Mermaid

A Mermaid by John William Waterhouse
Mythology	World mythology
Grouping	Mythological
Sub-grouping	Water spirit
Country	Worldwide
Habitat	Ocean, sea
Similar creatures	Merman Siren Ondine

Mermaid and merman, 1866. Unknown Russian folk artist

A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head, arms, and torso and the tail of a fish. Mermaids are represented in the folklore, literature and popular culture of many countries worldwide.

A male version of a mermaid is known as a "merman" and in general both males and females are known as "merfolk" or "merpeople". A "merboy" is a young merman.

Overview and etymology[link]

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"Mermaid" is a compound of mere, the Old English word for "sea", and maid, a girl or young woman.^[1] The equivalent term in Old English was merewif.^[2]

In modern times, the mermaid is used as an official animal/mascot of many mythical stories involving pirates and the sea. It is also associated with "sea cows" that are called manatees. Sailors may have seen the animals and categorize them as mythical mermaids.

Traditionally, mermaids have been depicted unclothed. When censorship is an issue, most prominently in movies, effort is made to have the mermaids’ long hair cover their breasts. In areas with strong censorship, notably in some U.S. family movies, mermaids have been wearing different variants of tops or swimsuits or with shells.

The sirens of Greek mythology are sometimes portrayed in later folklore as mermaid-like and thus are often considered to be the same or similar creatures.^[3] In stories of mermaids, some would use their beauty and charm to lure sailor men to their deaths; sirens would use their singing to lure sailors toward rocks, causing their ships to sink.^[3] Other related types of mythical or legendary creatures are water fairies (e.g., various water nymphs) and selkies, animals that can transform themselves from seals to humans.^{[citation needed]}

History[link]

Ancient Near East[link]

The first known mermaid stories appeared in Assyria, ca. 1000 BC. The goddess Atargatis, mother of Assyrian queen Semiramis, loved a mortal shepherd and unintentionally killed him. Ashamed, she jumped into a lake to take the form of a fish, but the waters would not conceal her divine beauty. Thereafter, she took the form of a mermaid-human above the waist, fish below—though the earliest representations of Atargatis showed her as a fish with a human head and arm, similar to the Babylonian Ea. The Greeks recognized Atargatis under the name Derketo. Prior to 546 BC, the Milesian philosopher Anaximander proposed that mankind had sprung from an aquatic species of animal. He thought that humans, with their extended infancy, could not have survived otherwise.

A popular Greek legend turns Alexander the Great's sister, Thessalonike, into a mermaid after she died.^[4] She lived, it was said, in the Aegean and when she encountered a ship, she asked its sailors only one question: "Is King Alexander alive?" (Greek: "Ζει ο Βασιλιάς Αλέξανδρος;"), to which the correct answer was: "He lives and reigns and conquers the world" (Greek: "Ζει και βασιλεύει και τον κόσμο κυριεύει"). This answer pleased her so she calmed the waters and wished the ship farewell. Any other answer would spur her into a rage. She would raise a terrible storm, with certain doom for the ship and every sailor on board.^[5][6]

Lucian of Samosata in Syria (2nd century AD) in De Dea Syria ("Concerning the Syrian Goddess") wrote of the Syrian temples he had visited:

"Among them – Now that is the traditional story among them concerning the temple. But other men swear that Semiramis of Babylonia, whose deeds are many in Asia, also founded this site, and not for Hera Atargatis but for her own Mother, whose name was Derketo"

"I saw the likeness of Derketo in Phoenicia, a strange marvel. It is woman for half its length, but the other half, from thighs to feet, stretched out in a fish's tail. But the image in the Holy City is entirely a woman, and the grounds for their account are not very clear. They consider fish to be sacred, and they never eat them; and though they eat all other fowls, they do not eat the dove, for she is holy so they believe. And these things are done, they believe, because of Derketo and Semiramis, the first because Derketo has the shape of a fish, and the other because ultimately Semiramis turned into a dove. Well, I may grant that the temple was a work of Semiramis perhaps; but that it belongs to Derketo I do not believe in any way. For among the Egyptians, some people do not eat fish, and that is not done to honor Derketo."^[7]

The Land Baby, by John Collier (1899)

One Thousand and One Nights[link]

The One Thousand and One Nights collection includes several tales featuring "Sea People", such as Djullanar the Sea-girl. Unlike the depiction in other mythologies, these are anatomically identical to land-bound humans, differing only in their ability to breathe and live underwater. They can (and do) interbreed with land humans, the children of such unions sharing in the ability to live underwater.

