Most legends in North Carolina involve creepy, scary, awful things that can keep you up at night, like this list can. But not all legends and folklore involve frightening things. You won’t believe the unlikely spot in the Tar Heel State where mermaids are said to be seen…
Located about 30 miles to the Southeast of Raleigh, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, there's an unexpectedly magical place where mermaids have been spotted. It's called Mermaid Point.
You'll find it just beyond the end of River Point Road in Moncure (near Haywood). It's where the Deep River and the Haw River meet to form the mouth of the Cape Fear. (The Cape Fear runs all the way to the Atlantic.)
Some eyewitness accounts of the mermaids at Mermaid Point date all the way back to the middle 1700s when there was a tavern located nearby. In the wee hours of the morning, patrons would make their way home along the banks of the river — passing right by Mermaid Point.
Back then, and before the modern construction of locks and dams along the Cape Fear, there was a big sandbar off the point of land where the two rivers meet. It's long since been covered up by rising waters created by the dams.
Mermaids have long been argued by naysayers as simple folklore. Whether they exist, or not, depends upon what you believe. But the men walking home in the wee hours of the morning from that tavern (it burned in the 1800s) stood by what they saw at Mermaid Point.
Any woman knows that salt isn't good for your hair — and the mermaids knew it too. They swam (and possibly still swim?!) all the way to Mermaid Point to wash and comb the salt from their long locks.
The sandbar at Mermaid Point disappeared decades ago, but have you heard of mermaid sightings in the area since then anyway? And are you a believer? Skeptical? Or downright disbelieving?
For more North Carolina legends and folklore, keep on reading.
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