The material we place before you in this little magazine all flows from the wellspring of inspiration offered by the many mermaids inhabiting churches, village signs, murals and stories throughout Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. From coastal characters of wave and salt and the East wind to the denizens of bog and fen, each individual has their own song, their own message, their own unique contribution to the magic of the landscape, whether or not the humans that are there actively notice their presence.
We first heard their siren call in the spring of 2019 and, the more we sought them, the more they began to emerge from obscurity: the beautiful, the grotesque, the perfect, the defaced, the badly restored, the lovingly created. Some might have been intended to convey Christian strictures about the sin of vanity, but this was only one tiny aspect of the wealth of meaning these wonderful creatures have carried across the centuries, much of which will be explored in depth in this and future issues of Mermazine.
Although we made many mermaid pilgrimages that summer, six years ago, by the time the days were shortening, we realised we had only scratched the surface of East Anglian mermaid lore. Perhaps we needed the intervening time period of the pandemic and beyond, to realise that this was too vast a topic to be compressed into book form. The merfolk required so much more from us than that, for one key theme running through all that we had discovered was that of creative inspiration. Merfolk call us to write poetry, stories, learned articles, to draw and paint, to embroider, to make jewellery, to protest about the pollution of their waters.
With the launch of issue one, we are making a start, and Alice, Chris and Val hope that you too will be inspired by a glimpse in the mermaid’s mirror, a flash of bright scales or the touch of a comb through your hair. If you have pictures, writing or other ideas you would like to contribute, please email us at the following address. It's given as an image to avoid spam, so please retype it into your email program.
For inclusion in Issue 2, please submit work by 6th March 2026. Please note that we do not accept any AI-generated content.
Mermazine costs £15 a copy - and you get 118 pages for that! It will be available in person at selected events in and around Norwich, particularly those run by Norwich Pagan Moot, and at selected shops. If you're in Norwich and could collect a copy, do email us. Likewise, if you run a shop and would like to stock Mermazine, please email us at the address given above.
Alternatively, copies of Mermazine can be bought on-line via the @FensalirCunning Etsy shop (postage and packing and Etsy fees apply).
Mermazine is an Ickeny Press publication by Val Thomas, 45 Beatrice Road, Norwich NR1 4BB, as part of a team with Alice Kerridge-Crick and Chris Wood. Magazine layout by Matt Willis. Cover image by Alice Kerridge-Crick. Masthead, strapline and general image support by Vix Valentine, assisted by mermaidgrey.