In another Nights tale, "Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman", the protagonist Abdullah the Fisherman gains the ability to breathe underwater and discovers an underwater society that is portrayed as an inverted reflection of society on land, in that the underwater society follows a form of primitive communism where concepts like money and clothing do not exist. Other Nights tales deal with lost ancient technologies, advanced ancient civilizations that went astray, and catastrophes which overwhelmed them.^[8]

In "The Adventures of Bulukiya", the protagonist Bulukiya's quest for the herb of immortality leads him to explore the seas, where he encounters societies of mermaids.^[9] "Julnar the Sea-Born and Her Son King Badr Basim of Persia" is yet another Nights tale about mermaids.

When sailors come the mermaids sing, and some men are led straight to their doom. If they follow the mermaids' lovely and beautiful voices, they do not know what they are doing or where they're going.

British Isles[link]

The Fisherman and the Syren, by Frederic Leighton, c. 1856–1858

The Norman Chapel in Durham Castle, built around 1078 by Saxon stonemasons has what is reputed to be one of the earliest artistic depictions of a Mermaid in England. It can be seen on a south-facing capital above one of the original Norman stone pillars.^[10]

Mermaids were noted in British folklore as unlucky omens – both foretelling disaster and provoking it.^[11] Several variants of the ballad Sir Patrick Spens depict a mermaid speaking to the doomed ships; in some, she tells them they will never see land again, and in others, she claims they are near shore, which they are wise enough to know means the same thing. Mermaids can also be a sign of approaching rough weather.^[12]

Some mermaids were described as monstrous in size, up to 2,000 feet (610 m).^[11]

Mermaids have also been described as being able to swim up rivers to freshwater lakes. One day, in a lake near his house, the Laird of Lorntie went to aid a woman he thought drowning; a servant of his pulled him back, warning that it was a mermaid, and the mermaid screamed after that she would have killed him if it were not for his servant.^[13]

On occasion, mermaids could be more beneficent, teaching humans cures for disease.^[14]

Some tales raised the question of whether mermaids had immortal souls, answering in the negative.^[15] The figure of Lí Ban appears as a sanctified mermaid, but she was a human being transformed into a mermaid; after three centuries, when Christianity had come to Ireland, she was baptized.^[16]

Mermen were noted as wilder and uglier than mermaids, and they were described as having little interest in humans.^[17]

In Scottish mythology, there is a mermaid called the ceasg or "maid of the wave".^[18]

China[link]

In some ancient fairy tales of China, the mermaid was a special creature whose tears could turn into priceless pearls. Mermaids could also weave an extremely valuable material, translucent and beautiful. Because of this, fishermen longed to catch them, but the mermaids' splendid singing could simply drag them down into a coma.

In other Chinese legends, the mermaid is wondrous, but brainless and easy to trap. The legend said that mermaids were born with purple tails that smelled of happiness, but if sadness or death occurred during the mermaids' lifetimes their tails would turn red, and smell like sadness. So fishermen longed to catch mermaids in order to sniff their purple or red tails.

1659, Coat of arms of Old Warsaw on the cover of an accounting book of the city.

Ramayana[link]

Suvannamaccha (lit. golden mermaid) is a daughter of Ravana that appears in the Cambodian and Thai versions of the Indian Ramayana. She is a mermaid princess who tries to spoil Hanuman's plans to build a bridge to Lanka but falls in love with him instead. In Indian mythology, Matsya Avatar (Merman) is the first incarnation of Lord Vishnu, who has lower part of the body like a fish, and upper part like that of a man. He has four arms; with two hands he holds a conch shell and wheel, while the other two are holding a lotus or a mace.^{[citation needed]}

Scandinavia[link]

The Danish story, The Little Mermaid, tells of a mermaid who just turned 15 years old wanting to know about the world above. While exploring the world, she notices a ship and swims directly to it. On the ship, she falls in love with the prince. A storm comes, wrecks the ship and drowns the prince. The Little Mermaid immediately swims down to save him and carries him off to dry land. She looks into the prince's eyes until she hears humans walking to the beach. She dives into the sea to hide. She goes to madame Sea Witch to make a potion to make her human. After drinking the potion, she magically turns into a human. At the end of the story, she jumps into the ocean and turns to foam. She becomes a daughter of the Air and flies with the others.

Warsaw mermaid[link]

The mermaid, or syrenka, is the symbol of Warsaw.^[19] Images of a mermaid symbolized Warsaw on its crest since the middle of the 14th century.^[20] Several legends associate Triton of mythology with the city, which may have been the mermaid association's origin.^[21]

Other[link]

Among the Neo-Taíno nations of the Caribbean the mermaid is called Aycayia.^[22][23] Her attributes relate to the goddess Jagua^{[disambiguation needed ]}, and the hibiscus flower of the majagua tree Hibiscus tiliaceus.^[24] In modern Caribbean culture, the mermaid is found as Haitian Vodou Lwa La Sirene (literally, 'the mermaid') who is lwa of wealth and beauty and the orisha Yemaya.

