The Mermaid of the North, Balintore

A fisherman stole a mermaid's tail and kept her as his wife — she found it again years later and returned to the sea, but still comes back to the shore to feed the children she left behind.

Balintore, a fishing village on the Easter Ross peninsula, holds a mermaid legend distinct from the more widely known Highland selkie and mermaid traditions found elsewhere on the coast — a story specific enough to the village that it is displayed today on an information board at Balintore harbour, credited to Mrs Dolly Macdonald of Hilton. According to the tale, a local fisherman once encountered a mermaid and, wanting her for his wife, stole and hid her tail, trapping her on land. She lived with him for years and bore his children, unable to return to the sea without the tail he kept concealed. Eventually she found where it had been hidden, reclaimed it, and escaped back into the water — but she did not abandon the children she had raised on land. Local tradition holds that she returns regularly to the shore near Balintore, bringing fish to feed them. The legend is commemorated today by a ten-foot bronze mermaid sculpture, created by local artist Steve Hayward in 2007 for the Highland Year of Culture, sitting on a rock known as Clach Dubh — the Black Rock — in the Seaboard village of Balintore. The original wooden sculpture was damaged by a storm in 2012 and replaced with the current bronze cast in 2014. The Mermaid of the North now forms part of the wider Seaboard Sculpture Trail, representing the theme of local folklore alongside sculptures dedicated to faith, fishing, and fortitude.