Mermaids are supposed to abound in the ponds and ditches in this neighbourhood. Careful mothers use them as bugbears to prevent little children from going too near the water. I once asked a child what mermaids were, and he was ready with his answer at once, ‘Them nasty things what crome you (i.e. hook you) into the water!’ Another child has told me ‘I see one wunst, that was a grit hig thing loike a feesh’… Suffolk. C. W. J., ”The Book of Days,” vol. i, p. 678. [Gurdon Suffolk 35-36]