Mermaid in Loch Fyne (or not)

Loch Fyne. CC image by Julian Nizsche

From the North Wales Chronicle and Advertiser for the Principality, 20th September 1865.

A MERMAID SEEN IN LOCHFYNE.

The Inverary correspondent of the Glasgow Herald communicates the following: "One morning, recently, before sunrise, a labourer, setting out for his work along the shores of Lochfyne, about five miles from Inverary, saw, or he imagined he saw, what is seldom seen by mortal eyes. On a smooth rock by the water's edge was reclining a creature which, in the struggling light, he thought to be a seal. When he approached, it splashed into the water, and, as he saw its head bobbing up and down, and its long grey hair floating on the wave, he altered his opinion, and became convinced that it was an ancient mermaid. Unromantic wretch that he was, he began to throw stones, to avoid which, the creature moved further from the shore, but soon, for some reason not explained, changed its purpose, and made straight again for the rock, on which it landed.

The man, no doubt from the laudable desire of furnishing the British Museum with a true specimen of a mermaid (a person could hardly send such a creature to the Zoological Gardens among wild beasts), drew a large knife from his pocket and advanced. He had hitherto kept at a respectful distance. But he stopped suddenly, for to his amazement the creature spoke. To hear in the early dawn of a peaceful autumn morning, a mermaid speak! - that surely were bliss beyond compare. Not so thought the labourer; terror added wings to his feet and he fled, circulating over the parish, that surely his end was near, for he had seen a mermaid, and heard her tongue. Eventually however, his delusion was dispelled, for the mermaid turned out to be the wife of a Glasgow professor, who had come down to spend his holidays on the shores of Lochfyne. It is superfluous to add that the lady had gone out to bathe. We understand that the man is still living.