Neris (The Poem)

Beware the water, girls and boys,
For something 'neath the surface dwells.
A face forged from a thousand hells
Will lure you in with sweets or toys.
Her skin is alabaster light,
With fish lips stretched across her face,
And piscine fangs inside the space.
Each eye is now an orb of white,
An oyster's pearl within each pit.
This tale of how it came to be
that such a villain of the sea
should lose her sight by lack of wit
is far and wide forever told:
She feasts upon a mortal's flesh.
Her lifeless snacks, delivered fresh
by water maids, not very old.
She steals them at the water's brim,
the children with a charming tone
and pleasing voice, then takes them home
and turns them into something grim.
The merrow maidens, they become,
their figures and their voices sweet
to lure in men for her to eat.
One such young maiden hadn't swum
for very long before she snapped
and hatched a method to depart.
She sang the witch to sleep, to start,
then crept around to where she napped
and bound her tightly to her bed.
Then, once the demon was secure,
the merrow maiden, sweet and pure,
plucked each eye from her mistress' head,
then crushed them both inside each palm.
Before the water witch could wake
and snap her bonds, she made a break
for it. Then everything was calm,
Until the she-beast's slumber broke,
A cry came out her wretched gob,
then turned into an angry sob,
and finally with one more croak,
she summoned forth an oyster pair.
From each of them, a pearl was grabbed,
and into her own sockets stabbed,
Giving her new false eyes to wear.
More cunning since then, she has grown.
She still collects the children, rare,
with music soft and voices fair,
and takes them in to be her own
new merrow maidens, and her slave
as well. So do beware, my dears,
for Neris cannot see, but hears
when songbird children misbehave...
Category:Fiction