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Table of Contents

• ↓ The Deerness Mermaid: Our Best Attested Nineteenth-Century Cryptid May 6, 2025
• ↓ Are Mermaids Fairies? July 1, 2024
• ↓ Early Modern Fairy Sex Spell June 1, 2024
• ↓ Karl Banse: The Man Who Made the Case for Mermaids May 1, 2024
• ↓ Victorian Urban Legends: Fine Art February 25, 2024
• ↓ Headingley Monster February 24, 2024
• ↓ Top Alternatives to strangehistory.net

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"The outlandish, the anomalous and the curious from the last five thousand years"

"Dear friends, this month’s podcast is on the Deerness Mermaid: the Best Attested Nineteenth-Century Cryptid Background. What is the DM? Between 1887 and 1899, something strange haunted the waters off Deerness, Orkney. Locals called it a mermaid; newspapers across Britain ran breathless headlines. It had a black head, long white neck, and a white body with two waving arms. It swam like a human, often on its back, and once appeared with a smaller version of itself: its baby. Hundreds saw it. Some tried to shoot it. One of the DM’s most endearing feature was its habit of not dying… Descriptions were surprisingly consistent across twelve years: the creature had no whiskers, a mane or dark ridge of hair, and was entirely aquatic, at least it was never seen on land. Note its strange head shape. Suggestions ranged from manatees and dugongs (implausible, given geography) to seals. But it didn’t match any known seal species. No known seal swims routinely on its back or has a long, obviously articulated neck. A hybrid seal is a tempting theory, though even this stretches credibility given the apparent arrival of a baby. That also means that a breeding population had to be found nearby."

"(Note ‘obscure’ line is Hybrid/Abnormal Seal. If problems reading try ‘open tab on next line’)"

"This wasn’t a blurry photo or a lone witness. This was a widely observed, repeatedly described animal that confounded naturalists and delighted journalists. The Deerness ‘mermaid’ remains one of the best-attested zoological anomalies in British history, and one of the strangest. Whatever it was, it played its part, perfectly, in the Victorian silly season."

Key Topics & Focus Areas for strangehistory.net:

The Deerness Mermaid: Our Best Attested Nineteenth-Century Cryptid May 6, 2025

Are Mermaids Fairies? July 1, 2024

Early Modern Fairy Sex Spell June 1, 2024

Karl Banse: The Man Who Made the Case for Mermaids May 1, 2024

Victorian Urban Legends: Fine Art February 25, 2024

Headingley Monster February 24, 2024