Whatever the curse that descended upon them, it inspired all the great fables of the world since. Is it not true that in the storytelling traditions of every major culture we find tales of unthinkable disasters, which cleansed the world and restored order? Of course, among Water People these tales have a certain irony. For example, in our version of Noah’s Ark, the world was destroyed by a great drought.
Be that as it may, some terrible cataclysm abruptly destroyed Ta-Mera and the vast empire it anchored, along with all the Landers — except three young men — and the Tamerians — except Melasine and two others — young mermaids named Acarinth and Leirdrela.
In some accounts the three surviving Landers are described by Water People as barbaric and low (typical Landers, some insist) and are assigned names commiserate with such an unpleasant portrayal. A web-footed priest writing in fourteenth century England named the Landers Gumaldin, Fray Daval, and Altenhop — names from the classic storytellers’ lexicon of bumbling demons and clownish villains.
Even modern Water People coax their children to sleep with disparaging comic tales about the three Landers. In many bedtime stories the trio become drooling lechers named Squat, Frag, and Goop, and children are assured that our finned foremothers nobly consorted with them only for purposes of repopulating the ocean with Water People.
Most Water People, however, prefer a more romantic and sympathetic image of the three legendary Landers — who are, after all, our mythological ancestors. They call the threesome by handsome names that were assigned to them in a classic eighteenth century narrative written by a Bonavendier relative, the infamous Victorian singer and poetess Emilene Merrimac Revere (Molly’s great-grandmother), of Boston, Massachusetts. To quote a verse:
Stalwart and true, by Ta-Mera’s princesses enslaved
Devoted lovers, bound to earth yet fulfilled in water,
We shall whisper their mortal names on shores kissed by eternal tides,
And forget them not in fluid rhyme:
Beckrith, Padrian, and Salasime.
Beckrith, Padrian, and Salasime. The mates of the three Tamerians and the mythological founding fathers of all Water People. They were pureblooded, two-legged, ordinary Landers. After the great cataclysm nothing was left of either Land People or Water People except those three gentlemen and our three ladies. A classic dilemma.
Even if you were the only man left on Earth . . .
Melasine, Acarinth, and Leirdrela fell in love with the men. The Tamerians were not yet creatures of determined solitude. That came later, during centuries of loneliness and loss. But after many years their devoted Landers died, and also their halfling children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren — all mortal.
As the centuries passed, every lover and every child left them. The three Tamerians realized it would always be so. Thus they began to harden their hearts against Landers and even halflings, to stay alone, until some rare man lures them into love again or some descendent earns their sympathy.
So they cannot resist loving us. In their souls they cherish their mingled descendents, neither Lander nor Tamerian, neither earth nor water, but the best of both.
And that is a truth I believe.
* * * *
Popular modern myths say Melasine, Acarinth, and Leirdrela continue to take lovers among the men of the earth and to birth new generations of extraordinary descendents. The more pragmatic among Water People insist that no such finned ancestors ever existed and certainly don’t exist now, and that variations in our skills and physiology are mere vagaries, easily explained by random intermingling among our kind. (Dear Readers: I will not get into any wilder claims here, but do please read my addendum about clans.)
Many Water People claim (as, in fact, we Bonavendiers do) to be only a few generations removed from either Melasine, Acarinth, or Leirdrela. We engage in endless debates over reported sightings and encounters with the three. A certain snobbery demands that one not only claim a member of the trio as near kin but also show proof that the link actually exists.
That proof is always suspect, however. The portrait of Melasine at Sainte’s Point has generated spirited controversy among Water People for two hundred years. Some fervently accuse us of fraud. Did she actually pose for the artist, or was her image merely conjured up by social climbing eighteenth century Bonavendiers? I assure you, dear readers, she posed.
Regardless, let us all be proud of whatever talents we have inherited, however and whenever, at every level of clan and kinship. I fully admit that my native Southern fascination with family history is as strong as my devotion to my kind. And thus I am calling, as I said to begin with, for pride and unity.
I do believe in legends.
And I do believe, Dear Readers, that we are all One People, separated only by fluid degrees.
Land People fight and struggle and yearn to find magic in their lives. Water People hide behind that magic but realize the loneliness of it. As for Bonavendiers, add to our psyche the spoiled attitudes of a silver-spoon upbringing in the deep, coastal South, and you have that most dangerous of all combinations (and here I stoop to use two common stereotypes).
Southern belles who are also mermaids.
Gilding the magnolia, to say the least.
Now you know.
Clans of the Water People
Introduction
As I have already stated, both Land and Water People are descended from three couples in ancient mythology: Melasine and Beckrith, Acarinth and Padrian, Leirdrela and Salasime. Most of the world’s Lander population is so far removed from those origins that they have no hint of the fabulous traits left in them. But because Melasine, Acarinth, and Leirdrela still exist, still occasionally fall in love with men, and still bear children, we Water People are only a few generations removed from their original ancestry, and our talents are strong.
A more scientific explanation? Historically, some clans of Water People have shunned Landers and intermarried only with other Water People, thus re-enforcing certain special traits. Some of our kind are even so strong in bloodline that very, very amazing talents are reported. Most such reports are suspect and very hard to believe, however.
