Mountain Mermaid
Susan Long
The myth of the Mountain Mermaid may have originated in the landlocked mountains of West Virginia with early settlers who migrated from the British Isles in the 1800s. Many of these seafaring men claimed their ancestors could be traced back thousands of years, which, whether true or not, they seemed to legitimately believe.
With the ocean more than four-hundred miles from West Virginia, these men, many of whom labored in coal mines or on railroads, reminisced about the glory of the seas back home. During lunch breaks, they spun tall tales of six-legged monsters that rose up out of the sea and toppled ships, the few survivors describing their own heroics, which included beheading the creatures.
Many also talked about mermaids, their beauty and their danger. There was no mermaid more beautiful or dangerous than one dubbed the “Mountain Mermaid.” According to legend, she was captured off the Isle of Skye and smuggled to the Appalachians in an elaborate fish tank built by her captor, William Campbell. At age sixteen, he fell in love with her while fishing in the Waternish Peninsula. The fish weren’t biting that day, but William was a patient young man, so he sat and stared at the misty harbor in a sort of reverie.
Suddenly, a mermaid sprang out of the water; even through the mist, William could discern her golden hair and fair skin. He was mesmerized as he watched her flip her fins to and fro, while motioning for him to come to her. At first, he thought he must have fallen asleep, so he closed his eyes and shook his head hard, but she was still there when he opened them. Then, without warning, she disappeared.
William returned to the same spot as often as he could, hoping to see her again. About six weeks later, when he had almost given up hope, she reappeared. This time, he anchored his little boat out in the harbor. Suddenly, the water around the boat became choppy, tipping it left and right, almost causing it to capsize. The mermaid appeared in a magnificent burst of sea spray that washed over the boat like a wave. As William reached out to touch her, she grabbed onto the side of the boat with her webbed hands, catapulting him into the water.
When he awoke, William lay on the shore, the mermaid next to him.
“Are you real?” he asked.
“It depends on what you mean by real; I’m not mortal.”
“I mean to ask if I’m really seeing you, or if you’re an illusion?”
“Does it matter?”
“I’ve fallen in love with you, and I don’t want you to disappear again.”
“That’s a very human thing to say, but love shouldn’t be selfish.”
“I don’t understand,” William said. “If you love someone, you want to be with them, don’t you?”
“Ah, William, you have a lot to learn about love; maybe I can be your teacher.”
“How did you know my name? Do you have a name?”
“You ask a lot of questions. As I said, I’m not mortal. Therefore, I know things that you can never know.”
As the mermaid dove back into the sea, she called out to William.
“My name is Mariana.”
For the next five years, William tried to see Mariana whenever he had a spare moment outside his work in the mines. She didn’t always appear, but when she did, his heart filled with happiness and desire. When he wasn’t with her, William felt sad and lonely.
When William turned twenty-one, he was offered an opportunity to travel to America and begin a new life, working in the coal mines of West Virginia. He was barely scraping by, even though he worked sixteen hours a day, and determined that one way to win Mariana’s heart once and for all was to ask her to marry him and come along.
He crafted a simple ring of bluebells and seaweed and carried it down to the shore in his pocket. William would promise Mariana a more beautiful ring after they were settled in America and he was making more money. Surely, she would understand.
Mariana was sitting on the shore, her head tilted back, looking up at the sun, almost as golden and bright as her hair.
“Mariana, I’m glad you’re here.” William’s excitement was reflected in his dark brown eyes. “I have something for you.”
“A gift?”
He removed the ring from his pocket and reached it to her.
“Mariana, I love you and want you to be my wife. I’m going to America, and I want you to come with me.”
“William, you know I can’t do that,” Mariana said. “If I leave the sea, I will lose myself; I will no longer be a mermaid.”
“But I thought you loved me, too.”
“I do love you, as much as a mermaid can love a mortal. But that does not mean that I can sacrifice myself.”
“But I would do it for you; I’d do anything to be with you, forever.”
Mariana wiped away a tear. “And that’s proof that you still don’t understand what love is. You must go now and start your new life”
William was hurt and angry. He felt foolish for thinking that Mariana would marry him and move to America. He tossed the ring made of bluebells and seaweed into the sea, took out the knife he used to craft it, and cut off one of Mariana’s pectoral fins. She flopped violently and screamed for him to stop, but it was too late. Mariana could no longer swim, but neither could she walk.
“What have you done to me?” Mariana asked.
“I will take care of you; someday, you will love me,” William said.
William carried Mariana home and placed her in the tank he’d spent more than a year building. He had already signed on with a steamer ship that sailed out of Portree, three days later, first to England and then to America. The ship was overcrowded and filthy. Passengers brought their own food and water, in addition to blankets to lie on at night in whatever small space they could claim.
