The Sea Morgan's Baby Story

There was a fisherman who came down to St. Audries Bay in the twilight. He'd heard someone singing down there in the dark and was curious. So, he crept down on tiptoe, but no matter how quietly he tried to move, the sea-morgans all hurried away from the rocks and into the tide. In their haste, they left behind a baby-morgan, kicking and chuckling under the cliff waterfall, and the fisherman found her.

His heart was heavy with sorrow for a little daughter he had just laid to rest in Watchet churchyard, and his wife's heart was broken. So, he took the baby-morgan home to the farm and placed her in the empty cradle. His wife took to her at once, though she could never quite get the little creature's hair dry—not properly dry, even in the sun and hill wind, and it always smelled of the sea.

The baby grew up like any other child, and except for her constant paddling and dabbling in the spring pond and trout stream, she made them a very good daughter—until a neighbor started poking her nose in.

"Dear, dear, how wet your hair is. Go and dry it like a Christian!" But the girl just laughed. Then the neighbor had to add, "A grown girl like you, paddling in the spring pond, isn't Christian at all. You should go down to the sea and have a swim there."

The old couple fussed over her, but as she went, she heard a strange song coming from the distant sea. "What ever is that?" she asked, but they wouldn't say. She heard it again behind her, and it was the girl singing. "That's my song," she said. "Someone wants me. There will be a storm tonight."

Well, that meddlesome neighbor ran and roused the Doniford and Staple men to chase away this so-called witch—but the girl ran away from them all, laughing. They couldn't catch up with her, and then they heard the song and the waves thundering on the rocks. They stayed where they were, up on the cart track. They heard her singing as she ran out along the rocks, and then a great wave took her, and no one ever saw her again.