Many tourists visiting the island of Conanicut wonder where this specific name of the place come from.
Well, the city as well was the whole region has very long history. The history of the place is very stormy and eventful and thus interesting. And the name “Conanicut” has also its own history.
Conanicut is a calm and quite island nowadays.
First of all it is worth mentioning that the place we today know as Conanicut used to be called for years or even centuries Conanicutre. And this is where the legend begins. A long time ago, when only few people was inhabiting the island, in the waters surrounding it there were living mermaids. But they were not typical mermaids, they were unusually beautiful half-women and half-fish.
However nobody had ever seen the creatures on his own eyes, but very often many of the people heard the mermaids’ wonderful voice. They were singing strange but in the same time amazing melodies.And their out of this world voices were luring hypnotised men so it was widely known that when you hear a mermaid’s voice you should cover your ears and hide somewhere. Though they were totally fabulous creatures in fact they were monsters anxious for human’s blood and meat.
The island is full of mysterious stories.
Indeed they were feeding on bodies of people they managed to hypnotise and lush. Onel of them was a young mermaid named Conani. Conani was the prettiest of all. One morning when one of the local fishers named Cutre was fishing the young mermaid spotted him and started whistling a tune.
The fisher was really scared and immediately raised his hands to cover ears but it was too late. Conani was too close to Cutre. The man was totally limp so she approached him and when she was about to kill him and heat his heart she looked into his eyes and fell in love.
She did not want to eat him but her inside instinct of mermaid was stronger then her love and in a moment she cruelly tore his heart off his chest and ate it. However she could not live under that horrible assumption that she’s killed the love of her life. Finally Conani committed suicide with the same knife she used to kill Cutre. And since then, the island was called Conanicutre which related to those two tragic lovers. Now we call the island just Conanicut as it is much easier for tourists coming here every day from all over the world.
