For all those of you who loved the mermaid posts from last week, here is another.
This time it is 1937…. cue wobbly lens effect to show we are travelling back in time…. Thomas O’Toole and Michael Warde are piloting their curragh in the mouth of Ballinakill Bay when a merman startles them by breaststroking towards them.
Examiner 30 Aug 1937 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52157434
They sail away but the merman follows them. Once he catches up, they throw him a mackerel and he grabs it and dives below. When he returns to the surface the fish was gone, apparently eaten.
The merman then swims close to their curragh and, thinking he would spill them out, they panic and give him a smack on the head with the oar. This appears to be a popular way of dispatching merpeople, doesn’t it?
He whined and disappeared, just as you would too after being beaten about the head with a heavy piece of wood.
Later they described him as having red lips and bushy eyebrows. His hair was shaggy, and his skin was fair at the front and blue at the back.
The first thing I thought after reading this article was, apart from how much did they drink out in their boat that day, could the merman have been a normal human whose small boat had just sunk?
Did he see two men in their boat a short time later and, not believing his luck, swam towards them thinking he was saved?
He was thrown a fish which he clutched eagerly thinking it was something that may save him. After realizing it was just a fish he let it go and swam to the boat expecting to be hauled to safety. Instead, he was thumped over the head and sank below the waves as the superstitious Thomas and Michael rowed frantically home…. Or is that just me? ;)
Argh… poor, mute sunken sailor :(
Glub, glub, glub…. ;)
You -chortle- terrible -snort- woman! -collapses under desk in tears of laughter-
‘He was using his favourite breaststroke’. I wonder how many different breast strokes he had to choose from.
Personally I think they had a few nips to warm themselves while out and ended up offending a very friendly seal.
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I have to agree with you. I doubt there was much fishing going on in the curragh that day. I expect that the sobering effect of rowing back home at full speed was the only reason anybody was able to take this story seriously.
The mention of his ‘favourite breaststroke’ amused me too. Did they ask him which stroke was his favourite before they whacked him on the head or did they just guess?
Oh dear, I wonder how many drunken overboard sailors were effectively dispatched by an oar to the head? I suspect probably as many sailors were lost at sea as mermen were sighted…
I always thought that the natural enemy of the mermaid would be a Great White Shark or something similarily toothy, who would have thought it was an oar wielded by a terrified sailor?! ;)
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