Merrow
Merrow is a mermaid or merman in Irish folklore. The term is anglicised from the Irish word murúch.
The merrows supposedly require a magical cap in order to travel between deep water and dry land.
Overview
The term appears in two tales set in Ireland published in the 19th century: "Lady of Gollerus", where a green-haired merrow weds a local Kerry man who deprives her of the "magical red cap" ; and "The Soul Cages" where a green-bodied grotesque male merrow entertains a fisherman at his home under the sea.These tales with commentary were first published in T. C. Croker's Fairy Legends. William Butler Yeats and others writing on the subject borrowed heavily from this work. "The Soul Cages" turned out not to be a genuine folktale, but rather a piece of fiction fabricated by Thomas Keightley.
A number of [|other terms] in Irish are used to denote a mermaid or sea-nymph, some tracing back to mythological tracts from the medieval to the post-medieval period. The Middle Irish murdúchann is a siren-like creature encountered by legendary ancestors of the Irish according to the Book of Invasions. This, as well as samguba and suire are terms for the mermaid that appear in onomastic tales of the Dindsenchas. A muirgheilt, literally "sea-wanderer", is the term for the mermaid Lí Ban.
Etymology
Current scholarship regards merrow as a Hiberno-English term, derived from Irish murúch meaning "sea singer" or "siren". But this was not the derivation given by 19th century writers.According to Croker, "merrow" was a transliteration of modern Irish moruadh or moruach, which resolved into muir "sea" + oigh "maid". This "Gaelic" word could also denote "sea monster", and Croker remarked that it was cognate with Cornish morhuch, a "sea hog". Yeats added murrúghach as an alternative original, as that word is also synonymous with mermaid.
The corresponding term in the Scots dialect is morrough, derived from the Irish, with no original Scottish Gaelic form suggested.
The Middle Irish murdúchann, with its singing melodies that held sway over seamen was more characteristic of the sirens of classical mythology, and was imported into Irish literature via Homer's Odyssey.
Synonyms
The terms muirgeilt, samguba, and suire been listed as synonymous to "mermaid" or "sea nymph". These are Old or Middle Irish words, and usage are attested in medieval tracts. Other modern Irish terms for mermaid are given in O'Reilly's dictionary ; one of them, , being the common term for "mermaid" in Irish today.The term muirgeilt, literally "sea-wanderer", has been applied, among other uses, to Lí Ban, a legendary figure who underwent metamorphosis into a salmon-woman.
Strictly speaking, the term samguba in the Dindsenchas example signifies "mermaid's melody". However, O'Clery's Glossary explains that this was rhetorically the "name of the nymphs that are in the sea". The term suire for "mermaid" also finds instance in the Dinsenchas. Croker also vaguely noted that suire has been used by "romantic historians" in reference to the "sea-nymphs" enountered by Milesian ships.
Folk tales
's Second Volume to the Fairy Legends laid the groundwork for the folkloric treatment of the merrow. It was immediately translated into German by the Brothers Grimm. Croker's material on the merrow was to a large measure rehashed by such authors on the fairy-kind as Thomas Keightley, John O'Hanlon, and the poet William Butler Yeats. A general sketch of the merrow pieced together by such 19th century authors are as follows.Characteristics
The merrow-maiden is like the commonly stereotypical mermaid: half-human, a gorgeous woman from waist up, and fish-like waist down, her lower extremity "covered with greenish-tinted scales". She has green hair which she fondly grooms with her comb. She exhibits slight webbing between her fingers, a white and delicate film resembling "the skin between egg and shell".Said to be of "modest, affectionate, gentle, and disposition", the merrow is believed "capable of attachment to human beings", with reports of inter-marriage. One such mixed marriage took place in Bantry, producing descendants marked by "scaly skin" and "membrane between fingers and toes". But after some "years in succession" they will almost inevitably return to the sea, their "natural instincts" irresistibly overcoming any love-bond they may have formed with their terrestrial family. And to prevent her acting on impulse, her #Cohuleen druith must be kept "well concealed from his sea-wife".
O'Hanlon mentioned that a merrow may leave her outer skin behind in order to transform into other beings "more magical and beauteous", But in Croker's book, this characteristic isn't ascribed to the merrow but to the merwife of Shetlandic and Faroese lore, said to shed their seal-skins to shapeshift between human form and a seal's guise. Another researcher noted that the Irish merrow's device was her cap "covering her entire body", as opposed to the Scottish Maid-of-the-Wave who had her salmon-skin.
