The Legend of the Mississippi Mermaid

Open the book, and there she is — smack in the middle of the rushing river, hair tangled like Spanish moss, laughin’ louder than the 4th of July, and fussin’ at Tom Sawyer for not knowing how to read a dadgum map. Life on the river is wild, folks. And these kids never split a raft in their life, but they sure were gonna learn today! Huck Finn’s about to tumble off in his granny’s nightie, Bayou Belle’s clutching her chapter books, and Peter? Well, he’s hollerin’ and screamin’ about how this ain’t Neverland.

That’s our splash page. That’s our girl and her fairytale friends. The Mississippi Mermaid.

But how’d we get here? Well, let me tell you.

After centuries of keeping a low profile in the murky waters of the Mississippi, the legendary Mississippi Mermaid has finally gone public. The reason? According to her, folks stopped believing in magic — and worse, they stopped going outside.

“It used to be I’d sing a little tune, maybe toss a sparkle across the water, and bam — people would clap, fall in love, write me poems,” the Mermaid said during a press appearance (if you can call lounging on a pool float a press appearance). “Now they’re all staring at them phones.”

The self-proclaimed “Mouth of the South” admits she recently learned about social media to share her story, and to advertise her local poolside visits.

Behind the Scales

The Mississippi Mermaid wasn’t born in no castle under the sea. No, ma’am. She came straight out the river mud — silt and sunlight and secrets all churned together. Some folks swear she’s as old as the Mississippi itself. Others whisper she was once a girl… one hot Louisiana summer she was thrown in the rush of the river (by her own big brother, mind you) but she decided that day she liked swimming too much to ever come back out. Sayanora!

However she got here, the river became her home.

And let me warn you — she’s not a shy mermaid! Oh, she’s mysterious, yes, with scales that shimmer like catfish skin in moonlight. But what sets her apart is her voice like thunder, and it ain’t always pretty. More like a honking siren sometimes. They don’t call her “Mouth of the South” for nothing. Louder than the steamboats, louder than the frogs, louder than your mama calling you home after dark.

And she’ll tell you the truth whether you like it or not. She’ll look you dead in the eye and say, “Babe, you should eat a sandwich.” Or, “Darlin’, don’t you go seein’ that boy again, he’s dumber than a box of hair.” She’s every Southern auntie keeping it real, she’s tough love with a tail.

Now, don’t think she’s just talk. She won’t brag. She just keeps herself busy. You know peaches? Georgia peaches? Planted the first one herself, swam it upriver in her hands and dropped it in the dirt. That was about 2,000 years ago. Ever wondered how Huck and Tom managed to make it downriver in one piece? Mermaid navigation. Belle on the bayou learning to love herself instead of that hideous crawdad? Mermaid pep talk. And rumor has it, when Peter Pan and Tinker Bell came looking for a new Neverland, it was she who pointed them to Driskill Mountain.

She’s been everywhere, helped everyone, but nobody ever wrote her name down. Mostly because she’s gone in a blink, and meeting mermaids are the stuff of dreams.

But here’s the thing: she’s done being quiet about her magical and unfortunate existence. Folks these days don’t believe in magic unless they can see it — and so she’s decided to go public.

Almost every summer weekend, you’ll find her crashing pools across Atlanta, telling her stories, splashing her tail, and singing your favorite human tunes.

Because if you’re gonna believe in the South, if you’re gonna believe in tall tales again, you’d best start with her.

Her decision to go public follows a rash of calls to the Driskill Mountain Wildlife & Oddities Department (formerly Animal Control, now renamed after budget cuts and “unexplainable sightings”).

“We’ve had no fewer than 47 calls this summer alone,” said department director Earl P. Boudreaux. “Most of them go something like, ‘There’s a woman with a fish tail in my pond, please remove.’

The Mermaid is less than thrilled about this trend.

“Used to be people would wander down to the river to see what they could find,” she said. “Now it’s 911 every time I sunbathe on a rock. Lord help us, y’all.”

3,749 years floating through these waters, she’s seen a thing or two.

Long before highways stretched across the South, long before bridges kissed the sky above the river, the Mississippi carried stories in its waters. Fishermen whispered about the lady in the water, children asked after her, and fathers teased their young ones: “Listen close — do you hear her singing?”

She lives in the in-between. Not land, not sea. Not one world, not the other.

She knows what it feels like to belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And because of this, she is kind.

She listens to travelers. She helps the lost. She whispers courage to those who doubt themselves. She reminds you there’s still magic growing in the darkest parts of every story. She’s a mermaid! And she’ll make you believe.

But this here folks is just the beginning! The Mississippi Mermaid has 3,749 years of stories, if you got the time!