It happened in the first years of the fifteenth century. During a severe storm, a fierce and wild creature of the sea floated into the Zuiderzee. After that, this mermaid washed into Lake Purmer through a huge hole in the dike. Here the mermaid floated around from one bank to the other, sleeping and waking. She was unable to reach the sea again, because in the meantime the hole in the dike had been closed. She did not wear clothes, but she was covered with seaweed and moss. She searched for food at the bottom of the lake.

Women and girls sailed in small boats from Edam and other places to the other side of the lake, where they went to milk the cows. These women and girls noticed the mermaid, and at first they were very frightened by her strange appearance. However, after a while, after they had seen her more often, they had the courage to surround the mermaid with their boats. They pulled her out of the water by force and took her to Edam. Over there, nobody was able to understand the mermaid's language, and she did not understand our tongue. The people took the seaweed and the moss off her and the mermaid was dressed. She started to eat our food. Still, time and again she tried to jump into the water, so she was well guarded. A lot of folks came to look at her. The people of Haarlem wanted to have her, and the people of Edam decided to present her as a gift to the city of Haarlem. There she learned how to spin. For a long time she lived in Het Gat in the Grote Houtstraat. When she died she was buried at the churchyard in Haarlem, because she often made the sign of the cross like a good Catholic.

On the Purmer Gate in Edam, which was demolished in 1835, there once stood the statue of a mermaid. The following words were written there:

This statue was erected in memory,

Of what had been caught in Lake Purmer,

In the year 1403.