One of the interesting myths that we can share with all of you is regarding 'The Little Mermaid.We are very sure that almost every one
out there must have seen the cartoon "The Little Mermaid" or read
this book in their childhood. The mermaid has always been mystery, fantasy and unlimited beauty of a creature. Its elegance and splendour has been
known to enchant people since a very long time. Even now it is one of the
favourite cartoon characters of most children.
Let's take a deeper
look into the mermaid mythology, its beginning, various legends, mermaid's part
in literature and recorded sightings.
Merfolk As Gods
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.
Babylonian Mythology
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. In
the Louvre today can be seen an eighth century wall-scene depicting Oannes as a
merman, with the fish-like tail and the upper body of a man.
The Syrian Mythology
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 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.
Chinese Mythology
In Japanese and
Chinese legends there were not only mermaids but also sea-dragons and the
dragon-wives.
The Greek and Roman Mythology
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. Poseidon and Neptune were often depicted as
half-man and half-fish but the most popular motive of the ancient world that
depicts mermen was the representations of the tritons, Triton being the son of
the powerful sea-god.
The British Merfolk
The British Isles
too had their fair share of merfolk mythology. The Cornish knew mermaids as
Merry maids. According to the Cornish legend a mermaid called Moveren had made
appearance in the village of Zennor and due to her interest in music she had
fallen in love with one of the singers Matthew of the choir of the church. Now
when this man found out about the mermaid, he too fell in love with her and
together they went to live in the sea. The people of Zennor still say that they
can hear Matthew sing to the mermaid and to them the whispers of waves still
make sense. The Irish knew merfolks 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.
One more perception
that existed in historic times and is found in most myths is that seals are
really merfolk disguised under the seal skin. All the legends related to this
theory usually start with fishermen finding seal skins and then a beautiful
girl comes back for her property as without it she is exiled from her submarine
friends. But the property is never returned and the girl is offered protection
under the roof of this man. All these myths end in the same way, that is, the
seal skin is discovered and the mermaid returns back to her native home.
However, some stories concerning this concept are different too, for example a
story is told of a man, Herman Perk, who was caught in a storm and was saved by
a merman on the price that he would return him his seal skin which was in his
store house. Herman perk was true to his word.
Russian mermaid
mythology includes the daughters of the water-king who live beneath the sea;
the water-nymph that drowns swimmers and the male water-spirit who followed
sailors and fishermen. The Africans believed the tales of a fish-wife and
river-witches.
But with the growth
of science, the fantastic became childish specially during the eighteenth
century but began to flourish again amongst the writers with the Romantic
Movement at the turn of this century. It was also the time however for the
logical 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
so when a seal, porpoise, dugong or manatee was spotted from the ship they'd
swear they'd seen a mermaid.
Sightings
There have been
recorded sightings from fishermen, women, men of reputation within the
community of mermaids and mermen. Some are quite convincing while others are a
little vague. Nonetheless they make a good reading.
The most recent
sighting is of 1947 when 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 herring box 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.'
Off the coast of
Britain, June 4, 1857, Shipping Gazette, reported Scottish seaman had spotted a
creature, ‘in the shape of a woman with dark complexion, and comely face.'
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.'
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 child 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.
Campbell town, John
M'isaac, a farmer, October 29, 1811, made a sworn statement to the
Sheriff-substitute and the parish minister that he had met a mermaid in
Campbell town. 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.'
Now 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 unknown, or the
animal side of her nature. No matter how the mermaid is used or what role she
plays she will always retain her mysterious air.
