mermaidlegends

Legends

A little of the history and development of the mermaid and merman mythology

The mermaid and merman legends begin with the worship of gods as have many mythologies. The earliest representations and descriptions of these now well known creatures can be traced back as far as the eighth century BC.

The Babylonians were known to worship a sea-god called Oannes, or Ea. Oannes was reputed to have risen from the Erythrean Sea and taught to man the arts and sciences.

The Syrians and the Philistines were also known to have worshipped a Semitic mermaid moon-goddess. The Syrians called her Atargatis while the Philistines knew her as Derceto. It is not unusual or surprising that this moon-goddess was depicted as a mermaid as the tides ebbed and flowed with the moon then as it does now and this was incorporated into the god-like personifications that we find in their art and the ancient literature. Atargatis is one of the first recorded mermaids and the legend says that her child Semiramis was a normal human and because of this Atargatis was ashamed and killed her lover. Abandoning the infant she became wholly a fish.

The Indians, amongst their many gods, worshipped one group of water-gods known as the Asparas,who were celestial flute-playing water-nymphs.

In Japanese and Chinese legends there were not only mermaids but also sea-dragons and the dragon-wives. The Japanese mermaid known as Ningyo was depicted as a fish with only a human head; where as the Polynesian mythology includes a creator named Vatea who was depicted as half-human form and half-porpoise.

Greek and Roman Mythology is often placed together as the two are very similar and it is in the literature from these cultures that one finds the first literary description of the mermaid, and indeed the mermen. Homer mentions the Sirens during the voyage of Odysseus but he fails to give a physical description. Ovid on the other hand writes that the mermaids were born from the burning galleys of the Trojans where the timbers turned into flesh and blood and the 'green daughters of the sea'.

The British Isles too had their fair share of merfolk mythology. The Cornish knew mermaids as Merrymaids; the Irish knew them as Merrows or Muirruhgach and some sources write that they lived on dry land below the sea and had enchanted caps that allowed them to pass through the water without drowning, while the women were very beautiful the men had red noses, were piggy eyed, with green hair and teeth and a penchant for brandy.

The Neck are to be found in Scandanavia, along with the Havfrue (merman) and the Havmand (mermaid), the neck however were able to live in both salt- and fresh-water. The Norwegian mermaid known as Havfine were believed to have very unpredictable tempers. Some were known to be kind, others to be incredibly cruel; it was considered unlucky to view one of these havfine.

The German Mythologies of mermaids are plenty. There are the Meerfrau; the Nix and the Nixe who were the male and female fresh-water inhabitants and it was believed that they were treacherous to men. The nixe lured men to drown while the nix could be in the form of an old dwarfish character or as a golden-haired boy and in Iceland and Sweden could take the form of a centaur. The nix also loved music and could lure people to him with his harp, if he was in the form of a horse he would tempt people to mount him and then dash into the sea to drown them. While he sometimes desired a human soul he would often demand annual human sacrifices. There was also a more elvin kind of Nixies that would sometimes appear in the market, she could be identified by the corner of her apron being wet. If they paid a good price it would be an expensive year but if they paid a low price the prices for that year would remain cheap. In the Rhine were to be found the Lorelei from which the town took its name. The Germans also knew the Melusine as a double-tailed mermaid as did the British heraldry as well.

Russian mermaid Mythology includes the daughters of the Water-King who live beneath the sea; the water-nymph that drowns swimmers known as the Rusalka and the male water-spirit known as the Vodyany who followed sailors and fishermen.

The Africans believed the tales of a fish-wife and river-witches.

There is a theory that during the suppression of pagan deities the mermaid and other minor supernatural beings were not seen as a threat to the growth and popularity of Christian beliefs. Some writers even go so far as to believe that the Church actually believed in the mermaid mythology, and for two particular reasons; the first is that the mermaid served as a moral emblem of sin, the femme fatale label we know so well was nurtured with this form of thinking; and the second was the quality of evidence from contemporary and ancient authors on the existence of mermaids added to this 'belief' the Church found in mermaids.

In 1403 a mermaid was apparently found stranded in the mud after a storm in West Friesland. She was then taken, clothed and fed ordinary food. Some say that she lived for fifteen years in capture, trying to escape constantly; she was also taught to kneel before the crucifix and spin but she was never able to speak.

In an attempt to find a northern passage to the East Indies, Henry Hudson's log reported on June 15, 1608 that two of his company, Thoms Hill and Robert Raynor said that they had seen a mermaid, their descritption read: "From the Navill upward, her backe and breasts were like a womans. . . her skin was very white; and long haire hanging down behinde, of colour blacke; in her going downe they saw her tayle, which was like the tayle of a Porposse, and speckled like a Macrell".

A schoolmaster of Thurso in Caithness, William Munro, wrote in a report in THE TIMES on September 8, 1809 that twelve years earlier he had been walking along Sandside Bay shore when he saw what he first thought was a naked woman, sitting on a rock and combing her light brown hair. The face was plump, with ruddy cheeks and blue eyes. If the rock where the woman sat had not been so dangerous for swimmers, Munro would have assumed it was human. After a few minutes it dropped into the sea and swam away.

