The first story I have to tell is a sad one indeed. One where a poor woman’s husband was murdered for who he was, and because of who he was married to.
Let me tell you the story of the Poor Merman: There once was a beautiful woman. She had a love for the ocean. She would spend hours on the beach just imagining having a spell cast on her so that she might become some mystical creature of the sea.
Each night at supper, her father would ask about her activities of the day, and each day the same would be her reply. She’d spent all day admiring the beauty of the beach.
“Stupid girl!” her father would reply.
“You need to be in the village finding a husband who will take care of you! Surely you don’t think that I will provide for you for all of your life, and even if I was able, what about when I die? Who’ll care for you then?”
She’d run off to her room with tears streaming from her face. She knew her father would never understand that which she longed for.
One day, she was in her usual favorite spot when a man came from under the water. He swam with a dolphin’s grace; he stepped onto land and approached her. She noted that there wasn’t a speck of clothing on his body.
His nakedness embarrassed her, but he had such an awe- inspiring beauty about him that she couldn’t turn her face away.
“I am of the sea,” he replied. “I can be a man if I wish, but I must always return to the sea before night strikes.”
“Marry me!” she exclaimed.
The beautiful girl had fallen in love with this handsome stranger from the sea.
“I cannot marry you, “ he replied. “I can never come to land and be with you, nor can you come to sea.”
“I do not care!” she exclaimed. “I will take whatever time with you I get here, before you must return to the sea. I will spend my life in search of someone who will cast a spell on me to allow me to breathe underwater.”
“So shall we be wed then,” he said. They were married that very day. The merman gave the girl a lullaby to sing. He promised that whenever she did so, so long as it was daylight, he would come to her.
That night, her father began to fuss at her again for not finding a husband to marry.
“I am married, Father,” she replied. “To a man, but I cannot tell you who.”
Her father was angered at this. She seemed undisturbed by his anger as she went about her evening chores.
As she worked, she sang the lullaby her husband had given her.
“Oh the beauty in the love of a man
A man of the sea
A man who loves me
Oh the beauty in the love of a man
Loving husband of mine
Won’t you appear to me?”
The next day her father followed her out to the beach where she usually went. He concealed himself in some bushes as he watched with silent anger.
She sang her lullaby and the naked man appeared again. She spent her time nestled up next to her husband. She dreaded the time for their departure to come but still she headed home just before dark.
After she was out of sight, her father sang the lullaby he’d heard his daughter sing.
The man reappeared.
“Did you need something, my love?” he said sweetly.
He hadn’t realized that his wife was gone and her father was the only one there. Slowly the deceit began to unfold in front of him. Before he had time to react, her father bashed her husband over the head with a sharp rock. He hit him again, and again, and again as he took out his fury at his daughter and her betrayal by marrying this --thing-- that called himself a man.
When the girl’s father finally stopped pounding the poor merman, he stood up and evaluated what he had done. In one final act, he spit on the man’s mangled, dead body. Then, slowly, right in front of the father’s eyes, he turned into the plumpest, most fresh-looking salmon.
Seeing this, her father had an idea about how to show his daughter that she was to never do this sort of thing again.
He went home and prepared the most beautiful salmon entrée imaginable.
“Come now, Daughter,” he said. “I have prepared a feast to celebrate your mysterious marriage. “
“Oh, thank you, Father,” she replied. “And to think, I was afraid I had disappointed you.”
One look at the entrée, and she knew something was wrong. She hesitated to take a seat.
“Dare you refuse this meal I have prepared you?” her father challenged threateningly.
“No sir,” she replied.
She cleaned her plate and thanked her father for the lovely meal.
The next day she went to her spot and sang her lullaby. Instead of the handsome man erupting from the water, the beautiful woman’s stomach churned, and the contents of her stomach ended up on the sands of the beach.
She was frightened when she saw that it was blood. The blood sang to her
“Beautiful wife of mine,
Beautiful woman
Why have you eaten me?
Beautiful wife of mine,
Beautiful woman
When your father has slain me?”
She watched in horror as the blood sank back into the sand. She was so distraught as she lay in the spot where her husband’s blood had sung to her that she took no notice when the tide rose.
It rose and rose until it covered her completely. No one knows what happened after that, but some couples report that after they have spent an afternoon on the beach, sometimes just at the break of dusk they can hear her lullaby.
The Forsaken Merman
Source: Deviant Art
Author’s note:
I decided to stay close to the original story on this. In the original, the man turned into a fish. To make this fit with my story, I decided to make him a merman, but to keep with the deceit of her father, I kept with the original story that he turned into a fish when he died. In the original story, the beautiful girl has a little brother that follows her to the beach and spies on her. He then returns home and informs their father about who she is married to. The father then plans out his murderous deed. I didn’t include the brother in this story because I wanted to showcase the conflict between the girl and her father. He takes an axe with him, letting the reader believe that it was planned. I turned the father’s rage more towards him committing a crime of passion, as opposed to him bringing an axe along in a preconceived murder. In the original story, after she finds out that her husband has been murdered, the girl goes and lives in the river, where she would’ve ended up had her husband lived. I decided to make it more like a Romeo and Juliet type story, in the sense that he was killed so she commits suicide by drowning herself. Also in the original, the river turns red as a result of her final lullaby which proved to her that her husband was dead. I changed that to have blood call to her and inform her of the terrible deed her father had done. Having her husband’s blood sing to her was more fitting than having the river turn red in proof of his death.
To refer back to the original story look here:
Author: A. Fuja
Year: 1962
Source: Humanity.org