The "Women and Sea" thread reminded me of a mermaid song that is not in the DT-database. Like many of the other mermaid songs it is conveniently titled "The mermaid" (just to make the search easy). I know it from the "Murdered Ballads" vinyl record by Hamish Imlach. I'm confident that the transcription is correct except for line 3 in verse 4.

The Mermaid
- as sung by Hamish Imlach

1. When I was a lad in a fishing boat
an old man said to me:
"You can live a life, a jolly life
a sailing on the sea.
You can search the world for pretty girls
'til your eyes are weak and dim,
but don't go swimming with a mermaid, son
if you don't know how to swim".

Chorus 1: Her hair was green as seaweed,
her eyes were blue and pale,
I'll tell you now before you start,
you'll love that girl with all your heart,
you just gonna love the upper part,
you're not gonna love the tail

2. So I signed unto a whaling ship,
my first very day at sea
I've seen a mermaid in the waves
a reaching out to me.
"Come live with me in the sea said she,
down on the ocean floor
I'll show you a thousand wondrous things
you've never seen before."

3. So over I jumped and she pulled me down,
down to a seaweed bed,
a pillow made of tortoise-shell
she placed beneath my head.
She served me shrimps and caviar
upon a silver dish
she was just my taste to the waist
but the rest of her was a fish.

Chorus 2: Her hair was green as seaweed,
her eyes were blue and pale,
her face it was a work of art
I only gave her half my heart
though I loved the upper part
I could not love the tail.

4. Then one day when I looked up
I saw a sailing ship,
(I met the stare of a millionaire
on a fishing trip.
A diamond ring he tied to a string
throwing it down to the water.
My love divine she went for his line
and that's the way he caught her.

5. Into the tide I sat and cried
sung to the clams and the whales
how I missed her eyes and the seaweed hair,
the silvery shine of her scales.
Just then her sister, she swam by,
set my heart awhirl,
the upper part was ugly fish
the bottom part was girl.

Chorus 3: Her toes were round and rosy,
her knees were slim and pale,
her legs they were a work of art.
I love that girl with all my heart,
don't give a damn for the upper part,
that's how I end my tale.

Wolfgang