Mermaid Monday: Grimsby Lady March 19, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This report came out in 1809 in the wake of the famous Caithness mermaid letters.
Last week, whilst a sloop belonging to Beverley, was at anchor in Hawk Roads, near Grimsby, a boy on board saw the appearance of a woman at some distance, whom he supposed by some accident had unfortunately fallen overboard a vessel. Anxious to save her, he hauled the sloop’s boat to him, and called the master and another person on board to assist; but the lady, as he called her, had disappeared. They looked anxiously toward the spot, expecting she might again buoyed up by the water, and thus enable them to render her the assistance she might want. In a short time she appeared again, when they were immediately sensible, from her appearance, that it was a creature of the mermaid species. She came so near the vessel that they could not be deceived, for they perceived her shake herself, and put up her hands to shade back her hair, which was very long and quite black. Her appearance they describe as that of a blooming country girl. The above is nearly as we have been able to learn an accurate account of this singular phenomenon, a phenomenon which has afforded a subject of much disputation, but has never yet, as far as we learn, been positively decided as existing (Anon 1809).
That detail about the hands going up recall the hand going up in the first Caithness letter.
Any other thoughts on this report: drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com
