A Mermaid and a Magic Comb (A Cornish Folktale)
In a time before lighthouses and sea freighters, in the days of yore, there lived a man named Lutey, on the southernmost tip of Cornwall, at Lizard Point.
"I've read about Lutey and the Mermaid before, it never mentioned a comb." Jonas said, interrupting the story.
"Some stories change over time, Jonas. Like a fairytale. And online versions are always retellings. This looks like an older version. Just keep reading."
Lutey's love was farming his seaside acres with rich oats, rye and some year's wheat. Although he never seemed to make enough money selling his crops, he did not go broke. He supplemented his income by smuggling home brewed beer to the towns along the coast. He loved to meet new people on his travels and was always quick to give people a hand if they needed it. It was how he met his wife. He was a happy man and he led a happy life.
One summer's eve, he was returning home to his wife from a cliff side bog where he'd spent the entire day cutting turf for fuel. On this particular evening, he decided to take a quick walk along the shore to see if the sea had swept up any treasures. Lutey loved the sea, but he did not like the idea of being shipwrecked. He would rather enjoy the view and the occasional swim. Yet he knew lots of things could be lost at sea, and sometimes he was lucky enough to find them. He scanned the beach for a few minutes but didn't spot anything worth saving.
"So he's a treasure hunter, of sorts." Jonas stated. "I can get that."
"Do you want to be here forever, keep reading."
Lutey was about to call it a night when he heard the cry of a woman wailing in the distance. It was a soft but shrill sound, as if it was only meant for him to hear, and it seemed to be coming straight from the sea itself. Scanning the darkened edge of the coast, he came across a small rock pool formed by the low tide. The last light of the sun pierced directly in the centre of the pool, illuminating the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
"What a sucker." Morrigan interrupted this time. "Sorry, continue."
Her eyes searched the sea for something she had lost. Her pale shoulders just above the surface glistened in the moonlight with droplets from the sea, while the rest of her seemed tangled in a mass of seaweed or submerged beneath the water. Lutey didn't seem to notice that her hair was dry where it shouldn't be, he was too mesmerized by the golden curls tumbling down her back and floating right on the surface of the water and the way her skin resembled the inside of a delicately polished sea shell.
'Is she lost or hurt?' he thought. Trying not to scare her, he gently coughed.
The woman turned slowly, but hissed when she saw Lutey walking towards her. Then she let out an unearthly scream.
"That doesn't sound good." Morrigan said but Jonas just kept reading, falling into the story like it was his own. In a way it was.
"My lady, please! You don't have to be frightened." Lutey coaxed. "I'm here to help. My name is Lutey, what can I do for you?" He held up his hands and walked into the water. "Please, you can trust me; I would never hurt you, even if my life depended on it." He continued to try and make her feel at ease, talking slowly and gently like she was a child. Finally, the woman stopped crying and looked up at him with eyes shining like the tiniest stars.
Lutey gaped at her beauty as his steps moved him closer. He stopped when he could see inside the small pool she was in and he wondered why she would be bathing there in the cool weather. At first he thought he saw fish swimming around her legs, only to realize instead of legs, she had a mermaid tale and it was wrapped in all the pool's weeds.
"You're a mermaid!" Lutey exclaimed, though he was not as shocked as one would expect at discovering such a creature. He had never seen one in his life, but he loved the stories he'd heard as a child. Maybe on one or two occasions before, he thought he heard mermaids singing at the full moon. He dismissed it then as his imagination, but now he had learned the truth.
"My lovely sea nymph," he pleaded. "Please talk to me, tell me what I can do to hear your wonderful song?" The mermaid examined him thoughtfully but did not answer him. "Speak to me please, ocean angel, if you do not know my Cornish tongue, perhaps there is a way for you to give me a sign?"
The mermaid looked away bashfully and giggled. "So innocent you are to our ways," she said, "so like a surface dweller to see me as a treasure or a nymph. Of course I speak your tongue. We, the Nereids, can speak all the human languages, for we travel the shores of every country, and have talked with all the many people who sail the seas over our domain."
