A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

The Sun tells his mother that a mermaid distracted an attacking dragon with her song and beauty, allowing him to burn it to ashes and end an eclipse. The ferryman later seeks this maiden under the king’s threat. She travels in a silver boat with a golden oar, gathering her long golden hair. Her song can send the listener into reverie and sleep. Golden fishes with rainbow wings and diamond eyes play around her; these are companions, not parts of her body.

Rich dresses and ornaments lure her towards shore. The ferryman summons the Storm-wind to capsize her boat and Frost to freeze the water, then hooks her hair and carries her away despite her tears. At his home she recognizes his wife as her sister, and their reunion changes her grief to joy. Asked to marry the king, she first requires the self-playing guitar. Its performance reveals the king’s murdered brother, who kills him. The following day she returns to her own sea, boat and fishes, still described as beloved of the Sun. Neither a completed royal marriage nor a permanent land transformation is narrated.

Silver boat and golden oarSleep-inducing songDistracts eclipse dragonWater-nymph wife’s sisterReturns to sea
01

Origins & earliest records

Polish Fairy Tales, translated from A. J. Gliński by Maude Ashurst Biggs (1920), The Good Ferryman and the Water Nymphs, pp. 53–68.

02

Records & interpretation

The selected English tale supplies the transformation, actions and ending. Biggs’s preface explicitly acknowledges considerable shortening of her source.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Polish Fairy Tales: The Good Ferryman and the Water Nymphs, pp. 53–68

    A. J. Gliński; Maude Ashurst Biggs, translator; Cecile Walton, illustrator · 1920

    Complete selected English narrative and translator’s preface. No individually named oral contributor provided; original Polish text not collated.

Family, evolution & connections

Two water nymphs and Goldmore — Biggs

Complete pp. 53–68 narrative; explicit kinship pp. 63, 65–66.

Sister recognition and Goldmore’s own-sister identification. Parents and sibling order unspecified. The sea maiden’s proposed royal marriage is not completed. No children or relationship to the Sun’s mother is supplied.

Gliński / Biggs, Polish Fairy Tales (1920), The Good Ferryman and the Water Nymphs, pp. 53–68

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Primary historical shortened literary translationGliński/Biggs 1920: The Good Ferryman and the Water NymphsResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

FT·867 · RESEARCH EDITION 01Back to top ↑