Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/520

 h Velund, was the son of King Vilkin and a mermaid whom he met in a wood on the sea-shore in Russia. In the Saga of Half and his knights is an account of a merman who was caught and kept a little while on land. He sang the following entreaty to be taken back to his native element— “Cold water to the eyes Flesh raw to the teeth! A shroud to the dead! Flit me back to the sea! Henceforward never Men in ships sailing! Draw me to dry land From the depth of the sea !” In the “Speculum Regale,” an Icelandic work the twelfth century, is the following description a mermaid:—

“A monster is seen also near Greenland, which people call the Margygr. This creature appears like a woman as far down as her waist, with breast and bosom like a woman, long hands, and soft hair, the neck and head in all respects like those of a human being. The hands seem to people to be long, and the fingers not to be parted, but united by a web like that on the feet of water-