Irish Folklore: Merrows or Mermaids and Mermen

Merrows

A merrow is a mermaid or merman. The Female merrow's top halves are human and their bottom halves are like the tails of fish. They are beautiful and have little duck-like scale between their fingers. Male merrow, on the other hand, are more like the "creature from the black lagoon". They have green teeth, green hair, pig's eyes, and red noses. Both genders possess a magical little hood, which gives them the power to live underwater. If they were ever to lose it, they would be exiled to land until they could find it again.

The fishermen do not like to see them, for it always means coming gales. Sometimes the mermaids prefer good-looking fishermen to their sea lovers. In the last century, there is said to have been a woman covered all over with scales like a fish, from a tryst between a mermaid and a fisherman. Sometimes they come out of the sea, and wander about the shore in the shape of little hornless cows.