https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/mermaids.

html

Mermaids - those half-human, half-fish sirens of the sea — are legendary sea creatures
chronicled in maritime cultures since time immemorial. The ancient Greek epic poet Homer
wrote of them in The Odyssey. In the ancient Far East, mermaids were the wives of powerful sea-
dragons, and served as trusted messengers between their spouses and the emperors on land. The
aboriginal people of Australia call mermaids yawkyawks – a name that may refer to their
mesmerizing songs.

The belief in mermaids may have arisen at the very dawn of our species. Magical female figures
first appear in cave paintings in the late Paleolithic (Stone Age) period some 30,000 years ago,
when modern humans gained dominion over the land and, presumably, began to sail the seas.
Half-human creatures, called chimeras, also abound in mythology — in addition to mermaids,
there were wise centaurs, wild satyrs, and frightful minotaurs, to name but a few.

https://exemplore.com/cryptids/Are-Mermaids-Real-Aquatic-Ape-Theory-Explains-Real-life-
Mermaids

Do Mermaids Really Exist?

We humans have been fascinated by mermaids for a long time. A few hundred years ago, the
myth of beautiful semi-human women living beneath the sea was widely believed by
superstitious sailors, many of whom spent weeks or months crossing foreboding oceans.
But even today people love mermaids. They’re everywhere, from animated films to Vegas-style
shows to confusing documentaries.
In the modern day, most mermaids are depicted as beautiful, female creatures, alluring and
gentle and possibly a bit naïve about the ways of us landlubbers. But it wasn’t always so.
In ancient times, mermaids usually brought bad news in the form of shipwrecks, death by
drowning and storms. Even pirates feared mermaids might trick them out of their loot, or send
their ship to the bottom of the sea out of vengeance.
Woe to the sailor who crossed a mermaid.
In the olden days, sailors and ship passengers spotted mermaids all the time, and many ocean-
going folk regarded mermaids as real creatures of the sea. Of course, many experts write these
sightings off as the delirious hallucinations of seamen who had been out on the ocean too long,
away from women or any other civilization for that matter.
Some cite the manatee as a possible culprit when it comes to animals which may have been
misidentified as “mermaids”.
That makes sense well enough. Mermaids and other sea monsters are likely the products of wild
imaginations and too many hours spent at sea.
If that's true, we’d have to think there would no longer be mermaid sightings in modern times.
The oceans of the world are well explored and people are (theoretically) much wiser when it
comes to what’s really out there beneath the waves. As our collective knowledge of the sea
increased, mermaids should have vanished into the realm of superstition and myth.
But that's not the case. There are alleged mermaids sightings even today, from around the world.
So, what are these people seeing? Eventually we can't help but wonder if there is something to
these stories, and if sailors from days of old maybe weren't so delirious after all.
Do mermaids exist? If so, where is the proof? How could it be possible that a half-woman, half-
fish is really out there?

Myth vs Reality
Like any cryptid with an enduring legacy, mermaids are still seen around the world today.
Unfortunately, there is also the occasional hoax, manipulated video footage, and plain-old honest
mistake. For this reason, it’s important to take any sightings account with a grain of salt.
But there are a lot of mysterious creatures allegedly out there, tucked away in the shadows, safe
from mainstream science. Is it possible mermaids are real but elusive animals, hidden beneath
the vast veil of the world’s oceans?.
There’s a big problem with this idea. Mermaids, mermen – merfolk – are described as having the
upper body of a human and the lower body of a fish. This works just fine for mythology, as there
are all kinds of creatures with mixed-up bodies throughout ancient legend, but it makes things
tough when we look at it from a biological perspective.
Humans are mammals and fish are, well, fish. You don't need a doctorate in marine biology to
figure out that humans and fish have very different physiologies, and it’s pretty much impossible
for a creature to retain the characteristics of both.
The pairing doesn’t work.
On the other hand, perhaps we’re taking the “fish” part too literally. Witnesses who see
mermaids often catch only a fleeting glimpse, and may only describe their tails as “fish-like” for
lack of a better word. Ancient sailors and seamen may not have known any other way to describe
them. But what if mermaids are, in fact, 100% mammalian?
There are numerous well-known examples of aquatic mammals with fin-like tails: Whales and
dolphins, dugongs and manatees. Even pinnipeds, with their flipper feet, could be mistaken for
having fish-like tails.
Does this mean there is a species of undiscovered mammal which closely resembles humans
swimming around in the ocean? From an evolutionary perspective, some say it’s possible.
https://www.seeker.com/mermaids-exist-and-they-are-seismically-sensitive-1768125500.html
Ask geophysicist Gust No let of the University of Nice in France if mermaids exist and he will
tell you "Yes! And I love them!" He admits they are, of course, a rarity in the ocean. He's
currently tracking two in the Mediterranean and four in the Indian Ocean. And if you want to
hear them sing, you'll have to wait 10 days for them to come to the surface, unless there's been an
earthquake.
Wait what?

