🌊On Working with Merfolk🌊
🌊Here I’m going to explain a little bit about Mermaid Magic, or Merfolk magic in general, and give some tips on working with Merfolk based on my experience with them 🌊
Merfolk is a wide variety of creatures, human like or not, and basically means any type of magical/elemental living on water, be it saltwater or freshwater. I use the word Merfolk to refer to them as a whole. You can see some types of Merfolk in my Merfolk Masterpost here.
🌊Why Mermaid Magic? Or Merfolk magic?
Mermaid Magic is a specific type of craft where the witch or practitioner invokes mermaids/sirens and other similar merfolk to work with them. The accurate term (from my perspective) would be Merfolk magic, which is more open and gives the practitioner more options, but Mermaid Magic, as a term, is more common.
While working with Merfolk might be dangerous, specially emotionally and even to your health, if done correctly it brings a lot of positive results, and it gets really rare to have a bad experience if you follow a few rules since the start. The number and nature of the rules may vary from practitioner to practitioner, but here are mine:
❗Don’t call upon what you cannot control or banish correctly.
❗Always know what/who you’re working with, do your research, specially about stories and the culture the creature comes from, and prepare everything the best you can.
❗Be prepared for everything to go south. Have a backup plan.
❗Be respectful. Extremely respectful. But also let them know you are worth their respect too. Show them with actions, not words. As with other Faefolk, words are not most valued for Merfolk and will judge you more based on your acts than your words.
❗ Deals are sealed with offerings. But don’t give thanks until the task has been done accordingly.
❗ Never give your real name to the fae, unless you’re strong enough to face the consequences (years of experience and lots of knowledge on how to do so) OR you have someone behind you guarding your back (like a pod, I’m gonna talk about that in a sec)
🌊How do I work with Merfolk?
Well, that’s up to you. Personally, I prepare myself mentally for the contact, meaning cleaning and cleansing myself and my working space, then I prepare offerings according to the creature and the culture/backstory it comes from, and only then call the creature, give offerings as exchange for a task, discuss the price if it’s too high or too low (offerings, works and such), and I don’t give thanks until it has been done correctly. Giving thanks would be the “ok, you can go now” signal. If you thank them before, they’ll probably take the offerings and do nothing else than that. Which would mean another call, more new offerings, you get my point. If you’re not correctly prepared, the offerings are wrong in some way, or the creature has not been contacted respectfully, it has more chances of failing.
If the contact is done near the place where the creature inhabits, be even more careful. Invoking a creature from home (your working place, your energies) it’s not the same as doing it in their home. You certainly don’t hold more control of the situation than them there. Again, if you’re going to do the work outside your “mermaid cave/grotto”(again, more on that later), be sure to have someone (the more, the better) backing you up and making sure your point is heard. Like a translator? Or a representative. Kinda. But they still work with you… At some point. Be careful with who you take to what encounter. You never know who plays what card.
A pod, by general means, is a group of Merfolk that lives or works together. Or both. Ussually both. For example, is usual to find sirens in the Mediterranean Sea in pods of 2 to 6, or more than 10 individuals in some situations, working together. In the last decades, merfolk has had to confront rough times. Mostly due to contamination and their environment decaying, this hurting them too. A lot. Creatures that where solitary before or used to living in small groups are now working in bigger their numbers on purpose to defend themselves better, to protect their resources (spiritually and physically speaking) and they’re taking care of the youngers even more than before, which let me tell you, is a lot.
This has led to new situations like, for example, humans being able to work with a pod, or various pods, for mutual benefits. The human can work on their spirituality, get stuff done and such, and the Merfolk gets offerings, resources, and sometimes even an earthly ally.
For Mermaid/Merfolk witches this means we can search or form a pod of Merfolk willing to help and sometimes, under special circumstances, accept you as one of them, if you work and act as one indeed. Giving offerings really often, doing activism, anything that may help keep the waters clean and healthy, and the Merfolk happy, is pretty much a way to maintain a good relationship with your pod.