The terms I’ve listed below to categorize our clans are, at best, fluid and capricious, often leading to prejudices and foolish judgments among Water People, who can be quite smug. As I said earlier, we Bonavendiers are Singers. One of the more highly evolved clans.
But enough discussion or I shall digress into vanities. Here, in simple terms, are our clans and their most basic descriptions, in descending order.
Clan Designations
The Old Ones
Melasine, Acarinth, and Leirdrela. Our real or imagined half-human, half-aquatic progenitors, also known as the Tamerians, who, according to legend, mated with three Landers after the ruin of Ta-Mera. They have continued to mate with men in all the centuries since. They are assumed to be immortal and extremely reclusive, yet also extremely seductive. No absolute proof of their existence has ever been produced.
Swimmers
Swimmers are either first-generation halflings (the immediate descendents of a Tamerian mermaid and a Lander), or simply Water People of extraordinary and rare abilities. Claims of encounters and matings between Swimmers and other Mers abound, but may simply be a fanciful way to cover up reckless romances or to further gild the reputations of children with unusual abilities. Example: A pregnant woman with no husband may insist she was seduced by a Swimmer — who, of course, left the scene immediately afterward. Swimmers are variously described as predatory, irresistible, incorrigible loners, and terrifyingly possessive shapeshifters. They cannot or will not live among either Landers or Mers.
Swimmers are said to be acutely psychic (much more than other Mers) and possess extraordinary powers in the use of sonar and sonic vibration, which can be used as a weapon. Their lifespans are impossible to calculate, but according to anecdote and speculation they may live for hundreds of years.
Healers
Healers are a small population among us. Some are born with lightly webbed hands as well as feet and other unusual physical traits, which makes them avoid Lander society, but nonetheless they tend to be moderate souls, and, as their caste name suggests, they exhibit a marked talent for healing others. Some scientists among the Mers believe their healing abilities are related to our prevalent talent for sonar and sonic vibration, which has been shown to have a marked effect on cellular regeneration.
One might say that if Swimmers represent the dark side of Mer-dom, then Healers are the light.
Singers
Singers represent the largest caste of Mers and are by far the most successful at coexisting in the Lander world. Singers are categorized by webbed feet, remarkable swimming abilities, and an average lifespan of ninety to one-hundred-ten years, among other traits. Our prevailing talent is indicated by our clan name: we are psychic “singers,” with the ability to lure, enthrall, and communicate in wordless vibratros of emotion. Virtually all of us also have extraordinary singing voices in the more conventional sense of “singing.” In fact, a notable percentage of the world’s popular singers and operatic stars are Mers.
Good manners and common sense prevent me, unlike Juna Lee Poinfax, from naming celebrity names.
Floaters
Many of you, dear readers, are Floaters, though you don’t know it and probably think of yourself as just a Lander. Your Mer ancestry is hidden at least a few generations past, and your feet, I’m sorry to say, are indeed the feet of a plain Lander. But you have a marked love for the waters of the world, whether fresh or salt, and you can often be found on some sunny coast or shady lakeside. You may be a sea captain or an oceanographer, or simply a land-bound devotee of the water. Regardless, you revel in fluid whimsy and daydreams, you are drawn to the great marine mammals and the colorful fish, and you are quite elegant in style, in purpose, and in thought. You sense something different about yourself, something that sets you apart from the Landers — an urge, perhaps, to take a long ocean voyage and settle in some exotic cove, or to swim beneath the surface of life’s illusions and breathe against all odds.
I firmly believe that most of the great sailors and ocean adventurers of the world are, at the very least, Floaters.
Landers
Land people. They make up the vast bulk of the earth’s population, good and decent and special in their own way, yet so far removed from their glorious beginnings in the seas that they fear the water and try to conquer it. They are to be treated kindly and welcomed into our midst and, dare I insist, respected for their love of the earth, no matter how stubborn they are in their dominance. I intend to reform them.
There is no more to say about them than that.
A Primer Of Mer Wisdom and Quotations
by Lilith Bonavendier
The more pragmatic among Water People insist that no finned ancestors ever existed and certainly don’t exist now, and that variations in our skills and physiology are mere vagaries, easily explained by random intermingling among our kind. I will not get into any wilder claims, here.
* * * *
They say there are tragic water spirits who sing to passing boatmen. Yet as anyone who has heard one of us singing can tell you, there is nothing tragic about the music of the water. It is the singing, not the silence, that matters.
* * * *
Almost all the stories of Water People are preposterous and insulting. They say we lure people into the sea and steal their souls. What a terrible stereotype. Our souls are in the water, not theirs.
* * * *
It is quite likely the fabulous worlds of Melasine and her kind had been in ruins for millennia when Neptune began paddling around Grecian male fantasies with his nubile nymphs and phallic trident.
* * * *
To sing is to charm the soul with illicit lures, said the churchmen of old. And so the songs of Water People, male and female, were designated a form of witchcraft. How sad, to turn love into darkness.
