Research Seminar: "The Man Who Married a Mermaid"

The Man who Married a Mermaid is an interdisciplinary study, involving folkloristics, literary studies, Celtic and Norse philology, and the digital humanities. The focus of this study is the popular legend of a man who compels a water-spirit to marry him through the theft of her skin or garment, a legend which is found throughout Ireland, Scotland, and the Nordic countries. Drawing upon sources in eight languages and written across a thousand years, this study adopts an empirical approach in tracing the history of the legend from its medieval roots to its contemporary manifestations across the northwestern Atlantic.