CurseFamous
The Black Mere Mermaid
No bird flies over her water.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Small moorland pool on a high ridge
- Legend from
- Folk tale, printed 1863
- Tone
- Chilling
Drain my pool, she warned, and I will drown all Leek and Leekfrith.
Black Mere, or Blake Mere, is a small pool on Morridge above Leek, and the Mermaid Inn nearby takes its name from its legend. The Sentinel gives two versions: a woman drowned as a witch who returned as a mermaid to claw her accuser, Josiah Linnet; or a sailor's mermaid bride left alone in the pool. Some said no cattle would drink there and no birds fly over; Robert Plot dismissed that in 1686. When the pool was partly drained, the mermaid warned she would drown Leek and Leekfrith. The tale appears in print from 1863, in The Reliquary.