Image by The seed of inspiration for the poem I perform below comes from an ancient Cornish folktale set in the village church of Zennor. I visited the church over ten years ago when the first draft of this poem was penned.
Poetry ©
The village church of Zennor is a small humble church, beamed with ship's wreckage; a gentle hill rises above the church leading to sheer cliffs beyond. I don’t want to say any more about Zennor or its history as that might ruin the effect of the poem.
More information about the Legend of The Mermaid of Zennor can be found here on Wikipedia.
The Mermaid of Zennor is a popular Cornish folk tale that was first recorded by the Cornish folklorist William Bottrell in 1873. I visited the Church at Zennor in Cornwall in 2006 on a writers' residential as part of my university degree.
The Legend fascinated me, and already being a lover of all things Fantasy fiction (and an aspiring fantasy author) I thought I'd try my hand at setting the tale to verse. All the best fantasy fiction is inspired by myth, legend and history, most often a combination of them all.
In keeping with the antiquity of the Legend I have written it in Ballad form with a strict rhyme structure to honour the age of the legend and the type of poetry that seemed most fitting for such a place and story.
No free verse here, just good old-fashioned ABAB for most verses, with a few verses only rhyming on the second and fourth lines, adding a small amount of modernity by incorporating in-line rhymes to make up for the slight deviation from the ballad form.
It seems that I am in good company with a few fellow poets finding their muse in the Mermaid of Zennor as well.
"The Ballad of the Mermaid of Zennor", is a poem by Vernon Watkins.
"The Mermaid of Zennor", is a poem by John Heath-Stubbs, who lived in Zennor for a while in the 1950s.
I could find no free versions of these other poets interpretations of the myth... so I guess mine will have to do 😉
I hope you enjoy my interpretation of the Legend.
It took me many hours of Photoshop wizardry and video editing to create a short film to compliment the narrative of the poem, so if you do like poetry give it a watch, it's only a short one at 2.03 minutes long.
Thanks for reading my blog, and watching the poetry performance 🙂🌿
Creative Commons Music:
Click banner to visit the community page
Find us on twitter by clicking the banner above.