Various Places Now Tenanted by Mermaids and Fairies
Originally published in Pearson's Weekly (C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.) vol.1 #10 (27 Sep 1890).
Scattered throughout this and foreign countries there are many traditions respecting cities buried beneath the land or water, which, although occasionally grounded on fact, have in most cases a purely legendary origin. It has been suggested that they may ave sprung from the well-known myth of the "Happy Isles," a tradition which formed an object of belief among the Greeks and Romans of old, and still enters into the folklore of the Irishman, the Welshman, the Hindoo, and the Red Indian of to-day.
One may still occasionally hear, in Wales, sailors speak of the green meadows of enchantment lying in the Irish Channel to the west of Pembrokeshire, which, they say, are at certain times discernible, although very quickly lost to sight. There are even traditions of sailors who, in the early part of the present century, went ashore on these fairy islands, unaware that they were such until they returned to their boats, when they were amazed at seeing the islands disappear from sight. The fairies who inhabited these islands are reported to have regularly attended the markets at Milford Haven, making their purchases without speaking, and occasionally rendering themselves invisible.
The peasantry of Milford Haven, too, firmly believed that these islands were densely peopled by fairies, who went to and fro between the islands and the shore through a covered way at the bottom of the sea.
At Fisherty Brow, near Kirkby-Lonsdale, there is a curious kind of natural hollow scooped out, where, runs the legend, ages ago, a church, parson, and people were swallowed up. Ever since this terrible occurrence it is asserted that the church bells have been regularly heard to ring every Sunday morning.
Near Blackpool, about two miles out at sea, it is related that there once stood the church and cemetery of Kilquinal, long ago submerged. Even now, however, the melancholy chimes of the bells sounding over the restless waters may oftentimes, the sailors say, be heard, especially in rough and tempestuous weather.
There are numerous legends of sunken cities scattered through Ireland, some of which are of a most romantic origin. The space now covered by the Lake of Inchiquin is reported in former days, to have been a populous and flourishing city; but, for some dreadful and some unabsolved crime, tradition says, it was buried beneath the deep waters. The "dark spirit" of its king still resides in one of the caverns which borders the lake, and once every seven years at midnight he issues forth, mounted on his white charger, and makes a complete circuit of the lake, a performance which he is to continue till the silver hoofs of his steed are worn out, when the curse will be removed, and the city reappear once more in all its bygone condition. The peasantry affirm, that even now, on a calm night, one may clearly see the towers and spires gleaming through the clear water.
In Ulster is a lake 80,000 paces long and 15,000 broad, out of which arises the noble river called Bane. It is believed by the inhabitants that they were formerly wicked, vicious people who lived in this place; and there was an a prophecy in everyone's mouth that whenever a well which was therein, and was continally covered and locked up carefully, should be left open, So great a quantity of water should issue thereout, as would overflow the whole adjacent country.
It would appear that an old beldam coming to fetch water, heard Her child cry; upon which, running away in haste, she forgot to cover the spring, and coming back to do it, the land was so overrun that it was past her help, and at length she, her child, and all the territory, were drowned, which caused the pool that remains to this day. Giraldus Cambrensis notices the tradition of Lough Neagh having once been a fountain which overflowed the whole country, to which Moore thus alludes:—
On Lough Neagh's banks, as the fisherman strays,
When the clear cold eve's declining,
He sees the round towers of other days
In the wave beneath him shining.
On the west coast of Ireland, near the cliffs of Moher, a long distance out at sea, the waves appear continually breaking in white foam, even on the calmest day. Tradition says that many years ago a flourishing city was swallowed up there for some terrible crime, and that it becomes visible once every seven years. It is further added that if the person who happens to see it could but keep his eyes fixed upon it till he reached it, the city would be restored.
Said a peasant to an officer, who was quartered in the West of Ireland, "If on a fine summer evening, when the sun is just sinking behind the mountains, you go to the lough, and get on a little bank that hangs over it on the west side, and stoop down, and look into the water, you'll see the finest sight in the whole world--for you'll see under you in the water, as plain as you see me, a great city, with palaces and churches and long streets and squares in it."
The ancient Lowestoft is generally considered to have been washed away at an early period by the ocean, for, till the twenty-fifth year of Henry VIII., the remains of a block-house upon an insulated spot were to be seen at low water, about four furlongs east of tho present beach.
Mr. Warner, in his "Tour Through Cornwall," says that although "the records of history do not rise so high as the era when this disjunction happened, yet we have documents still remaining which prove that this strait must have been considerably widened, and the number of the Scilly Isles greatly increased within the last sixteen or seventeenth centuries by the waters of the Atlantic receding probably from the coast of America, pressing towards the coast of Britain, and overwhelming parts of the western shores of Cornwall."
Mr. Hunt, in his "Popular Romances of the West of England," says: "It appears that once there stood, on the northern coast of Cornwall, a city called Langanow, which, in its best days, possessed seven churches, each of which was famous for its size and beauty. The inhabitants were wealthy, deriving their riches from the fertility of the land and from the sea, which yielded them abundance of tin and lead.
"To this city criminals were sent from various parts of the country, and made to work in the mines. Unhappily, however, their proximity had a bad influence upon the people, who gave way to sinful pursuits and pleasures. Accordingly, the wrath of God eventually descended upon them, and one night a violent tempest arose, raging with unabated fury for three days and nights. At the end of this time the city had entirely disappeared, being buried beneath the sandhills which the wind had heaped together on that ill-fated spot."