The Mermaid

The Mermaid Of Black Mere

(Based on the Legend of the Mermaid of Black Mere, situated near Leek, Staffordshire)

by Charles E S Fairey

In the gales and whistling winds

I sometimes hear a siren sing,

Enchanting and beckoning a handsome man

From the depths with her voice and loving hand,

Rising above the waters of Black Mere

For her victim’s lonely heart to hear.

Here The Mermaid hides below

Her prefect body the moonlight shows,

Shimmering on her voluptuous breast

Enticing lovers souls to the depths her quest,

Silver blue scales dance in the light

As she rises from the dark mere at night.

Luring her suitors unaware of her black heart

Her beauty and song of sirens art,

Endowing her lonely men with gold,

Infatuated they become, her manipulative hold,

They long to be with her for eternity,

Her splendor giving her feminine superiority.

And when she calls her lovers to the pool

Mesmerized they rush to her side,

Descend into the murky waters under her rule

Into the depths, drown, but with their bride,

The Mermaid, their Goddess of Love,

No longer shall they walk the moors above,

For eternity now her lovers caress and waul

Still unaware travellers still hear her call,

In the gales and whistling winds

I sometimes hear a siren sing.

Black Mere Pool, in the North Staffordshire Moors near the town of Leek, is the site of what may be the only inland mermaid legend in England.

The small, remote hilltop lake, around fifty metres wide, is a particularly haunting site.

Over the centuries it has been the scene of a number of mysterious drownings and even a murder when, in 1679, a woman pedlar was dumped in the pool by a local serial killer.

Tradition holds that the mermaid rises from the pool at midnight to lure unwary single male travellers to their deaths in the dark watery depths.

The local pub ‘The Mermaid’ is named after the legend.