How you choose your pod is up to you. You can choose or be chosen, the second one being the more common one, as far as I know. At this point, stuff works much like the Fae courts. Let’s say pods are courts, and they do have a hierarchical organization, most of the time (not so true for sirens and alike), some pods are going to be ok with you trying to get involved, maybe even willing to help you, others may not care, others will be against it.
This far, the northern part of my Ocean seems to be more closed. For some reason, probably because of how badly human interaction has hurt those environments. The Merfolk around me here in the south seem very open and have helped me a lot.
Once you get a pod, try contacting them often, or connecting with them (in my opinion, doing both togheter is the best, and more natural thing). It’s… Not exactly the same. I’ll talk about that in a sec.
The positive and negative aspects of a pod are, again, similar to those of a court in fae workings. Once you align with a court, you do get some back up and some help/guidance, but you’re also stating in which of many “sides” of the things you’re standing, which means there are also going to be some (not much, this far) Merfolk/Fae against you. Like a Winter-Summer courts thing. FYI, this far I’m more aligned with winter/autumn and their Merfolk counterparts, so… Yeah. That means that since I can remember the heat makes me go sick, I need to drink a lot of water all the time, and somehow salty stuff is my thing. Basically you’re going to bond with whichever pod/court you share most characteristics with.
You can ask your pod for guidance on your craft, for inspiration when you need it, for healings, for really anything. Since you’re bonded to them, they’re going to be able to help you in practically anything you need. Just don’t force them, don’t ask for things that you know are not possible for them, and remember to give offerings as payment and support.
🌊So… It’s Contacting or Connecting?
Contacting Merfolk is the usual work: invoke, ask, give thanks. That’s the end of it. Connecting with Merfolk means you have made a ritual or practice of some sort that connects you to them perpetually. Much like a patron or matron deity relationship, you would then be some kind of “little witchy human thing I have to take care of” for them. How they act about it, or if they even accept your proposal or not, depends a lot on the Merfolk you’re working with. Some may deny, some may accept and let you figure out stuff in your own, giving you some glimpses of what’s the right thing to do, some may accept and actually guide you and help you more. You’re probably going to need to let them know if you do need guidance, and again, some may help and some may not. Remember to be respectful to them at all points and always give thanks after the task/help is done, that way, they’ll know when they’re doing it the right way, and when you would’ve liked more or less done.
First thing is mostly contacting Merfolk. The types you feel more drawn/connected to naturally, those of your own culture or those you’re connected to energetically. For me, that means saltwater mermaids and freshwater nymphs. That’s where I first started, with spirits of rivers, lakes and lagoons. They’re by far the sweetest you’re going to encounter, and also one of the strongest, as they are tied to their water source completely. Meaning: physical counterpart, stronger range of power. No physical connection to this world, weaker range for acting. Then, you can start with the Sea and the Moon, another two “spirits” or entities, or deities, as I see them, that are also extremely strong and extremely sweet. The ocean can be a little bit more hard to connect to, specially if you’re landlocked, but there are still a lot of ways to do so. Now even more thanks to technology.
After slowly “leveling up” on what entities and Merfolk you work with, you’ll see how your craft evolves, how you evolve with it, and eventually Merfolk will start to reach to you on their own. After connecting to a pod, the rest comes naturally. It’s like having a spirit guide? But… many… And they’re water elementals. Mine mostly show as sudden intuition (I know something I wouldn’t normally know, I hear or feel something) and lately I’ve been having some kind of premonitory dreams? That have helped me avoid some really bad situations. Or helped me solve nasty situations. Or both.
How your pod will manifest to you also depends on the type of Merfolk they’re and… Yeah. There are a lot of things that may change it. Like your innate capacities for some workings. If you’re better at divination than clairvoyance, your pod may communicate with you through your tarot cards (cards falling for extra meanings or intuitive reading of the cards, like a second thought on your mind)
🌊 I think that covers up the basics pretty good. I’m going to do a more detailed post on offerings and tips for different types of merfolk and correspondences and such, but for now, you can guide yourself with my Crystals, Creatures and Herbs posts, and the Merfolk Masterpost cited before. My ask is also always open for questions or anything related to the craft! Hope that helps!!!🌊
