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Mermaid fever sweeps Israel beach town of Kiryat Yam as many report sightings of fabled creature. Online news article Issie Lapowsky 12th August 2009
A local creature with features resembling a mythical mermaid living off the coast of New Ireland ... Several reports of fishermen. Destination Truth s1e1, Skyfy 2007
Team Truth travels to a small fishing village in Israel where reports of a real-life mermaid are making headlines. Destination Truth s3e11, Skyfy 2010
The Kiryat Yam incidents are also unique since they are backed by dozens of eye-witness reports by locals who clearly saw something that scared them at close range. ibid.
When we first arrived in New Guinea after dropping anchor in the bay after being there ten minutes we saw this graceful tail break the surface of the water, and slide slowly down. Tom Williams, expedition leader
At Edinburgh’s veterinary school the X-ray team has a most unusual patient. Could this tiny creature be a baby mermaid? David Heppell wants the X-rays to tell him whether this strange carcass is real. An avid mermaid hunter, he has seen fakes before. Sadly this is another, made of wire and plaster. At the museum of Scotland David Heppell is curator of molluscs; but he still finds time for his hobby: collecting eye-witness stories of mermaids. He’s netted a rich haul from Scottish seas. Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious Universe, ITV 1994
There are actually more reports and sightings of mermaids from Scotland than from anywhere else in the world. One of the best documented sightings of a mermaid from Scotland was that from Thurso in Caithness on the north coast, at the very end of the eighteenth century. And the witness there was a local schoolmaster. David Heppell
Apart from several stories of sightings, there is also from Scotland the story of a rather remarkable capture of a mermaid in the Shetland Islands in the year 1833 when six fishermen found a creature they didn’t recognise entangled in their lines. They were certainly intrigued by the fact that it had what seemed to be large human-like breasts, and it was light grey in colour, pure white on the belly. And in this case they said it had webbed fingers. And the eyes were small and blue. Unfortunately, they didn’t bring it back to port because it was giving these piteous cries, and they also had this superstition that is was probably unlucky to capture a mermaid. David Heppell
The Mermaid Seen on the Coast of Caithness: Letter from Mr W M Munro, Schoolmaster of Thurso to Dr Torrence, regarding a mermaid seen by him some years ago. Dear sir – your queries respecting the Mermaid are before me. From the general scepticism which prevails among the learned your character and real desire for investigation being too well known to me, for supposing that you wish to have a fertile imagination indulged by a subject of merriment, I would have been disposed to have concluded, that in this instance you aimed at being ranked among the laughing philosophers at my expense. Letter to The Times 8th September 1809
Are mermaids real? And if so, where’s the evidence? Jon Frankel, Mermaids: The Body Found, Animal Planet 2014
The Navy took the remains of what the boys found. ibid.
The accounts have been told by sailors the world over. ibid.
On May 26 2013 Animal Planet broadcast the interview that shocked the world. Dr Paul Robertson came forward for an exclusive interview for the first time since the controversial documentary Mermaids: The Body Found. Astonishing new evidence was presented pointing to the existence of an aquatic humanoid species – Mermaids. Mermaids: The New Evidence the Extended Cut, Animal Planet 2014
A national mermaid craze in the mid-1800s. ibid.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown. T S Eliot, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears. William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors III ii 45
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song:
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid’s music. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream II i 149
Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?
I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb I would sing and say,
‘Who is it loves me? who loves not me?’ Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Mermaid, 1922
Slow sail’d the weary mariners and saw,
Betwixt the green brink and the running foam,
Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest
To little harps of gold; and while they mused
Whispering to each other half in fear,
Shrill music reach’d them on the middle sea. Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Sea Fairies
A mermaid found a swimming lad
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown. William Butler Yeats, A Man Young and Old
Splash: A man falls in love with a mermaid … cf. Miranda cf. The Shape of Water … 14 Oscar nominations cf. Splash picked up just one Oscar nomination. Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema I: The Romcom, BBC 2018