* * * *
Stalwart and true, by Ta-Mera’s princesses enslaved
Devoted lovers, bound to earth yet fulfilled in water,
We shall whisper their mortal names on shores
Kissed by eternal tides,
And forget them not in fluid rhyme:
Beckrith, Padrian, and Salasime.
Ode To Mermaids And Men
Emilene Merrimac Revere
Victorian poetess and singer
* * * *
At the risk of insulting those Water People who believe Landers cannot possibly share our legacy, I must point out that if the sea is the mother of us all, then we must all be, at heart, both Water People and Land People.
* * * *
The fantastic abilities of Water People are rooted in the physical laws of nature, not fairytales. I say that quite seriously.
* * * *
Land People fight and struggle and yearn to find magic in their lives. Water People hide behind that magic but realize the loneliness of it.
* * * *
Some Water People use the word halfling as a slur when someone exhibits Lander-like traits. That usage, however, is generally considered both inaccurate and ill-mannered.
* * * *
The Celts called him the Waterman and said he was once a sea-god named Dewi. In Christian times, he became Saint David. By any name, he was reported to be irresistible when playing the harp and singing. No doubt, since he was one of us.
* * * *
A notable percentage of the world’s popular singers and operatic stars are Water People. Good manners and common sense prevent me, of course, from naming celebrity names.
* * * *
The world is a very narrow stream for most people. They never realize how many other streams flow to the same ocean.
* * * *
Often we read the hoary old tale of dangerous sirens luring ships to their doom and men to damnation: The Cyrenes of Homer’s Odysseus, beckoning ordinary men and their possessions. The truth, dear readers, is far more sentimental; our kind tends to rescue hapless travelers and take only a small commission in return. It is the travelers who steal from us.
* * * *
As for Bonavendiers, add to our psyche the spoiled attitudes of a silver-spoon upbringing in the deep, coastal South, and you have that most dangerous of all combinations (and here I stoop to use two common stereotypes.) Southern Belles who are also mermaids. Gilding the magnolia, to say the least.
* * * *
The term “mermaid” is literally translated as “virgin of the sea.” And thus I have never considered that popular term a particularly apt or complimentary name for our kind. To celebrate the water is to celebrate the consummation between water and earth, female and male. To have never experienced that unity is to be half-lived.
* * * *
In our version of Noah’s Ark, the world was destroyed by a great drought.
* * * *
The Nagas of India were matriarchal tribes named for the mythological serpent children of the Goddess Kadru. They were said to host fantastic undersea mansions and keep mystic books of wisdom and in return, the goddess granted them long lives. What a beautiful story. All true.
* * * *
Water People say the earth formed as an afterthought inside the glorious depths of great seas, hardening like the dull, dry pit of a luscious fruit.
THE WATER HYACINTH SERIES
BY M. M. REVERE
(Available only at Finsters’ Books, somewhere under the sea)
Book 1 — Hyacinth and the Mermaid’s Torch
Book 2 — Hyacinth and the Temple of Neptune
Book 3 — Hyacinth and the Curse of Poseidon
Book 4 — Hyacinth and the Siren’s Ghost
Book 5 — Hyacinth and the Cave of the Argonauts*
*Currently unfinished. This book’s completion date is uncertain, since Molly’s writing schedule has been interrupted by recent events. She’s now traveling to unspecified locales with Rhymer and th
e girls. But Molly does expect to finish the book as soon as possible and will send it immediately to her publisher in New York.
ABOUT THE WATER HYACINTH SERIES
In a shameless homage to the success of the Harry Potter series, the Water Hyacinth series by M.M. Revere features some basic similarities to the J.K. Rowling novels: a lonely child, unaware that he/she is special, discovers a separate world of magic and adventure, complete with loyal friends, strange and wondrous pets, lovable mentors, and evil villains.
But in other respects, Water Hyacinth is very much unique.
Introduced in the series’ blockbuster first installment, Hyacinth and the Mermaid’s Torch, twelve-year-old Hyacinth Meridian, who has never known her parents, lives a lonely, shy life at a drab orphanage in Victorian-era Boston, Massachusetts, until a magical pendant lures her to the harbor docks, where she’s benignly “kidnapped” by dolphins.
The dolphins take her to the fantastic undersea world of Finsters Academy, a school for elite mer children. The lovably irascible headmistress, Artemisia Coral, explains that Hyacinth is the lost princess of “a small sea kingdom” and that she was hidden for her own protection in the world of “dry people” as a baby, after her parents mysteriously disappeared in the sinister Disappearing Sea.
But now she’s been found, and it’s time for her to learn all the magic — and responsibilities — of a well-schooled Mer princess. Including the spoken charm that transforms scruffy, two-legged Hyacinth into a beautiful twelve-year-old mermaid (and back again, when she wants.)
Thus Hyacinth embarks on a fantastic adventure of discovery, making friends such as Barnabus T. Tradvorius, adopting a pet stingray she names Tickle, and yet also coming to realize that the dark forces behind her parents’ disappearance may also be lurking in the abyss, waiting to capture her.
Diary of a Radical Mermaid Page 22
