mer-wolf

plural mer-wolves

1. alternativeAlternative form of merwolf.

   Above them, more beasts frolicked in the sea: mer-unicorns, mer-dragons, mer-wolves, mer-elephants, even, Megan saw with astonishment, a mer-sphinx.

   1994, Patricia A. McKillip, Something Rich and Strange, published 2015, →ISBN

   3 more examples

   Wild wind that beareth the spin-drift afar, Wild chant that telleth the doom of Asgar, Shriek ye, and wail ye, while shudd’ring doth sweep Serpent, his sea-horse, adown the great deep, Battling and mad like an eagle gone blind, Seeking the war-fleets, long sunken, to find , Down to the arms of Queen Ran of the sea, Down to the sea-floor, where mer-wolves go free.

   1905, The Mount Holyoke, page 44

   Well for the terrible mer-wolf, and the caves where the witch-wife lay Till we touched her brows where the fir-trees stand and all we witless wanderers wonne!

   1918, Dorothy L. Sayers, Catholic Tales and Christian Songs, published 2008, page 57

   Bare then the mer-wolf, when to the bottom she came, The ringed Prince to her own place, So that he might not, for all his proud mind, Wield his weapons; for such wondrous things Swinked him in the sound, sea-deer many With worrying tusks his war-sark tare, Chased him the creatures.

   1921, Charles Scott Moncrieff, Widsith, Beowulf, Finnsburgh, Waldere, Deor: Done into Common English after the Old Manner, pages 53–54