Yeats claimed that merrows come ashore transformed into "little hornless cows". One stymied investigator conjectured this claim to be an extrapolation on Kennedy's statement that sea-cows are attracted to pasture on the meadowland wherever the merrow resided.
Merrow-maidens have also been known to lure young men beneath the waves, where afterwards the men live in an enchanted state. While female merrows were considered to be very beautiful, the mermen were thought to be very ugly. This fact potentially accounted for the merrow's desire to seek out men on the land.
Merrow music is known to be heard coming from the farthest depths of the ocean, yet the sound travels floatingly across the surface. Merrows dance to the music, whether ashore on the strand or upon the wave.
Merrow-men
While most stories about merrow are about female creatures, a tale about an Irish merman does exist in the form of "The Soul Cages", published in Croker's anthology. In it, a merman captured the souls of drowned sailors and locked them in cages under the sea. This tale turned out to be an invented piece of fiction, although Thomas Keightley who acknowledged the fabrication claimed that by sheer coincidence, similar folktales were indeed to be found circulated in areas of counties Cork and Wicklow.The male merrow in the story, called Coomara, has green hair and teeth, pig-like eyes, a red nose, grows a tail between his scaly legs, and has stubby fin-like arms. Commentators, starting with Croker and echoed by O'Hanlon and Yeats after him, stated categorically that this description fitted male merrows in general, and ugliness ran generally across the entire male populace of its kind, the red nose possibly attributable to their love of brandy.
The merrow which signifies "sea maiden" is an awkward term when applied to the male, but has been in use for a lack of a term in Irish dialect for merman. One scholar has insisted the term macamore might be used as the Irish designation for merman, since it means literally "son of the sea", on authority of Patrick Kennedy, though the latter merely glosses macamore as designating local inhabitants of the County Wexford coast. Gaelic words for mermen are murúch fir "mermaid-man" or fear mara "man of the sea".
Cohuleen druith
Merrows wear a special hat called a cohuleen druith, which enables them to dive beneath the waves. If they lose this cap, it is said that they will lose their power to return beneath the water.The normalized spelling in Irish is cochaillín draíochta, literally "little magic hood". This rendering is echoed by Kennedy who glosses this object as "nice little magic cap".
Arriving at a different reconstruction, Croker believed that it denoted a hat in the a particular shape of a matador's "montera", or in less exotic terms, "a strange looking thing like a cocked hat", to quote from the tale "The Lady of Gollerus". A submersible "cocked hat" also figures in the invented merrow-man tale "The Soul Cages."
The notion that the cohuleen druith is a hat "covered with feathers", stated by O'Hanlon and Yeats arises from taking Croker too literally. Croker did point out that the merrow's hat shared something in common with "feather dresses of the ladies" in two Arabian Nights tales. However, he did not mean the merrow's hat had feathers on them. As other commentators have point out, what Croker meant was that both contained the motif of a supernatural woman who is bereft of the article of clothing and is prevented from escaping her captor. This is commonly recognized as the "feather garment" motif in swan maiden-type tales. The cohuleen druith was also considered to be of red color by Yeats, although this is not indicated by his predecessors such as Croker.
An analogue to the "mermaid's cap" is found in an Irish tale of a supernatural wife who emerged from the freshwater Lough Owel in Westmeath, Ireland. She was found to be wearing a salmon-skin cap that glittered in the moonlight. A local farmer captured her and took her to be his bride, bearing him children, but she disappeared after discovering her cap while rummaging in the household. Although this "fairy mistress" is not from the sea, one Celticist identifies her as a muir-óigh nevertheless.
The Scottish counterpart to the merrow's cap was a "removable" skin, "like the skin of a salmon, but brighter and more beautiful, and very large", worn by the Maid-of-the-wave. It was called in Scottish Gaelic cochull, glossed as 'slough' and "meaning apparently a scaly tail which comes off to reveal human legs", though it should be mentioned that a cochull in the first instance denotes a piece of garment over the head, a hood-cape.
The "fishtail-skin" mermaid folklore are found all over the Irish and Scottish coasts.