Mermaid
A
mermaid (from the
Middle English mere in the obsolete sense 'sea' +
maid(en)) is a
legendary aquatic creature with the head and torso of human female and the tail of a fish. The male version of a mermaid is called a
merman; the gender-neutral collective noun is
merfolk. Various cultures throughout the world have similar figures. They were known to sing sailors to their deaths, like the
Siren, or squeeze the life out of drowning men, while trying to rescue them.
The
Sirens of
Greek mythology are sometimes portrayed in later
folklore ; in fact in some languages the name
sirena is used interchangeably for both creatures. Other related types of
mythical or
legendary creature are
water fairies (e.g. various
water nymphs) and
selkies.
 |
A mermaid looks up at the legs of a swimmer; 1921 cartoon |
Tales of mermaids are nearly universal. The first known mermaid
stories appeared in
Assyria, ca.
1000 BCE.
Atargatis, the mother of Assyrian queen
Semiramis, was a goddess who loved a mortal shepherd and in the process killed him. Ashamed, she jumped into a lake to take the form of a fish, but the waters would not conceal her divine nature. Thereafter, she took the form of a mermaid — human above the waist, fish below — though the earliest representations of Atargatis showed her as being a fish with a human head and legs, similar to the
Babylonian Ea. The Greeks recognized Atargatis under the name Derketo, where she was often
conflated with
Aphrodite.
Lucian of Samosata in Syria (2nd century CE) 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 fishes 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."
[Lucian of Samosata, De Dea Syria Part 2, Chapter 14]A popular Greek legend has
Alexander the Great's sister,
Thessalonike, turn into a mermaid after her death.
[ Teacher's Guide] She lived, it was said, in the
Aegean and when sailors would encountered her, she would ask them only one question:
"Is Alexander the king alive?" (
Greek:
Ζει ο βασιλιάς Αλέξανδρος), to which the correct answer would be
"He lives and still rules" (Greek:
Ζει και βασιλεύει). Any other answer would spur her into a rage, where she transformed into a
Gorgon and mean doom for the ship and every sailor onboard.
Among the
Neo-Taíno nations of the Caribbean the mermaid is called
Aycayía[http://www.cienfuegoscuba.galeon.com/aycayia.htm] she of the beautiful voice.
[http://www.conexioncubana.net/tradiciones/diccionario/a.htm] Her attributes relate to the goddess
Jagua, and the hibiscus flower of the majagua tree
Hibiscus tiliaceous.
[http://www.hear.org/starr/hiplants/images/thumbnails/html/hibiscus_tiliaceus.htm] Examples from other cultures are the
Mami Wata of
West Africa, the
Jengu of
Cameroon, the
Merrow of
Ireland and
Scotland, the Rusulki of
Russia, 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 mermaid can grant unaging
immortality. In some
European legends mermaids are said to grant wishes.
It has been widely suggested that
manatees or
dugongs could be behind the myth of the mermaid. These large aquatic
mammals are notable for the way in which they carry their young, cradled in their arms much as a human would carry a baby. It is possible that sailors seeing these unfamiliar beasts for the first time, would assume that they had in fact stumbled across some sort of
humanoid species, and consequently spread their accounts of the sightings through their homelands on their return from voyages. It has even been posited that the traditional image of a mermaid with long flowing hair could be attributed to manatees breaking the ocean surface underneath patches of
seaweed, and giving the unfamiliar observer the impression of having long hair.
Prior to 546 B.C., the Milesian philosopher Anaximander proposed that mankind had sprung from an aquatic species of animal. For, he thought, man with his extended infancy could not have survived, originally, in the manner he does presently. This idea, based on elemental forces of mutation as opposed to evolution, does not appear to have survived Anaximander's death.
Mermaids are one of the most famous creatures of
popular culture, and are depicted regularly in literature and film. This is likely due to the influence of
Hans Christian Andersen's
fairytale The Little Mermaid (
1836), which has been translated into many languages and adapted into various mediums. Andersen's portrayal has arguably become the standard, and has influenced most modern Western depictions of mermaids since it was published.
Andersen's Little Mermaid was immortalized with a famous bronze sculpture in
Copenhagen harbour, and was adapted into a
Disney movie (
The Little Mermaid,
1989). The story has been retold in other films and television programs, and regularly features in collections of fairytales.
Sue Monk Kidd in "The Mermaid Chair", published in 2005, invents a mermaid saint, based on an actual legend about a chair in Cornwall.
 |
Madison, the mermaid from the movie Splash. |
In
Splash (
1984), starring
Daryl Hannah and
Tom Hanks, Hannah played a mermaid who fell in love with a man. She could walk dry land as a human female, but whenever water touched her legs they changed into a fish-tail. Much of the movie revolves around her humorous attempts to conceal her true identity from her lover. A made-for-television sequel,
Splash, Too[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096159/] followed in
1988. It starred
Amy Yasbeck and
Todd Waring, and was later made in to a short lived television series. Australian television series,
H2O: Just Add Water (2006), involves 3 teenage girls who, after encountering a mysterious island grotto, transform into mermaids whenever water touches any part of their bodies in a similar way.
Miranda (
1948), starring
Glynis Johns, is another popular film to feature a mermaid.