She pulled herself out of the water and on to a rock; she wasn't tangled in seaweed like he thought. He almost ran away when more of her long golden hair emerged from the water and instantly dried, wrapping itself around her body like a flaxen robe. Her tale quivered and shook in the shallow waters below the rocky shore.
"I've been here waiting for you though, Yunus," she said, calling him by his first name. "I have left my home beneath the sea many times, and sat close to this exact spot, gazing over your land. It's such a beautiful place. But it's somewhere I can never go." She hummed a small tune. "I've seen you in the bog, I've seen you digging for treasure along the shore, I've seen you looking for me too."
"No," Lutey argued. "I am a married man, with a child on the way. I have never thought to stray from my home."
"But I am trapped here now, by the tide and by my foolishness for thinking I could get closer to you. I only wanted you to see me, so you could finally hear my song." She hummed again. "Yunus, if you help me back to the sea I will grant you any three wishes. Your deepest desires, I shall give them to you." She pulled out a gold comb; its handle engraved with pink pearls, and offered it to Lutey. "This comb will be a token of my good faith, for whenever you need my help, just place the comb in and out of the water three times and call for me, and I will come to you."
"Oh, she's using magic, Jonas. She put a spell on the comb." Morrigan explained.
"My lady, I would have helped you without the three wishes, what is your name?" Lutey asked as he accepted the comb and stuck it in his back pocket.
"And there it is, accepting the comb made it official. She basically owns him now," Morrigan said.
"You can call me, Morwenna," she told him, which in his tongue meant "sea-maiden."
Lutey's lifestyle had sculpted him into a strong man. He was able to walk over to the rock which Morwenna had sat upon and scoop her up into his arms. He carried her over the razor sharp rocks blocking the mermaid's access to the sea and back into the water on the other side.
As he walked further into the water, his arms felt weaker and weaker and his load, heavier and heavier. It was as if every step he took carried a strange burden with it. His mind raced to recall any stories he'd heard about a person being granted three wishes. He remembered the beggar who wished to be a prince, and the king who wished everything he touched be turned to gold, but he struggled to remember if their outcomes were favorable.
"No dude, none were favorable!!"
When the sea came up to his waist, he set Morwenna down into the water. She dove in and for a split second Lutey thought she was going to swim away and be out of his life forever. In that moment he felt the worst heartache he had ever known. When she popped her head out of the water, he was enchanted once again at her beautiful smile. She circled him in the water with ease and said, "Come now Yunus, there is no longer any time to waste. Do you wish for the strength of ten men? Do you wish for immortality, or maybe for riches?"
"No," Lutey answered. "I want to be a good man and do good on this earth. So, my first wish is that I want the power to break the spell of any witch."
"Oh no, he didn't" Morrigan exclaimed.
Morwenna raised her white silk eyebrows at his first wish, she would of course be able to grant it but she knew there would be consequences.
"Secondly," Lutey continued, "I wish I had the power to make spirits talk to me in benefit of others." Morwenna was again pleased with this wish as it held many risks.
"Lastly, and most importantly, my third wish is that both of these powers you bestow unto me should be passed down in my family forever." Lute nobly declared.
Jonas, stopped reading for a moment. "Unbelievable! My own family did this to me! Why would he want that? It makes no sense whatsoever."
"You're preaching to the choir, kiddo. Let's just see what happens," Morrigan urged, intrigued how the story was going.
"As you wish," Morwenna said as she smiled deviously. Though he had not wished to be with her forever as she had hoped, a deal had been stuck, and every spell must have a balance.
Lutey looked upon her chest, slightly concealed underwater. When Morwenna noticed, she said, "know you can still come with me, Yunus. Know I am still yours." She pulled him down into the water and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. She tasted like sweet salt, like caramel sprinkled in ice. He wanted to kiss her forever. She let go and dove back into the water, swimming around him in circles.
She resurfaced with another smile for him, humming a tune. "Lutey, you saved me, if you want to come with me, even for a short while, I will help you. Our homes are made of coral and amber, our floors are strewn with pearls. Our roofs shine with diamonds and make everything they touch as bright as day, like your sun. Come with me my love, come with me and see it all for yourself." She hummed again.
