Happy November! I’m here with more reading material. Not ghost stories, this time, but folklore. You may remember that in the past I’ve talked about versions of Snow White and Beauty and the Beast. Today, we’re doing the same treatment on The Little Mermaid.

. . . Kind of. The original text of “The Little Mermaid” is online — you can read one version here. But because that’s a pretty recent tale by a specific author, it’s not quite folklore per se.

However when looking through my favorite folktext archive, I did find tales about mermaids. They’re usually about mer-women of some variety marrying mortal men. (Previous posts on selkies and merfolk deal with those themes too — spoiler, it doesn’t usually end well!) If you’re interested, you can check out the archive pages on The Mermaid Wife and Melusina. The stories come from all across Europe. Two highlights:

  • One of my favorites is Touched by Iron, from Wales — in part because it doesn’t involve the husband stealing anything from the wife!
  • The Legend of Melusina may be familiar to folks who read knightly tales, too. I hadn’t really thought of Melusina as a “mer” creature before, but I suppose a snake tail isn’t so different from fishy fins!

Here’s hoping your Halloween didn’t involve anyone being stolen away from their home or disappearing into watery depths!