Some more gleanings from the December issue of Fortean Times.
First, there is the story from Mainz in Germany about the man who called the police when he saw someone in difficulty in the Rheine. When the cops arrived, they discovered it was a woman with a fish's tail – not an actual mermaid, but someone enjoying the now popular sport of mermaid swimming. She told them she had intended to keep close to the bank but had been carried out by the current.
The same item also covers a story from Germany's fake newspaper Der Postillon about the low water levels stranding "hundreds of dead or dying" mermaids on the newly exposed gravel flats along the Rhine. There's even a photo.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
you might say.
The magazine also casts more light on the story about the mole men of New York I blogged about a while ago.
It turns out that the people seen lifting manhole covers and climbing in and out of the sewers weren't terrorists or anything sinister like that. They were looking for lost valuables down there.
FT compares them to the 'toshers' who once scavenged London's sewers:
a tight-knit community with its own skills and folklore, made a precarious living by entering the city sewers to seek valuables until their activities were made illegal and easy access to the tunnels was closed off by the construction of Bazalgette's sewer along the Thames Embankment.
Entering the sewers in New York or anywhere is dangerous, of course, and not just for those taking part. In Manhattan earlier this year, a woman stepped out of a car and fell to her death down an uncovered manhole. It is thought trespassers may have been responsible for leaving it like that.
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