Here's a story about young Andrew, who fell in love with a mermaid. Andrew lived in the very north of the Scottish coast. One morning, while walking along the sea, he heard someone singing. It was still very early, and Andrew did not expect to meet anyone on the shore.
At first he thought it was the sound of the surf. He stopped, listened and heard singing again. But, looking around, I saw only white walruses frolicking in the sea. However, after walking a little more, he noticed that someone was sitting on a rock at the farthest end of the bay.
And when he came very close, he, to his surprise, discovered that it was a mermaid.
She combed her long hair with a mother-of-pearl comb and sang. Her voice was like a nightingale! Her hair turned golden brighter than the flowers of a yellow buttercup. Her skin was whiter than sea foam, and her eyes were greener than the depths of the sea.
Andrew saw her face in the mirror she held in her hand. He slowly crept up behind her and hugged her tightly. She screamed, dropped the mother-of-pearl comb and mirror and turned to Andrew.
From that moment they fell in love with each other.
The mermaid promised Andrew that the next day she would sail to this place again and, waving her tail, disappeared into the depths of the sea.
The next morning, emerging from the sea, she handed Andrew what he thought was a full handful of multi-colored pieces of glass.
“Here, take it,” she told him. “This is a gift from me to you, so that you know how much I love you.”
Andrew looked at what she gave him - it turned out to be real amethysts and rubies, which played like that and glowed in the rays of the morning sun.
-Where did you get them from? - Andrew asked.
“I found them when I swam past the sunken ships that lie at the bottom of the Pentland Firth Strait,” answered the mermaid.
A few days later, Andrew went to a nearby town and sold all the precious stones there. And the neighbors were only amazed that he suddenly began to live in a completely new way. He bought a new, bigger house, started dressing in rich clothes, and pampering himself with expensive food and foreign wines.
He met the mermaid almost every day, and she became more and more attached to him. But he led too extravagant a lifestyle, and his wealth disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
“I need more precious stones,” he told the mermaid. “Is there anything left in the Pentland Firth?”
She swore to him that there were as many stones there as the shiny scales on her tail, and on the day of their next meeting she poured into his lap topazes that burned like the eyes of a tiger, sapphires bluer than the eyes of Siamese cats, and emeralds greener than the eyes of her mermaid sisters.
- How generous you are! - Andrew was amazed. - And how beautiful you are! - he added, hugging her tenderly.
However, the richer Andrew became, the more time he spent drinking with friends and neighbors and the less time he spent with his beloved mermaid.
One day she brought him a whole handful of diamonds.
“I just don’t know how to thank you!” - said an admiring Andrew. - They are transparent, like drops of dew!
“No,” the mermaid shook her head. “Like the tears I will shed if you stop loving me,” she said sadly.
Andrew already had a lot of money, which he earned from selling precious stones, so he decided to save the diamonds. He gave only a few stones to beautiful ladies to win their favor. They ordered brooches, rings and earrings from these diamonds and showed them off to each other.
And the next time Andrew met the mermaid, she reproached him for his infidelity.
- Oh, Andrew! - she said reproachfully. - Why do you give my gifts to other ladies?
Andrew vehemently denied this, but that same evening he gave the largest diamond to the most beautiful lady in the area.
The mermaid reproached him for this again, and they quarreled. The mermaid was very upset. At first she grieved, but then she decided: no, she would not allow her earthly rivals to take Andrew away from her.
And then one day, when on the appointed day Andrew came to the seashore, he saw an empty rock - this time the mermaid was not waiting for him, as usual. Andrew himself sat on the rock and sat for a long time, thinking that it was about to appear.
Suddenly he saw a smart boat sailing towards him from the west. She easily cut through the smooth surface of the water, like sharp scissors through silk, and quickly approached him. There was a mermaid sitting on her bow. She called to Andrew, he jumped from the cliff into the sea, swam to the boat and climbed on board.
“You used to come to me without a boat,” Andrew said.
“I want to take you with me,” the mermaid said to this.
“Thank you, but I’m not sure I want to go away with you,” said Andrew; he was quite satisfied with his present rich life.
“I would take you to Duncansby Head,” the mermaid promised.
“I don’t want to go to Duncansby Head,” said Andrew.
“There, in the cave,” continued the mermaid, not paying attention to her lover’s unkindness, “I keep all the treasures that I once found in the Pentland Firth Strait.” Those precious stones that I brought you are just a glimpse of these countless treasures, and they are all kept in a cave at Duncansby Head.
- Are you telling the truth? — Andrew didn’t believe it. “Maybe you’re telling me stories to lure me in?”
The mermaid assured him that she had not invented anything, but had told the pure truth. The story about countless treasures completely turned the young man’s head, and Andrew agreed to go with her.
Although the boat had neither sails nor oars, it flew forward as if by magic, and very soon they sailed to a huge cave. The mermaid dropped a silver anchor and invited Andrew to get off the boat and go down into a dark cave.
Andrew suddenly began to feel sleepy, and, entering the cave, he lay down on the sandy floor, put his head on a stone and fell asleep. How long he slept, he himself did not know, but when he woke up, the lunar path had already laid from the entrance through the entire cave, illuminating the sparkling piles of precious stones piled in the far corner.
Andrew immediately jumped to his feet and rushed to that corner, already wondering in his mind how many stones he could carry with him. However, as he plunged his hands into the pile of cold, burning diamonds, he suddenly noticed that his hands were grabbed by a thin but strong gold chain, long enough for him to reach the jewelry, but not so long that he could leave the cave.
In desperation, he looked around, searching for the mermaid. She was sitting on a thick log covered with seaweed at the entrance to the cave.
-Why did you chain me? - Andrew asked her. -Are you joking?
The mermaid shook her head.
“I don’t believe you anymore,” she said. “You broke the invisible chain of our love.” But this golden chain cannot be broken. Now you are forever mine...
This is how the mermaid punished young Andrew for his infidelity.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru