222 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



and has listened, so they say, to 



"The mermaid's sweet sea-soothing lay 

 That charmed the dancing waves to sleep."* 



Mr. Robert Hunt, F.R.S., in his collection of the tradi- 

 tions and superstitions of old Cornwall,! records several 

 curious legends of the " merrymaids " and " merrymen " 

 (the local name of mermaids), which he had gathered from 

 the fisher-folk and peasants in different parts of that 

 county. 



And, in a pleasant article in 'All the Year Round/I 1865, 

 " A Cornish Vicar " mentions some of the superstitions of 

 the people in his neighbourhood, and the perplexing 

 questions they occasionally put to him. One of his 

 parishioners, an old man named Anthony Cleverdon, but 

 who was popularly known as " Uncle Tony," having been 

 the seventh son of his parents, in direct succession, was 

 looked upon, in consequence, as a soothsayer. This 

 " ancient augur " confided to his pastor many highly effica- 

 cious charms and formularies, and, in return, sought for 

 information from him on other subjects. One day he 

 puzzled the parson by a question which so well illustrates 

 the local ideas concerning mermaids, and the sequel of 

 which is, moreover, so humorously related by the vicar, 

 that I venture to quote his own words, as follows : 



" Uncle Tony said to me, ' Sir, there is one thing I want to ask you, 

 if I may be so free, and it is this : why should a merrymaid, that will 

 ride about upon the waters in such terrible storms, and toss from sea 

 to sea in such ruckles as there be upon the coast, why should she 

 never lose her looking-glass and comb?' 'Well, I suppose,' said I, 



* John Leyden. 



f ' Romances and Drolls of the West of England.' London : 

 Hotten, 1871. 



J Vol. xiii. p. 336. 



The " Cornish Vicar " was, evidently, the Rev. Robert Stephen 

 Hawker, M.A., Vicar of Morwenstow, and author of ' Echoes from 

 Old Cornwall,' ' Footprints of Former Men in Cornwall,' c. 