Near the Bullers O'Buchan, north of Cruden Bay, on the Coast of Aberdeenshire, 1870, an old fisherman swore that he had not only seen but conversed with a mermaid beneath the red granite cliffs. It appears that it had been a fairly general belief that the caves on this rocky coast were the homes of mermaids.

The Schoolmaster of Rathven, Banffshire, in the Aberdeen Chronicle, April 20, 1814, gave a report that two fishermen at Portgordon, about a mile west of Buckie, whose character he was able to vouch for, were returning from fishing in Sprey Bay; 'about three or four o'clock yesterday afternoon, when about a quater of a mile from the shore, the sea being perfectly calm, they observed, at a small distance from their boat, with its back turned towards them, and half its body above the water, a creature of a tawny colour, appearing like a man sitting, with his body half bent. Surprised at this they approached towards him, till they came within a few yards, when the noise made by the boat occasioned the ceature to turn about, which gave the men a better opportunity of observing him. His countenance was swarthy, his hair short and curled, of a colour between a green and a grey: he had small eyes, a flat nose, his mouth was large, and his arms of an extraordinary length. Above the waist, he was shaped like a man, but as the water was clear my informants could perceive that from the waist downwards, his body tapered considerably or, as they expressed it, like a large fish without scales but could not see the extemity.' But this was not the end of their encounter for he dived and surfaced some distance away and was not alone. With him was what appeared to be a female of his species for she had breasts and hair that reached past her shoulders. The two men then rowed as fast as they could to land where they related their story to the school master.

Campbeltown, JohnM'Isaac, a farmer, on October 29, 1811, made a sworn statement to the Sheriff-substitute and the parish minister that he had met a mermaid in Campbeltown. The description he gave ran for more than five hundred words and was so convincing that Rev. Dr. George Robertson, Rev. Norman MacLeod, and James Maxwell, Esq., Chamberlain of Mull wrote that they were, 'satisfied that he was impressed with a perfect belief, that the appearance of the animal he has described was such as he has represented it to be.'

Exmouth, August 11, 1812, a Mr Toupin reported that not only had he seen a mermaid but he had heard her sing wild melodies, similer to the sound of an Aeolian harp.

The Island of Benbecula, in the Outer Hebrides, about 1830, women cutting seaweed reported they had met a creature of female form playing happily off the shore. A few days later her dead body was found two miles from where she had first been seen. The description of the creature was recorded thus, 'the upper part of the creature was about the size of a well-fed chid of three or four years of age, with an abnormally developed breast. The hair was long, dark and glossy. while the skin was white, soft and tender. The lower part of the body was like a salmon, but without scales.'

Off the Isle of Yell, 1833, six fishermen reported that their fishing line had become entangled with a mermaid. They said they had kept her on board their boat for three hours, and said that she was about three feet long. She 'offered no resistance nor attempted to bite,' but she moaned piteously. 'A few stiff bristles were on top of the head, extending down to the shoulder, and these she could erect and depress at pleasure, something like a crest.' She had neither gill nor fins and there were no scales on her body. The fishermen who were very superstitious threw her overboard eventually and said that she dived 'in a perpendicular direction.'

Isle of Man, date not given but it is reported that one crew affirmed they had found a mermaid in their herring drift-net. 'On examining their captive, by the largeness of her breasts and the beauty of her compexion, it was found to be female, nothing. . . could be more lovely, more exactly formed, in all parts above the waist resembling a complete young woman, but below that, all fish, with fins, and a huge spreading tail.' She was taken ashore but they could not get her to eat or drink and at the end of the third day when 'she began to look very ill with fasting,' they opened the door of the house. She then glided on her tail to the beach and plunged into the sea where she swam away surrounded by many others of her own species

On the Island of Muck, 1947, an eighty year old fisherman reported that he had seen a mermaid 'in the sea about twenty yards from the shore, sitting combing her hair on a floating herringbox used to preserve live lobsters. Unfortunately, as soon as the mermaid looked round, she realized that she had been seen, and plunged into the sea. But no questioning could shake the old fisherman's firm conviction: he was adamant that he had seen a mermaid.'

With the growth of science, the fantasic became childish amongst the writers of the growing educated, especially during the eighteenth century, but began to flourish again with the Romantic movement at the turn of this century. It was also the time however for the scientifically minded to do their utmost to dispel the myth of the mermaid, claiming that all the recorded sightings were simply men who'd been at sea too long and wanting to believe, and so when a seal, porpoise,dugong or manatee was spotted from the ship they'd swear they'd seen a mermaid.

It is not until the Twentieth Century that the mermaid is tossed back and forth between those that believe, or want to believe, and those that stand behind their logic and scientific proof that a creature such as the mermaid simply cannot exist. A wonderful film of these two meeting is the film Splash, with Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks. The mermaid becomes a symbol of fun and fantasy rather than an accepted part of cultural tradition and awe. She is seen as a figure of eroticism mixed with fear of the unkown, or the animal side of her nature. It is a great marketing tool for toys, cartoons, soft-porn, and women's swimwear. No matter how the mermaid is used or what role she plays she will always retain her mysterious air. Perhaps the next move is a more feminine one, bringing back the myth of the mermaid protecting women, or the soul of the woman drowned before her natural time of death. . .

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