The Land Beneath the Waves

Beneath waves of green glass, merrows are said to dwell in Tír Fó Thoinn, the Land Beneath the Waves. The name Merrow is from the old Irish ‘Moruadh’ meaning ‘sea maid’. With the song of the sea on their lips, they are described as having pale green, or long golden hair. Some say the beautiful merrows are human above the waist and fish below, while other tales tell us that they have webbed fingers and toes.

The merrows of Southern Ireland, around Kerry and Waterford, wear a cohuleen driuth, a small enchanted cap made of red feathers which allow them to swim through the depths, whereas the merrows of Northern Ireland wear sealskins, much like the Selkies of the far north. A familiar motif in the folktales states that if a mortal man steals the cap, or sealskin of a Merrow, she often ends up marrying him and bearing him children. As with the tales of the Selkies from the Orkney and Faroe Islands, and Seal Maidens from Iceland, when the eldest child is about eight years old, it finds its mothers cap, or sealskin, and returns it to her. It is then that she kisses her child on the forehead and leaves for the land beneath the waves, never to return.