ScoTTIsH MERMAIDS. 145 
ing disaster to those to whom she appears, and her purpose is 
rather to lure them to destruction than to warn them of the 
danger in which they stand. 
Of most of these aspects of the mermaid’s mission and 
character the following individual legends relating to different 
districts of Scotland will be found illustrative. 
First let me cite, chiefly because of its typicalness of the 
nature and habits of the legendary mermaid, an example with 
which you are probably all familiar. It is the “ Mermaid of 
Galloway,’ of whom we are told, in an almost faultless imitation 
of the old ballad, by Jean Walker, who was born in the village 
of Preston Mill, Kirkbean, and lived within sight and sound of 
the Solway until her marriage with the stonemason-poet, Allan 
Cunningham. As is the case with many others, I fancy, of these 
tales, the legend only seems to exist, or at least to survive, in 
the poem :— 
‘““There’s a maid has sat on the green merse side 
These ten lang years and mair ; 
And every nicht 0’ the new moon 
She kames her yellow hair. 
And aye while she sheds the yellow burning gowd, 
Fw’ sweet she sings an’ hie, 
Till the fairest bird that wooes the green wood 
Is charmed with her melodie. 
But wha e’er listens to that sweet sang, 
Or gangs the dame to see, 
Ne’er hears the sang o’ the laverock again, 
Nor waukens an earthlie e’e, 
It fell in aboot the sweet simmer month, 
I’ the first come o’ the moon, 
That she sat 0’ the tap 0’ a seaweed rock, 
A-kaming her silk locks doon. 
She kamed her locks owre her white shoulders, 
A fleece baith bonny an’ lang ; 
An’ ilka ringlet she shed frae her brows, 
She raised a lightsome sang. 
‘I hae dwelt on the N ith,’ quo’ the young Cowehill, 
‘Thae twenty years an’ three; 
But the sweetest sang e’er brake frae a lip 
Come through the greenwood tree, 
