bowl’s, and the other the smallest perhaps in Europe, being only about 18 inches inside. An ancient British Quern, or hand corn mill, is also preserved here, which was found in the graveyard. The history of the Quern, as told by the Sexton, is worthy of the ignorance of the so-called dark ages; he gravely informed the writer that he did not know what part of the churchyard it had been found, as it was before his time; but it was one of the stone hammers used by the masons when the old Church was built hundreds of years ago. It is only just to say the Sexton is not a Northumbrian. About a mile from the Church stood Horton Castle; the deep moat still encircles part of Low Horton Farm buildings. This Castle was licensed by Edward I. in 1292; it was of much importance in the middle ages, and was defended by a double fosse and rampart of earth. It was pulled down in the beginning of this century; the two maiden sisters of Admiral Delaval were the last of that family who resided in it.
This narrative brings us to our tale…
A North-Country Ghost Story
Published in the Monthly Chronicle of North-County Lore and Legend, June 1890, pgs. 278-280
The monthly Chronicle of North Country Lore and Legend was published “for the proprietors of the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle by Walter Scott, publishers, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Long years ago, at a time too remote to be specified in any local record, there lived in Bedlingtonshire, a part of Northumberland belonging to the County Palatine of Durham, a worthy couple, to whom the blind goddess of Fortune had given great store of wealth – it is not said in what manner acquired, whether by inheritance from their “forbears” or by their own industry and frugality. This couple had an only child – a daughter – to whom, when they should pay the debt of Nature, all their riches would come. She was fair beyond her compeers, “with ruby lips and auburn hair.” She was, moreover, deeply in love with “a famous youth,” who, though he had no fortune but his own worth, was prized by all who knew him “for generous acts and constant truth,” and who warmly reciprocated her love.
It is a story that mimics the classic trope of two people falling in love only for the tale to come to a tragic conclusion. Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Cathy and Heathcliff, or even, Rose and Jack from Titanic.
One character is a beautiful and wealthy child with both her parents still living. The man was described as handsome, sober, well-mannered, friendly, and the poor son of a widow. Despite the glowing terms that the author of the story has chosen to relay about the young man involved, her parents were disillusioned with the match. It is said that their decision was not strictly from the coldness of their hearts. They knew the difficulties of wealth and class differences in relationships. Class differences being a particular complication during this and previous time periods. Classic stories did not lie about how challenging such relationships could be. This is young love in the story and from the daughter’s point of view, her parents were cruel and did not understand. It was not a love to be easily broken or forgotten.
Her parents did try to separate the two. The young couple only remained physically separated as long as the parents were around. The daughter was determined to steal secret meetings away with her lover when they were not. Her parents were not fools in this manner and determined to widen the distance by sending their daughter to live with her uncle, while they made their own match for her. One that would be socially acceptable. She was gone only a week when her love felt deadly sick.
To read the story by John Bell in his “Rhymes of Northern Bards,” he takes a very different approach to the parent’s reasoning from the Monthly Chronicle:
He sickened sore, and heart-broke died,
Which pleased her parents’ greedy pride.
So, now she could be wed to another. They sought to prepare their daughter to be a happy bride.
But with all their wealth, they did not reckon on what the afterlife holds.
For at the midnight hour (a ghostly hour indeed), as it is “when restless ghosts their wrongs deplore,” the deceased ploughman rode up to the door of the girl’s uncle, upon her father’s favorite mare, and knocked on the door.
O, who is there? The maiden cries;
O, it is I, the ghost replies.
Come out quick, love. Here is your mother’s hood and safeguard, and this is your father’s good grey mare. I have been sent for you as the most trusty messenger that could be got. You are to ride home with me forthwith. Fear no evil. NO harm shall betide you.
The uncle heard the noise and conversation and assumed that all was well, he helped her mount the mare and made the young man promise to take her immediately to her father.
The uncle’s home was about fifty miles from her parents, it was with great speed that the mare made the journey. When the man remarked that his head ached, she touched his brow with a handkerchief, remarking that he was as, “cold as lead.”
The youth, who we may now know is named James, drops her off to her father’s door.
“Who is there?” cried the father.
“It is I,” replied his daughter. “I have come home in haste behind young James, as you ordered me”
The daughter was blissfully unaware that she traveled with a ghost back to her home. Her father was not ignorant to the man’s fate, even though her statement unnerved him, it was not enough to frighten him. He had his mare to think of and care for, as the animal sweated greatly from her exertions.
Little did the father know at that time just what lay after that midnight ride. The daughter, the Flower of Bedlingtonshire, became ill. All the color left her face and lips, turning her as pale as a ghost. Her eyes took on an unnatural hue. She had spells of both fainting and fever. She would not speak and would turn her eyes away from her father when he entered her room. Her parents summoned a doctor, though it was all in vain. She was beyond the curing of medicine. To be reasonable, Victorian medicine did leave a lot to be desired in terms of health care.
It was clear to all who saw her that she was dying. Within her last moments she spoke long enough to make one request, to be placed in the same coffin as the man she loved. Without the power to do anything else for their daughter, they acquiesced to her request.
When the time inevitably arrived for the daughter to meet her lover again, his coffin was brought to the surface. When the lid was opened, they found the young man inside, with her handkerchief tied around his head. Just as she told her parents on her return home.
A scanned copy of the original story can be found at victorianvoices.net: The Bedlington Legend
A Victorian Ghost Story 