Legends of the Sea & Shore

The coast and the deep water hold their own company — mermaids and selkies, drowned bells and sunken lands, the ghost ships and warning lights of the wrecking coasts. These are the stories of communities that lived by a sea that gave and took in equal measure, and of the shoreline as a threshold between worlds.

Aquatic LegendsThe LoeCornwallCornwall's largest natural freshwater lake, separated from the sea by a shingle bar. Local legend links it to Arthurian tradition, including claims that Excalibur was cast into its waters. PiratesThe Pirates of Dollar BayDollar Bay, Hook Peninsula, County Wexford, IrelandFour mutineers murdered their captain at sea in 1765 and buried 250 sacks of Spanish silver on a lonely Wexford beach south of Duncannon Fort — giving Dollar Bay the name it carries to this day. GhostsThe Ratman of SouthendEssexA modern urban legend from Southend-on-Sea in Essex — a half-human, half-rat creature said to lurk in the storm drains and sewers beneath the seafront. One of the more persistent pieces of contemporary English folklore, kept alive on local social media and in playground tradition. Aquatic LegendsThe SelkieCounty Donegal, IrelandThe rón — seal-folk of Donegal and the Scottish isles — shed their skins to walk on land as humans; a fisherman who hides a selkie woman's pelt keeps her as his wife, but the day she finds her skin she returns to the sea, and never once looks back. Sacred SitesThe TowansCornwallA dune landscape in Cornwall associated with shifting sands, lost paths, and buried traces of earlier settlements. It sits within the same legendary coastline as Lyonesse and drowned church-bell tales. Sacred SitesTintagelCornwallThe Cornish village inseparable from Arthurian legend, Merlin's sea-cave, and the ruined headland castle where medieval writers placed Arthur's conception. Sacred SitesTintagel CastleCornwallA cliff-edge stronghold made famous by Geoffrey of Monmouth as the place of Arthur's conception. Its sea-cut ruins keep Arthurian legend pinned to the Cornish coast. Sacred SitesTyno HeligConwy Bay, WalesA Welsh legend tells of the lost land of Tyno Helig and the palace of Prince Helig ap Glannawg beneath Conwy Bay, off the Great Orme. The tale is sometimes described as a Welsh Atlantis tradition. Aquatic LegendsVeastaOrkneyA sea beast of Orcadian waters, seen offshore during storms in old accounts. Like many Norse-influenced sea legends of Orkney, Veasta sits between monster and natural phenomenon — a reminder that the sea around these islands has always been treated as a living, sentient thing. BeastsWild Man of OrfordOrford, Suffolk, EnglandIn 1167, Suffolk fishermen netted a hairy, silent wild man held for six months at Orford Castle before he slipped beneath the waves, never seen again. PiratesWilliam Owen, the Smuggler General of PembrokeshireNevern, Pembrokeshire, WalesBorn to a respectable farming family in Nevern in 1717, William Owen became one of Wales's most notorious smugglers — running brandy and salt across Cardigan Bay before commanding an armed 'siege' of a Cardiganshire mansion and ending on the gallows. Sacred SitesWiltshire MoonrakersWiltshireSmugglers caught raking a moonlit pond told excise men they were fishing for a round cheese — the moon's reflection. The officers laughed and rode on; Wiltshire has worn 'Moonraker' as a badge of cunning ever since. PiratesYawkins, the Galloway SmugglerKirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway, ScotlandDutch smuggler captain Jack Yawkins once sailed his lugger the Black Prince directly between two Royal Navy revenue cutters near Kirkcudbright, escaping before they could fire — and inspired Scott's Dirk Hatteraick. DeitiesYstwythCeredigion, WalesIn some later retellings of the Three Sisters of Plynlimon, Ystwyth replaces Rheidol as one of the mountain's daughters. She flows west through Ceredigion to Cardigan Bay. Sacred SitesZennorCornwallA granite village on the wild north Cornish coast, famous for the carved mermaid on a 600-year-old bench-end in its church — left to commemorate the mermaid who heard Matthew Trewhella sing, lured him down to her underwater home, and kept him there. Ships still sometimes hear his voice singing under the sea off Pendour Cove.
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