(Image source)

The Mermaid Saint

This is a story about the two golden ages in Irish mythology: the time of the old heros and the time of the Christian saints. It is about a woman who becomes a mermaid, and a mermaid who becomes a saint. It is also a local creation myth, since it tells the story of how Lough Neagh, the huge lake that covers much of northern Ireland, was formed.

The story comes from two medieval sources: the Annals of the Four Masters, a chronicle which briefly mentions the mermaid being drawn out of the sea, and the Leabhar-na-h Uidhri (spellings vary), which is the Book of the Dunn Cow of St. Ciarán of Clonmacnoise. This source contains most of the plot, though more still is drawn from "the memory of the people of Ireland," and in my version, quite a lot of liberty.

• My version of the story (2005)

• As told by P.W. Joyce in 1879
• As told by Lady Augusta Gregory in 1906
• A comments form for this website (nope: I get nothing but MB of spam...)

• From the Annals of the Four Masters (scroll to M558.2)
• From the Book of the Dunn Cow
• Something in Spanish, with Spanish discussion
• The Wikipedia entry
• A rather different take on the story
• Order of the White Moon, based on the above
• A scholarly list of references
• I think her feast day was the 27th of January, but I haven't been able to find a copy of the Calendar of O'Clery. (I have another note that says the 18th of December.) She is not in any canonical (Roman) lists of saints, especially recent ones that have saints of doubtful authenticity removed.

To Jim Pivarski's homepage