By the runic stone in the summer night
The water nymphs play;
The water sounds, the breeze sings,
The moon stands high in the blue heavens.

There is a splashing and laughing, a surging and a diving -
Beings rise and fall like lilies,
Golden hair floats upon the waters,
White limbs shimmer.

With a beard of rushes, the merman blows
His coiled shell trumpet,
The nymphs dance their winding dance to his blowing,
They are in the best of spirits.

With a giggle, the youngest suddenly cries:
"Oh look what I found in the waves!
A shining, beckoning skeleton,
It gleams as brightly as silver.

I bumped against the coral reef with my foot
While I was merrily diving,
There it lay in the branches [of coral], I pulled it out;
Now do tell, what could we do with it?"

With curiosity the swarm [of nymphs] looks at the find,
The queen says with laughter:
"The bony thing is bonny and fair,
Let us make a harp out of it.

Come, Rush-Beard, you old musician,
You are well-versed in such things;
I will bestow a swordfish upon you to use as your steed
If you manage to complete the task."

The merman advances, he takes the skeleton,
He begins to work with it after lengthy deliberation,
From the fingers he makes fine tuning pegs,
From the sternum he fashions the frame.

He takes strands of the queen's golden hair
And stretches them across [the frame] as harp strings;
Oh how wondrously through the night
The musical sounds swell and glide!

Now he strums the harp upward and downward,
The waves cease their roaring,
The wind quietly holds its breath,
And falls asleep while listening.

The seagulls come to rest along the shore,
Little goldfish rise from the depths of the sea,
The very air listens, the sea listens,
Enchanted all about;

The merman plays the harp and sings along,
He feels neither labour nor anxieties;
The nymphs dance the winding round thereto
Until the red light of dawn.