Though generally wilder and uglier than mermaids, mermen have less interest in mankind. They do not, like the selkies, come ashore to court mortal women and father their children, nor are they jovial and friendly to men like the Irish merrows, and they do not crave for salvation like the Scandinavian Neck. If the gentle little mermaid who was put into the sea by The Oldman of Cury was to be believed, they were rough husbands and were even capable of eating their own children if they were left hungry. They seem to personify the stormy sea, and it is they who raise storms and wreck ships if a mermaid is wounded. Benwell, however, describes the Scandinavian Merman or Havmand as a handsome creature with a green or black beard, living on cliffs and shore hills as well as in the sea, and says that he was regarded as a beneficent creature.

[Motifs: B82.6; F420.5.2]