Of all the old mythologic existences of Scotland--half earth, half air--there was none with whom the people of Cromarty were better acquainted than with the mermaid. Thirty years have not yet gone by since she has been seen by moonlight sitting on a stone in the sea, a little to the east of the town; and scarce a winter passed, forty years earlier, in which she was not heard singing among the rocks, or seen braiding up her long yellow tresses on the shore. Like her contemporaries the river-wraiths and fairies--like the nymphs and deities, too, of the Greeks and Romans--she was deemed scarcely less material than the favoured individuals of our own species, who, in the grey of the morning or at the close of evening, had marked her sitting on some desert promontory, or frolicking amid the waves of some solitary arm of the sea. But it is not so generally known, that though in some respects less potent even than men--than at least the very strong and very courageous--she had a power through her connexion with the invisible world over human affairs, and could control and remodel even the decrees of destiny. A robust, fearless man might treat her, it is said, as Ulysses did Circe, or Diomedes Venus; but then, more potent than these goddesses, she could render all his future undertakings either successful or unfortunate, or, if a seafaring man, could either bury him in the waves or protect him from their fury. It is said, too, that like the Proteus of classical mythology (and the coincidence, if merely such, is at least a curious one), she never exerted this power in a good direction except when compelled to it. She avoided in the daytime shores frequented by man, and when disturbed by him in her retreats, escaped into her native element; but if he succeeded in seizing and overpowering her, she always purchased her release by granting him any three wishes he might form, connected with either his own fortunes or those of his friends. Her strength, however, was superior to that of most men; and, if victorious in the struggle, she carried the unfortunate assailant with her into the sea. [Sidenote: THE STORY OF JOHN REID.]