Yep, these mermaids are seismically sensitive and Nolet and his team of oceanographers from
the United States and France have deployed everyone of them.
For the first time oceanographers have a fleet of floating seismic detectors cruising the seas. The
Mermaids (Mobile Earthquake Recording in Marine Areas by Independent Divers), provide
seismic coverage of a large swath of Earth that is mostly invisible to seismologists: the oceanic
crust. Unlike ocean bottom seismometers that are stuck on the seafloor for sometimes a year or
more at a time, and have to be retrieved using expensive ship time expeditions to learn what data
they have recorded, Mermaids will pop to the surface and transmit their data whenever they
receive a signal that has a 90 percent chance of being an earthquake.

Turns out most magnitude 6.5 earthquakes can trigger enough commotion, in the form of bubbles
and seafloor rumbling, to rise above the din of the regular ocean noise. "We've seen magnitudes
as low as 5.5 as far away as Mexico," No let told reporters at the American Geophysical Union
in San Francisco today.

They track the earthquakes in a similar fashion to land seismometers, only their mobility also
gives the Mermaids an advantage for recording additional details from any large aftershocks
from an earthquake. For example, during a seismic swarm in the Indian Ocean on Nov. 25, 2013,
seismic stations on land captured only two events, whereas one of the Mermaids recorded nearly
200 "triggers" in 13 seismograms.

They can also speak whale. Of course you'd expect mermaids to do so. The noise signatures for
whale songs are distinct for each species. No let and his team are recommending other scientists
take advantage of their Mermaids by including biological and meteorological sensors onto their
divers. Each Mermaid can dive down to as far as 2,000 meters.

Next year the team plans to deploy 10 Mermaids around the Galapagos Islands to monitor the
seismic signatures from the volcanic magma plume that feeds the islands.

Monsters Ho!

We all enjoy a tall tale. Cultures with seafaring traditions are especially ripe in what seem like
the tallest sea monster tales of all: hydra, kraken, sirens, scylla, leviathans, assorted serpents and
mermaids. Usually the stories are never confirmed and usually baseless.
Then again, some of the tales are based on something, or so we are learning as marine scientists
plumb the depths and discover some pretty weird creatures. The bottom line: There really are
bizarre, unexpected, totally startling monsters found in the seas. And the very worst of these is
the most unexpected.

Japanese Serpents
Sea monsters are truly global. This one from Japan serves as the villain for the classic maiden in
distress, who awaits rescue by her hero. The poor monsters are almost always cast as the bad
guys. And so they usually end hacked to pieces; fish food.

Improbable, But True

Maybe it's the oarfish. It looks too monstrous to be true. It can grow many meters long, has
strikingly bright silver scales, scarlet fins and some ornate headgear that more than explains why
some call it a roosterfish. If only it were a reptile, it'd be a true sea serpent.

Alas. It is a fish. A very weird and beautiful fish, but still a fish.

Largest Serpent of All

There are also other, newfound "sea serpents" our sea-going ancestors never imagined. This one
was spotted by a satellite coiling off the south coast of Japan's Hokkaido Island.

The manatee has often been called the source of mermaid myths. It's a mammal, so it breathes
air. But who would ever mistake a manatee for a sleek and beautiful mermaid?
http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/49740/u-s-confirms-existence-of-mermaids/
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reportedly confirmed that
mermaids exist and that they are growing in numbers.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reportedly published a post on their
“Ocean Facts” newsfeed titled “Conclusive Evidence of the Existence of Aquatic Humanoids.”

The agency went on to say that “magic females”, who first appeared in cave paintings in the late
Paleolithic (Stone Age) period some 30,000 years ago, when modern humans began to sail the
seas, do exist and are living in all the oceans of the world.

