The Mermaid Wife –Scottish– Scottish stories

Country and language: Scotland, English

Title of collection Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales (reprinted 1901 by W. Scott Publication
Company)

Original collector- Sir George Douglas

A: Context.

The Mermaid Wife is a Scottish fairy tale. It was collected by Sir George Douglas and it is part of
the Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales  which is a known collection of oral and written traditions
applied on Scottish folklore, legends, and tales that define the Scottish mythical and natural
lanscapes. This collection by Sir George Douglas preserves and offers at the same time a
traditional overview of Scottish folklore and beliefs.

B: Plotline:

The story presents a man (the Shetlander) who one night happens to catch a glimpse of some
mermen and mermaids dancing at the seaside, upon seeing the man they all transform into seals
and disappear, but the man finds a seal skin created like a piece of cloth and decides to keep it,
but suddenly a beautiful damozel appears and asks the man for the seal’s skin back, enchanted by
her beauty the man tricks her into marrying him. Several years passed and the couple became a
family with many children, but no matter how big the love of the man was the colder the wife’s
attitude grew. She was often seen standing in front of the sea and speaking in an unknown
language with a big seal. The whole reality changes when one of her children, while playing,
finds the piece of cloth made of seal’s skin, the woman is no longer damned to live on earth as
she leaves her children and husband behind. The end presents the farewell of the woman that
transformed herself back into a seal, her last words of gratitude and her reveal of her first
husband whom she loved and longer for all of her years on earth.

C: Position in the Aarne-Thomson-Uther Index.

Tales of Magic Supernatural or Enchanted Wife (Husband) or Other Relative- Wife

413- Marriage by stealing clothes.

ANECDOTES AND JOKES-

1440-1524: Stories about a Woman

1468. Marrying a stranger

Concerning the characters and functions according to Vladimir Propp, the fairy tale could have
the following functions:

VI. THE VILLAIN ATTEMPTS TO DECEIVE HIS VICTIM IN ORDER TO TAKE

POSSESSION OF HIM OR OF HIS BELONGINGS. –I THE VILLAN USES PERSUASION
(Namely, the man deceives the mermaid into marrying her by telling her she will get back her
seal skin if she follows him to his cottage.)

VII. THE VICTIM SUBMITS TO DECEPTION AND THEREBY UNWITTINGLY HELPS

HIS ENEMY( The mermaid accepts his proposal and is being trapped in a marriage she did not
want and she is condamned to live in the upper world.

XXVI. THE TASK IS RESOLVED. (Her child gives her back the seal’s skin she lost years ago)

XV. THE HERO IS TRANSFERRED, DELIVERED, OR LED TO THE WHEREABOUTS OF

AN OBJECT OF SEARCH. ( After the mermaid regained her cloth she was transferred from the
upper world( earth) to the marine world.)

XXIX. THE HERO IS GIVEN A NEW APPEARANCE.( From a beautiful damozel the woman
transforms into a seal.) A new appearance is directly effected by means of the magical action of
a helper (T 1 ). The helper her child and the new appearance is given by the seal’s skin.

XXX. THE VILLAIN IS PUNISHED- The villain( it is a little bit too much calling the man the
villain but in the classical predetermined pattern he plays this role because he deceives the
mermaid and forbids her to return to her home. ) I consider him to be punished because he is
damned to raise his children alone without a wife and a mother.

D. Similarities with other known tales

There is an obvious similarity between the The Yellow Dwarf and the The mermaid wife if we
consider the theme of “forced marriage”, neither did the princess nor the mermaid to marry the
man or the dwarf, they were both obliged and tricked into marriage and kept against their will.

Another similarity is the concept of transformation from a marine creature like a mermaid or seal
into a beautiful young lady. Both The little mermaid and The mermaid wife.

Modern day editions can be considered The little mermaid.