Examples from other cultures are the Mami Wata of West and Central Africa, the Jengu of Cameroon, the Merrow of Ireland and Scotland, the Rusalkas of Russia and Ukraine, the Iara from Brazil and the Greek Oceanids, Nereids, and Naiads. One freshwater mermaid-like creature from European folklore is Melusine, who is sometimes depicted with two fish tails, and other times with the lower body of a serpent. It is said in Japan that eating the flesh of a ningyo can grant unaging immortality. In some European legends mermaids are said to be unlucky.^{[citation needed]}

Mermaids and mermen are also characters of Philippine folklore, where they are locally known as sirena and siyokoy, respectively.^[25] The Javanese people believe that the southern beach in Java is a home of Javanese mermaid queen Nyi Roro Kidul.^{[citation needed]}

In "Sadko" (Russian: Садко), a Russian medieval epic, the title character – an adventurer, merchant and gusli musician from Novgorod – lives for some time in the underwater court of the "Sea Tsar" and marries his daughter before finally returning home. The tale inspired such works as the poem "Sadko"^[26] by Alexei Tolstoy (1871–1872), the opera Sadko composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and the painting by Ilya Repin.

Claimed sightings[link]

Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom by Ilya Repin

Claimed sightings of dead or living mermaids have come from places as diverse as Java and British Columbia. There are two Canadian reports from the area of Vancouver and Victoria, one from sometime between 1870 and 1890, the other from 1967.^[27][28] In some of the earliest accounts of Blackbeard's sail logs in the BBC documentary Pirates, he instructed his crew on several voyages to steer away from charted waters which he called "enchanted" for fear of Merfolk or mermaids, which Blackbeard and many members of the crew reported seeing and documenting.^[29] These sighting were often recounted and shared by many sailors and pirates who believed the mermaids were bad luck and would bewitch them into giving up their gold and dragging them to the bottom of the seas.

In August 2009, the town of Kiryat Yam in Israel offered a prize of $1 million for anyone who could prove the existence of a mermaid off its coast, after dozens of people reported seeing a mermaid leaping out of the water like a dolphin and doing aerial tricks before returning to the depths.^[30] The prize has not yet been awarded.

In February 2012, work on two reservoirs near the towns of Gokwe and Mutare in Zimbabwe stopped when workers refused to work there, claiming that mermaids had hounded them away from the sites. The claim was reported by Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, Water Resources Minister.^[31]

Symbolism[link]

According to Dorothy Dinnerstein’s book, The Mermaid and the Minotaur, human-animal hybrids such as the minotaur and the mermaid convey the emergent understanding of the ancients that human beings were both one with and different from animals:

"[Human] nature is internally inconsistent, that our continuities with, and our differences from, the earth's other animals are mysterious and profound; and in these continuities, and these differences, lie both a sense of strangeness on earth and the possible key to a way of feeling at home here."^[32]

Human divers[link]

For centuries, in Japan and other Pacific island countries, female Ama divers would swim nude searching for shellfish. These divers slowly developed the ability to hold their breath for long periods of time and to survive in cold water that would kill most people from hypothermia. Women make better divers than men because of their physiological advantages in tolerating cold. After surfacing they would hyperventilate to restore their oxygen levels which would make a loud sighing sound referred to as the isobue or "sea whistle" or in Japanese as the "song of the sea". They needed to rest periodically and so after diving, as aid to maintaining lung capacity, these women frequently would sing loud songs and this may have been the origin of the Siren myth.

It is plausible that ancient sailors might have encountered these divers and assumed they were not human because of their ability to withstand the cold water and to submerge for several minutes at a time. There were laws restricting poaching in the sea so local village people would have had an interest in propagating and reinforcing the Siren and Mermaid myths to protect the divers and their wealth.