Lutey had never been so tempted in all his life; he was half under her spell. "I want to go, I do, but I am afraid I may drown."
"No," the mermaid insisted, "I have magic that will make you gills to breathe the water like I do, and when you get homesick, you can return to the land with any of our treasures to rebuild your life. So let's go my love." She grabbed hold of his arms and tugged him towards the depths of the ocean. She saw in his eyes that he was spelled by her and she smiled a deadly smile.
Just then a dog began to bark frantically from the dark shore. It was Lutey's dog, Sulley, looking to greet his master after the day's work. Lutey turned and saw him barking at them both, fearfully. He scanned the beach and saw his tiny house and the smoke pouring out of its chimney. When he thought of his wife tending the fire, waiting for his return, the mermaid's spell was instantly broken. For she had just given him the power to break spells. He struggled against her embrace but she kept her arms wrapped tightly around his neck while trying to pull him under the water. He was too strong for her, but she did not let go.
Lutey had no other choice, he drew the knife he carried and held it up to the mermaid's throat. The cold steel of the blade forced her to drop her arms back into the sea. She turned and began to swim away, splashing water up in his face. She was still humming as she glided away, only to turn to him one last time. "Fare thee well then my love," she called to him. "Our deal is made. For nine long years you'll have your powers and then I'll come back for thee, when you can't possibly resist me."
Lutey felt weak, he sank into the water and lay there floating on his back, looking up at the bright full moon for what seemed like hours. He drifted over the rocky shore and staggered out of the water and up to the beach where he felt flat on his face and slept with a mouthful of sand.
The next morning, Lutey's wife was sick with worry. She left their house before the sun had risen and went to the shore to look for her husband. She found him slumbering next to a log that the sea had washed ashore with their dog protecting him. She thought he was dead, but when she shook him he woke with a groan.
"What are you doing down here?" She asked him.
When Lutey regained some of his consciousness, he wasn't sure if he was on land or at the bottom of the sea. He heard a woman speaking to him, "Morwenna? Is that you my love, have you returned for me so quickly?" he asked as he looked at his wife. "You look different."
"Indeed I must," his wife huffed. "I am Bethany Lutey, your wife, as you must know, and I've never heard name of this lass you speak of."
"Ohhh busted!" Morrigan giggled.
"Count yourself lucky then wife, for you've escaped a terrible fate." Lutey remembered everything then, and told his wife all he could. She did not believe him of course, but to prove what he told her was true, he showed her the golden pearled comb Morwenna had given to him. He made her promise not to speak of it to anyone.
His wife was too proud and too friendly to keep such a secret to herself. Soon, all of Cornwall heard of Lutey's run-in with the mermaid and the three wishes he was granted. People from all over the countryside in need of a curse broken or a conjurer, flocked to Lizard Point to call upon him.
Although their parting had been violent, Morwenna had been true to her word. Lutey found that he could break a witch's spell or commune with the dead, as long as it was to help and not to harm.
For nine long years, Lutey enjoyed the good he was able to do for his community. He made a fair wage and never had to smuggle another brew again. He decided to never use the comb to call to the mermaid, fearing if he used it, he may never see his family again. Still, he couldn't bear to part with it, so he secretly locked it in a wooden box, and buried it, unmarked, somewhere on his property.
Though it all mattered for naught, for on the ninth full moon of the ninth year since he met her, Morwenna returned.
"Dun, dun, dun."
Lutey was out fishing in a small boat with a friend when the moon lit up the sea like glass. Suddenly, the boat began to sway back and forth in the still of night. The water began to ripple before them. In the waves that soon formed up and around the boat, Morwenna appeared singing a soft melody, with the same golden hair streaming behind her and floating on the water. Many of her features were different, stranger, but he knew it was still her.
Lutey looked upon her, immediately entranced. "My time has come," said his empty voice as he plunged headfirst into the sea. He swam side by side with the mermaid for a time until the sea swallowed them both and the water returned to calm.
Lutey's body was never recovered.
From that time forth, his descendants did inherit his powers, but also his curse; for every nine years, a gifted one is taken to their grave in the deep blue sea.