William didn’t realize that he was only allowed to bring Mariana onboard sequestered in the fish tank because this ship was transporting dozens of freaks to America to perform in sideshows and circuses like P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City. Her tank was placed between a cage containing a pair of Siamese Twins and another with two midgets.
During the six-week journey to America, Mariana begged William to free her and throw her overboard. She was humiliated by the constant attention, some poking their fingers through holes in the tank to touch her and others attempting to feed her, as if she were an animal in the wild. William angrily told these people to leave her alone. He reassured her that soon they would begin their new life in America, and she would be happier than ever before.
“William, this is not love; this is cruelty,” Mariana repeatedly said to him.
But William did not understand her point of view. Halfway through the journey, Mariana retreated into a corner of her tank and refused to speak to him. She became weaker; her once sparkling eyes grew dim. She lost the will to live. William sought advice from a medical man, who oversaw caring for the freaks to ensure they arrived in good condition for the circuses. What he said to William would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“What were you thinking, young man?” he said. “Mariana is not a freak, and yet you’re treating her like one for your own selfish purposes.”
A week before the ship docked in Virginia, Mariana stopped breathing. The soft skin on her face wrinkled; the scales on her fins dried up. She had lived one hundred years, a third of the average life span for a mermaid. William was distraught and sat by her tank day and night, praying that she would come back to life. After all, he reasoned, she was a mermaid, not a mortal, as she herself had pointed out when they first met.
When the ship docked, William put what remained of his beloved Mariana—dried-out scales, locks of golden hair, a webbed finger where he would have placed the wedding ring—into a knapsack. He traveled by rail to the town of Jordan Creek, West Virginia, which sat on the Elk River, to report for duty at the mine.
William kept the knapsack by his tiny cot in the coal camp for a year. Every night, as he fell into bed exhausted from the day’s toil, he prayed that Mariana would return. One night, he had a vivid dream that he went down to Jordan Creek to fish. As he stood on the bank where the creek intersected with the Elk River, comparing it in his mind to the vast sea back home, she briefly appeared in the distance, and called to him.
“If you really love me, you’ll return me to the water.”
The next morning, William awoke with those words and the words of the medical man from the ship fresh on his mind. He carried the knapsack down to the creek and emptied its contents into the water.
“Now I know what love really is,” he said aloud. “Please forgive me.”
The mermaid sightings began about a year later at the same spot where William set Mariana free. Descriptions varied in terms of the color of her hair and what she said, if anything, but one feature remained consistent; she had a jagged cut on one of her pectoral fins. When William heard these accounts, he began visiting the creek as often as he could, but she never appeared to him.
Some of his fellow miners began referring to Mariana as the Mountain Mermaid and argued over how it would be possible for a mermaid to end up in a mountain creek in West Virginia. Many also laughed at her because of her deformed fin, concluding she must bring bad luck.
Finally, William decided to tell these men the true story of what happened. Most didn’t believe him and told him he must be crazy to make up such a lie.
One night, when the moon was full and the stars sprinkled the sky like glowing fireflies, William went down to Jordan Creek and waded into the water. He hadn’t planned to do this; it was as if he were being directed by something other than his own mind. Suddenly, he was pulled under the water by a force so strong he thought it must be a shark, but William was aware that sharks didn’t live in mountain creeks.
William’s body was recovered several days later. People suspected that he had indeed been crazy, based on the strange stories he told about the Mountain Mermaid, and that he had purposely drowned himself. In the following weeks, there were several mermaid sightings in the creek; however, notably, her fins showed no signs of any cuts. Now the talk among the men focused on the possibility that the Mountain Mermaid had gotten her revenge on William.
To this day, there are local sightings of the Mountain Mermaid. Some fishermen report that she waves at them, displaying a ring on her finger made of bluebells and seaweed.
Susan Long
Born and raised in Appalachia, Susan Long has published short stories in literary magazines, essays in the Orlando Sentinel, a nonfiction story, "Rediscovering Daddy," in Voices of Lung Cancer, and more. She has written two novels, Blue Impala and The Illumination of Darkness. A chapter from Blue Impala as well as her short story “Bookmobile” were published in Appalachia Bare. Another short story, “Next to God’s House” was featured in Still: The Journal. Susan’s creative nonfiction essay, “Becoming Doris Day,” appeared in the Winter 2025 edition of As the Crow Flies, an online expansion of Appalachian Journal. Her short story "John-John" was recently published in the Spring 2026 issue of Litmosphere: Journal of Charlotte Lit. Susan is currently working on a collection of stories: Dreams of Appalachia—Take Me Home. She holds a master’s degree in English from C.W. Post-Long Island University. Visit www.author-susanlong.com; substack.com/@susanlongtakemehome.