An Archival Treasure: The Irish Mermaid and Feminine Fertility

By Sylvie Muller
English

Unlike her counterparts from antiquity and the Middle Ages, whose seduction is deadly and evil, the Irish mermaid is attractive and fertile, she is a good wife and mother. The rituals and stories connected to her belong to an early European peasant calendar, that establishes a correspondence between the reproductive cycles of the earth, women and plants. Indeed this mermaid fits into a cyclical time where death is to the earth what menstruation is to women and flowering is to plants, fulfilling a fertile and nourishing potential.

Keywords

  • menstrual blood
  • afterbirth
  • woman
  • calendar
  • Ireland
Go to the article on Cairn-int.info