He married a mermaid. She followed him to the ends of the earth. Some wives are harder to escape than others.

When Alexandre Dumas travels to Holland in 1849 for a royal coronation, a museum curator tells him an impossible tale: in the village of Monnikendam lives a sailor named Olifus who married a sea woman. Intrigued, Dumas seeks out the old salt-and hears a story worthy of Sinbad himself.

Bachelor sailor Olifus discovers a mermaid tangled in seaweed and brings her ashore. Baptized, clothed, and christened Marie Buchold by the villagers, she seems the perfect mute bride-until their wedding night, when she reveals she can speak. Worse, she's violently jealous and possesses an uncanny power to track his every infidelity across any distance.

Desperate, Olifus flees to the Philippines, where he saves a beauty from a wild beast, discovers a priceless bezoar stone, and marries a teenage widow. But on his wedding night, his new bride prepares him a "medicinal" drink that turns out to be poison. From Holland to the Orient, through multiple marriages and near-death escapes, Olifus cannot outrun the sea witch who claimed him first.

Part travel memoir, part fantastical yarn, this forgotten gem shows Dumas at his most playfully inventive-blending autobiography, tall tale, and the supernatural into an irresistibly bizarre adventure.

Sometimes the past refuses to stay buried-especially when it has gills.