Summary
A young Fisherman draws up a little Mermaid in his net and will not free her until she promises to come and sing whenever he calls. Her songs fill his nets with tunny-fish, but he falls in love with her voice and forgets his craft. When he asks her to be his bride, she answers that she could love him only if he sent away his human soul, since the Sea-folk have none.
The Priest tells him the soul is worth all the gold in the world and drives him out without a blessing; the merchants say it is not worth a clipped piece of silver. So he goes to a young Witch, whose price is a dance. At midnight on the mountain he dances with her at the witches' Sabbath before a pale man in black velvet, but when he makes the sign of the Cross the witches scatter. He holds the Witch fast until she gives him a knife and tells him that his shadow is the body of his soul. On the shore he refuses his Soul's plea to take his heart, cuts away his shadow and joins the Mermaid in the sea.
After a year the Soul calls him to the shore and tells how it travelled east to the city of Illel and took the Mirror of Wisdom from a temple; he answers that Love is better than Wisdom. After the second year it tells of the city of Ashter, where it made the Emperor yield the Ring of Riches; Love, he says, is better than Riches. In the third year it speaks of a girl who dances with naked white feet only a day's journey away. Remembering that the Mermaid cannot dance, he steps ashore and takes his Soul back.
The Soul, having no heart, makes him steal a silver cup, beat a child, and strike and rob a merchant who has given him shelter. It learned to love evil, it says, because he sent it out without a heart. He tries to cut it away again, but a man may send his Soul away only once. Binding his hands and sealing his lips, he returns to the bay and calls to the Mermaid for two years, while the Soul tempts him first with evil and then with good. At last her dead body is washed ashore. As the sea rises over him he kisses her, and his heart breaks with love, so that the Soul can enter it again.
The Priest finds the lovers drowned together, refuses to bless the sea and has them buried without a mark in the corner of the Fullers' Field. Three years later strange white flowers from that corner cover his altar, and he preaches not of the wrath of God but of the God whose name is Love. Next morning he blesses the sea and all the wild things in God's world, but the Sea-folk never return to the bay.