The Mermaid of the Fair

An advert for a similar spectacle at Brighton

 There was an advert placed in the Bath Journal, July 1749 encouraging people to visit the Lamb Inn in Broadmead and view a young mermaid, “caught on the Acapulca (sic) shore”. This probably referred to Acapulco in Mexico, which would have been too far away for most people to visit from this country during that time. The unfamiliar name would have sounded exotic and suggested that the mermaid was from some distant, almost mythical land.

The advertisement tells how the young mermaid was being pursued by privateers; merchant sailors who were essentially pirates and were encouraged to plunder any ships with whom Britain was at war. The young mermaid and her mother were described as “singing alluringly” when driven to the shore. Her mother escaped and the privateers caught the young mermaid, using firearms and brought her back to England.

As well as being advertised as a young mermaid, she was also described as a pup and a sea monster, suggesting that she might have, in fact, been a young seal. Even though seals would have been common around Cornish and Devonshire shores, most Bristolians would not have ventured much further from the city and a seal would have been a very unusual sight.

(Monument and Event: The Plymouth Feathers – Wine Street Sea Monster, Andrew Townsend, 2010, Bristol and Avon Archaeology Vol. 23 pp119-122)