The tradition of women divers has been documented in many other countries outside of Asia. In fact, many of the early artistic depictions of mermaids showed normal human women with legs rather than the typical fish-tail of the modern mythical image.^{[33][self-published source?]}

Art and literature[link]

16th century Zennor mermaid chair

One influential image was created by John William Waterhouse, from 1895 to 1905, entitled A Mermaid, (see the top of this article). An example of late British Academy style artwork, the piece debuted to considerable acclaim (and secured Waterhouse's place as a member of the Royal Academy), but disappeared into a private collection and did not resurface until the 1970s. It is currently once again in the collection of the Royal Academy.^[34]

Famous in more recent centuries is Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Little Mermaid (1836), which has been translated into many languages. Andersen's portrayal, immortalized with a famous bronze sculpture in Copenhagen harbour, has arguably become the standard and has influenced most modern Western depictions of mermaids since it was published. The mermaid, as conceived by Andersen, appears to represent the Undines of Paracelsus, which also could only obtain an immortal soul by marrying a human being.^{[citation needed]}

The best known musical depictions of mermaids are those by Felix Mendelssohn in his Fair Melusina overture and the three "Rhine daughters" in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Lorelei, the name of one of the Rhine mermaids, has become a synonym for a siren. A more recent depiction in contemporary concert music is The Weeping Mermaid by Taiwanese composer Fan-Long Ko.^{[citation needed]}

Sue Monk Kidd has written a book called The Mermaid Chair. The title comes from a mermaid who becomes a (fictional) saint.

Saint James Comics published an 8-page comic in which the mermaid queen Atargatis captures two adventurers and attempts to imprison them forever.

Movie depictions include the comedy Splash (1984) and "Aquamarine"(2006). A 1963 episode, The Cruelest Sea, of the television series Route 66, featured a real mermaid working at Weeki Wachee aquatic park. Mermaids also appeared in the popular supernatural drama television series Charmed, and were the basis of its spin-off series Mermaid. In Mermaid Chronicles Part 1: She Creature (2001), two carnival workers abduct a mermaid in Ireland, circa 1900, and attempt to transport her to America.

The film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides mixes old and new myths about mermaids. They are said to sing to sailors to entice and enchant them into the water. Once in the water, mermaids take the sailor down to the depths of the sea where the sailor drowns, and they eat him. Mermaids that are taken onto dry land change and have legs, but they will dry up and die if out of water too long. The kiss of a mermaid will physically heal a human and her tears have magical properties, necessary to activate the true power of the Fountain of Youth.

Animated films include Disney's musical version of Andersen's tale, The Little Mermaid, and Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo.

The Australian teen dramedy H2O: Just Add Water, chronicles the adventures of three, modern-day mermaids along the Gold Coast of Australia.

Coat of arms of Warsaw

Heraldry[link]

In heraldry, the charge of a mermaid is commonly represented with a comb and a mirror, and blazoned as a 'mermaid in her vanity'. Merfolk were used to symbolize eloquence in speech.^{[citation needed]}

A shield and sword-wielding mermaid (Syrenka) is on the official Coat of arms of Warsaw. The city of Norfolk, Virginia also uses a mermaid as a symbol.

The personal coat of arms of Michaëlle Jean, a former Governor General of Canada, features two mermaids as supporters.^[35]

Hoaxes[link]

During the Renaissance and Baroque eras, dugongs, frauds and victims of sirenomelia were exhibited in wunderkammers as mermaids.^{[citation needed]}

In the 19th century, P. T. Barnum displayed in his museum a taxidermal hoax called the Fiji mermaid. Others have perpetrated similar hoaxes, which are usually papier-mâché fabrications or parts of deceased creatures, usually monkeys and fish, stitched together for the appearance of a grotesque mermaid. In the wake of the 2004 tsunami, pictures of Fiji "mermaids" circulated on the Internet as supposed examples of items that had washed up amid the devastation, though they were no more real than Barnum's exhibit.^[36]

Sirenia[link]

Sirenia is an order of fully aquatic, herbivorous mammals that inhabit rivers, estuaries, coastal marine waters, swamps, and marine wetlands. Sirenians, including manatees and the dugong, have major aquatic adaptations: arms used for steering, a paddle used for propulsion, hind limbs (legs) are two small bones floating deep in the muscle. They appear fat, but are fusiform, hydrodynamic, and highly muscular. Prior to the mid 19th century, mariners referred to these animals as mermaids.^[37]

Sirenomelia[link]

Sirenomelia, also called "mermaid syndrome", is a rare congenital disorder in which a child is born with his or her legs fused together and reduced genitalia. This condition is about as rare as conjoined twins, affecting one out of every 100,000 live births^[38] and is usually fatal within a day or two of birth because of kidney and bladder complications. Four survivors were known to be alive as of July 2003.^[39]

See also[link]

• Cryptid
• Ichthyosis
• List of piscine and amphibian humanoids
• Merlion
• Sea monster
• Selkie
• Siren

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Kraß, Andreas (2010). Meerjungfrauen. Geschichten einer unmöglichen Liebe. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer. ISBN 978-3-10-038195-8.  (German)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mermaid

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mermaids

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Portal:Mermaids

• 17th century pamphlet telling the story of an alleged sighting of a mermaid near Pendine, Wales, in 1603
• Israeli city offers reward for proof of mermaid presence on its shore