Mystery · Hayfield · Famous
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She rises once a year, at Easter, from the dark water.
Stand where it happened
A moorland pool on the slopes of Kinder Scout, reached on foot from Hayfield. Open access land.
Come to this pool on Easter morning. If the mermaid rises, you may live forever, or never leave.
Below Kinder Scout's western edge lies a small dark pool said to be home to a mermaid. Tradition says she can be seen only at Easter, and that whoever sees her is granted long life, even immortality, though other versions say she drags people into the water. The pool is said to be linked to the Atlantic, making it too salty for animals to drink. Derbyshire Folklore tells of Aaron Ashton of Hayfield, an old soldier who visited at Easter and died in 1835 aged 104. Henry Kirke wrote a poem about a young man who loved the mermaid and drowned.