And a legend of Edam tells how once in 1403, when the country was inundated by the sea, some girls taking fresh water to the cows saw and captured a mermaid.

Her (like the lady in Mr.Wells's story) they dressed and civilised, and taught to sow and spin, but could never make talk.

Possibly it is this mermaid who, caught in a fisherman's net, is represented in bas-relief (as the fish that pleases all tastes) on one of the facades of Edam, with accompanying verses which must not be translated, embodying comments upon the nature of the haul by various typical and very plain-spoken members of society--a soldier and a schoolmaster, a monk and a fowler, for example.
Edam has yet another hero.

On the Dam bridge are iron-backed benches which never grow rusty.

"One owes this particularity," says _Through Noord-Holland_, "to the invention of an Edamer about 1569, who also took his secret with him into the grave." To the little fishing village of Volendain, paradise of quaint costumes and gay prettinesses, artists invariably resort.