The Mermaid

Once there was a fisherman, a lonely man who lived on a cold and rocky coast and was never able to convince any woman to come away and live in that forbidding place with him. He loved the sea more than any person and so was never able to take a wife, for women see what is in men’s hearts more clearly than men would wish. But though he loved the freezing spray on his face and the sight of the rolling clouds on the horizon he still wished for somebody to love. One evening after a long day he pulled up his net and found a woman in it. A woman with black hair and eyes as gray as a stormy sea and a gleaming fish’s tail instead of legs.