She Creature (2001) featured a villainous mermaid who seemed to have a taste for human flesh and
tendencies.
In the novel
Sirena Donna Jo Napoli offers a love tale of the Trojan war from the point of view of a mermaid, based on a character from
The Iliad.
In the upcoming novel
Etefjeyyk, author Sean Bridges plans to work in an underwater city of
mermen and mermaids in some way, along with other magical creatures, like
djinns,
sphinxes,
elves,
unicorns, etc.
A made-for-cable movie,
Mermaids,
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340842/] starring Nikita Ager, Sarah Laine and Erika Heynatz aired on the PAX network in 2003. It was about a trio of mermaid sisters named Venus, June and Diana who solve their father's murder.
A made for
Disney Channel movie "The Thirteenth Year" suggests that a mermaid could be a normal human until he/she turns the age of 13.
Aquamarine, a novel by
Alice Hoffman, is about two 12 year old girls who discover a sassy teenage mermaid. The novel was popular among teen and preteen girls. The novel was made in to a film released in
2006 by Twentieth Century Fox and starred
Sara Paxton,
Emma Roberts and
JoJo .
Mermaids are featured in the
Peter Pan novel and in the adaptations of it (such as the film
Hook) and the
Harry Potter series, specifically in
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
L. Frank Baum (creator of
Oz) wrote a novel about merfolk,
The Sea Fairies.
For many years, the
comic book superhero Superman had a romantic love interest with a mermaid named
Lori Lemaris. The name Lori Lemaris was probably drawn from
Lorelei rock in the
Rhine added to
maris, from the
Latin mare, meaning ocean.
The television show
Fantasy Island had a mermaid character. One also appeared in an episode in the third season of
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
Mermaids are also fictional creatures in the
Dungeons and Dragons game. They are the females of the
merfolk race. The males are known as
mermen.
In
Rumiko Takahashi's
Mermaid Saga, a legend tells that those who eat the flesh of a mermaid will become immortal. In truth, this only happens with a small number of people. The rest either die, or become horrible monsters.
In the second series of the anime version of
Those Who Hunt Elves mermaids are portrayed as a group of female elves who wear fish-like suits around their lower bodies, though they have regular human legs.
In the
Futurama episode
The Deep South, the crew encounters Mermaids who inhabit the fabled lost city of Atlanta in the year 3000. The concept of mermaids not having the same reproductive functions as humans in the show is a reference to the
mermaid problem. When Fry wishes that his mermaid lover Umbriel could've been the mermaid with "the fish part on top and the lady part on the bottom", this is a jab at an episode of
Night Gallery[
1] called "Lindermann's Catch"[
2], about a fisherman who wants to give a mermaid he's fallen in love with legs, but his wish backfires when her fish half becomes her human half and her human half (her head) becomes the fish part. In 2006, NBC's
soap opera Passions added a mermaid character named Siren, brought to life by the toddler witch Endora to keep her half-brother's fiance from leaving him.
In
Dave Barry and
Ridley Pearson's prequel to
Peter Pan,
Peter and the Starcatchers, mermaids come into being when a female fish is exposed to starstuff.
In
Power Rangers Mystic Force, the Blue Ranger turns into the Mermaid Titan. This is based upon MagiMermaid, the Majin form of Magiblue in
Mahō Sentai MagirangerSirenomelia, also called "mermaid syndrome", is a rare
congenital disorder in which a child is born with his or her legs fused together and the
genitalia reduced. This condition is about as rare as
conjoined twins and is usually fatal within a day or two of birth because of
kidney and
bladder complications, though there are three known survivors of this disorder alive today.
Hoaxes
In the
19th century,
P. T. Barnum displayed in his museum a
taxidermal hoax called the
Feejee (sic
) 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 were passed around on the internet as something that had washed up amid the devastation, though they were no more real than Barnum's exhibit.
[http://www.snopes.com/photos/tsunami/mermaid.asp] |
Coat of Arms of Warsaw |
Heraldry
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.
A shield and sword-wielding mermaid (
Syrenka) is the official
Coat of Arms of Warsaw, the capital of
Poland.
The personal coat of arms of
Michaëlle Jean, Canada's
Governor General, features two
Simbi, mermaid-like spirits from
Haitian
vodun, as
supporters.
Advertising
Advertising characters from
television commercials include the
Chicken of the Sea Mermaid, the
cartoon mascot for a brand of
tuna.
Even more ambiguous is the mermaid featured on the
Starbucks Coffee logo, although because of the dual tails, the logo is often mentioned as a
melusine.
*
Merman*
Mermaid Series*
Mermaid Problem*
Rusalka*
Weeki Wachee, Florida Tourist resort famous for its underwater "mermaid" show.
*
American Dragon: Jake Long*
The Little Mermaid*
Beautiful Mermaid Art Collections of mermaid art, folk tales and myths.
*
Mermaids on the Web annotated directory of 400 websites and 1,250 images
*
"The Mermaid" by Heinz Insu Fenkl, from the mermaid-themed
Summer 2003 issue of the
Journal of Mythic Arts*
The mermaid goddess Derketo from Lucian of Samosata's
On the Syrian God (2c. AD)
*
Coney Island Mermaid Parade mermaids on parade
*
Doll Palace Mermaids Mermaids dolls and avatars in pixel-art
