A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.
--W.B Yeats, "The Mermaid", from A Man Young and Old.
Legends and folk tales tell of marriages between mermaids and land lubbin' humans, with the acceptance of a proposal seen as the death of the non-scaled one. However, Cornwall, England, has supposedly hosted one happy interspecies couple...
A young man named Matthew Trewella sang in the church choir. He had an admirer - a mermaid, who would attend church daily and listen to him from a pew.
Being a creature of song herself, she found his sweet voice appealing and, in time, him also.
One day she invited Matthew to join her in the sea, and he followed her gladly into the sparkling ocean. The villagers surmised that that was the end for him... another romance doomed to fail, stick to your own kind, don't get it on with fish... the usual comments.
Of course, they were wrong. A few years later the mermaid boarded a boat and politely asked the skipper to move his anchor. She explained that it was blocking the entrance to her home and she was anxious to get to her children and her dear husband Matthew Trewella.
Aw, a 'love overcoming adversity' (or diversity) story...