THE MERMAID'S ROCK. To the westward of the beautiful Cove of
Lemorna is a rock which has through all time borne the above
name. I have never been enabled to learn any special story in
connection with this rock. There exists the popular fancy of a
lady showing herself here previous to a storm--with, of course,
the invariable comb and glass. She is said to have been heard
singing most plaintively before a wreck, and that, all along the
shore, the spirits have echoed her in low moaning voices. [a]
Young men are said to have swam off to the rock, lured by the
songs which they heard, but they have never returned. Have we
not in this a dim shadow of the story of the Sirens? [a] The
undulations of the air, travelling with more rapidity than the
currents, reach our shores long before the tempest by which they
have been established in the centre of the Atlantic, and by
producing a low moaning sound, "the soughing of the wind,"
predicates the storms. The "moans of Tregeagle" is another
expression indicating the same ph