'Coomara, The Merrow'

An ink line drawing showing Coomara who is a Merrow or a merman.
He is a character in a story called 'The Soul Cages' in the book, 'Fairy Tales of Ireland' by WB Yeats; illustrated by PJ Lynch.
Yeats acted more as an editor than an author of this collection gathering fairy stories from around Ireland. This one was written by one of his main sources, Thomas Crofton Croker.

"One tremendous blustering day, before he got to the point whence he had a view of the Merrow's rock, the storm came on so furiously that Jack was obliged to take shelter in one of the caves which are so numerous along the coast; and there, to his astonish-ment, he saw sitting before him a thing with green hair, long green teeth, a red nose, and pig's eyes. It had a fish's tail, legs with scales on them, and short arms like fins. It wore no clothes, but had the cocked hat under its arm, and seemed engaged thinking very seriously about something!"

This line drawing is in Indian ink on thick cartridge paper and measures 24 x 19 cm. The outer measurement of the black mount is 30 x 25 cm.