The Dark Garret

Salutations All!

Kinder Scout

The Mermaids Pool, Kinder Scout

                Part way up Kinder Scout, a mountain not far from Old Oak Woods, three miles from Hayfield in Derbyshire is The Mermaid’s Pool. It is thought that a beautiful nymph comes here to bathe. It is also thought that if someone visits the pool at the very beginning of Easter Sunday – midnight – they will meet this nymph and they will be granted good fortune, wealth and immortality. There is a cost of course. This person will love only the nymph and none other for the rest of their life.

                In 1893, Robert Charles Hope related that the locals had heard gossip of this happening only once during the century previous. A man made the journey to The Mermaid’s Pool and came across the nymph. He was conducted to the cavern and the tradition says that the nymph was ‘pleased with this humble mortal and he lingered there some time’. It is said the he was gifted with immortality.

                Tradition says that to meet the nymph, you must stare intently into the deep waters that legend has it is connected to the Atlantic Ocean. No fish can survive in the supposedly salty waters, a possible clue as to the verity of the legend of its connection to the Atlantic at least.

                What is known is that marine biologists sent down submersible cameras to locate the base of the pool, but the end of the lengthy cables were reached before the bottom was found.

                Whatever the route of the legend, it is definitely a mysterious place. It inspired Mrs Humphrey Ward to use it in her novel and Henry Kirke White (1785-1806) wrote a ballad about the desolate place (see below) in which, for poetic licence, the nymph was transformed into a siren, a being that tempts people to their deaths rather than gifting them with riches and immortality.

                In a version of the Mermaid’s Pool legend, this is what happens. Any who shun her hospitality and the rewards she offers, she will drag down them down to a watery grave. It is said that several people have drowned here, could it really be the nymph playing out her revenge for her shunned heart?

                There is only one documented example of a person actually going up to The Mermaid’s Pool at the start of Easter Sunday and taking the nymph’s reward.

                His name was Aaron Ashton, a retired soldier from Hayfield. As the story goes, he went up to the pool’s edge on many an Easter Sunday, but never saw the nymph and so, never received his extended life. What is curious though, is that he lived to the age of 104; a phenomenal age for 1835, considering that the average life expectancy at the time was 45. Perhaps the nymph’s unseen hand really did have a part to play.

Kinder Scout

                Now, here’s Henry Kirke White’s ballad:

There is a land within a northern clime

Where many a mountain reaches to the clouds,

That rests their billowy fleeces on its head.

And roll adown its rugged, storm-rent side.

At the foot of such a mountain in this land

There lies a pool, dark and mysterious,

Shadowed by blackened rocks, and sedges drear,

In which no reedy warbler builds its nest;

No heather nods its bells unmusical

Around its banks, no somber-coated bee

Hums over it a busy melody;

No speckled trout or dark-backed umber there

Wake the still waters with the circling leaps;

No chattering grouse drops in the doubtful wave

Feathers that float like tiny argosies;

Nor furry-footed coney stops to drink

Its waters salt as those their watch that keep

Over the doomed towns of Palestine.

With solemn awe the lonely shepherd treads

Passed the weird margin of the mountain tarn,

Fearing the sprite that dwells within its depths,

And rot, and ague, and a thousand ills

He thinks such fearsome folk are wont to give

To those that trespass on their sovereignty.

But one there was a sprightly lad and tall,

And gifted with a face in which for mastery

Action and thought seemed always combating,

Who always felt attracted to the pool,

And sat for many hours plumbing its depth

With anxious eyes; but nought saw he therein

Save the reflection of his comely face.

Warning he had full oft from wiser men

To meddle not in such a dangerous quest,

Now seek for death where death was surely found:

For ‘tis believed that on a certain eve

When summer fruits are ripe, and in the sky

The stars can scarcely light their shining lamps,

And the soft air is strangely musical

With the faint soft hum of fairy merriment,

A maiden, strangely fair, but strangely formed,

Rises from out of the pool, and by her songs

And heavenly beauty lure to shameful death

The luckless wight who hears her melodies.

But youth is curious, and the shepherd lad

Longed with intense desire to see the maid.

He dreamt of her by night, her white arms seemed

To lock him in a clinging, fond embrace;

She haunted him by day as moodily

He watched beside the pool, and seemed to see

In each reflected cloud her drapery.

At last the night arrived, the sun just dipped

His rosy fingers in the pathless sea,

Leaving the world not dark, but hardly light;

The waning stars scarce marked the azure sky,

And zephyrs gentle cooled the heated earth:

‘Twas just the hour when night and morning meet,

When, watching still, the boy sat eagerly,

On a huge stone that darkened all the pool;

When suddenly that wave gleamed fitfully

With the sudden light, as in the tropic seas

The lambent waves shine with phosphoric glare,

And brighter grew the water, and the air

Was filled with music ravishingly sweet.

With open mouth and eager starting eyes

The youth stood gazing at these mysteries,

And saw from out the troubles waves arise

A maiden, clothed alone in loveliness;

Her golden hair fell o’er her shoulders white,

And curled in amorous ringlets round her breasts;

Her eyes were melting into love, her lips

Had made the very roses envious;

Withal a voice so full, and yet so clear,

So tender, made for loving dialogues.

And, then, she sang – sang of undying love

That waited them within her coral groves

Beneath the deep blue sea, and all the bliss

That mortals made immortal could enjoy,

Who lived with her in sweet community.

She sang, and stretching out her rounded arms,

She bade him leap and take her for his own –

With one wild cry he leapt, and with a splash

That roused the timid moorhen from her nest,

Sank ‘neath the darkling wave for evermore.

                As a conclusion, it is not uncommon for pools connected with subterranean passages to either the sea or other pools to have legends concerning mermaids – there is of course, the myths concerning Lock Ness. There is Rostherne Mere which is connected to both the Atlantic and the Mersey. Rostherne Mere also has a link with Easter Sunday in common with the Kinder Scout Mermaid’s Pool.

                At Rostherne, the mermaid can be heard singing and a person viewing it will be cursed with an unluckiness that can sometimes be proved fatal.

                The connection between the mermaid granting immortality and Easter Sundays is also curious. It is thought to be a conscious effort by Christians to appropriate a local legend in an attempt to help spread Christianity.

                I would also like to mention that Derbyshire has another mermaid’s pool. This one is on the top of a 500 metre tale, 1 mile long ridge called the Roaches, roughly half way between Buxton and Leek. But I will be covering this on another occasion. It is a fascinating place, equally as desolate as the Kinder Scout locale.