Animal Planet television recently aired a special called “Mermaids: The Body Found,” that also
proved the existence of mermaids.

National Ocean Service spokeswoman Sandy Nixon told WWN that “at least 65 mermaid
researchers and experts gathered on the island of Tahiti to examine all the known evidence and
have concluded, emphatically, that half human half-fish hybrids are living peacefully among us.

Mermaid experts say that the majority of mermaids are in the warmer waters of the Caribbean
and the Mediterranean, but that many have been spotted in the Pacific Ocean and Southern
Atlantic. “There is a large school of mermaids, swimming just outside Ocean City Maryland,”
said mermaidologist, Marcus Plumkin, of the University of Florida.
WWN has also learned that recently the U.S. government has captured 7 mermaids and that they
are being kept at an undisclosed aquarium, where they are being studied. President Obama has
personally met the mermaids and was quite impressed – according to reports.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/classical-literature-mythology-and-
folklore/folklore-and-mythology/mermaids

The mermaid is one of the most popular figures in world folklore. Her characteristic appearance
is as a nubile young girl, with long hair and a fish tail, carrying a comb and a mirror. Unlike the
other part-human, part-animal creatures of myth and folklore, mermaids have been the object of
many sightings up to the present day; it is as if there is a desire to prove the reality of mermaids,
which makes them closer to creatures such as the Loch Ness monster and the Yeti than to
centaurs and sirens. Another expression of this desire to believe can be found in the many fake
mermaids, usually made of the upper torso of a monkey and the tail of a salmon, which have
been exhibited in fairs and circuses. In the age of trade and exploration, seeing a mermaid was an
almost essential part of travelling to new worlds; Christopher Columbus saw three off Haiti, Sir
Richard Whitburne sighted one when discovering Newfoundland in 1610, and Henry Hudson's
crew saw a mermaid off Nova Zembla in 1625. In each case, the surviving accounts consciously
compare what has been seen with the dominant images in art — Columbus finding his mermaids
less pretty and more masculine than he expected. The most famous mermaid to have been
captured, the ‘mermaid of Amboina’, was found off the coast of Borneo in the eighteenth century
and is said to have lived in captivity for four days. She refused to eat, and made plaintive sounds
like those of a mouse. The account given of these events in 1754 suggested that dead mermaids
were never found because their flesh rots particularly rapidly.

Where do the myths of mermaids come from? Somewhere in the later Middle Ages, the fish-
woman mermaid supplanted the bird-woman siren as the creature believed to lure sailors astray,
although in many languages words based on ‘siren’ continued to be used for the fish-woman.
The shift to fish-women as the danger facing mariners may be related to an increasing ability to
travel to the open sea, where mermaids live, out of sight of the coastal rocks where sirens had
been thought to perch. Both sirens and mermaids have musical talents; bird-sirens sing and play
the pipes and the lyre, whereas mermaids rely on their voices to entice sailors to their death.
Mermaids can raise and calm storms at will and, like the Sphinx, they can trap men with
questions and riddles. In nineteenth-century Greek folklore, sailors in the Black Sea may meet
the fish-woman Gorgona, who asks, ‘Does Alexander live?’ If they do not give the correct
answer, ‘He lives and rules the world’, Gorgona will raise a storm and kill all aboard.

Mermaids combine the beauty of a young girl with a repulsive, fishy lower body. Physically, the
problem this poses is how the men whom they target are supposed to have sexual intercourse
with them. Some medieval representations get around this problem by showing the mermaid with
a forked tail, but perhaps the whole point about the mermaid is that she is sexually unattainable
except through death. As popular songs of the nineteenth century remind us, a man who marries
a mermaid can never leave her, as there is no divorce court ‘at the bottom of the deep blue sea’.
An unusual solution to the problem of the sexual availability of mermaids is found in
Magritte's Collective Invention (1935), which shows a beached mermaid with the upper half of a
fish and the lower half of a woman. A related problem is how mermaids themselves reproduce;
male mer-people, or tritons, are shown in art, particularly in the Renaissance, but again they may
miss the point. Matthew Arnold's poem The Forsaken Merman (1849) is a rare example of the
treatment of mermen in literature; it reverses the common pattern of a mortal man loving a
mermaid but being deserted by her, to imagine a mortal woman being called back from the mer-
world by the distant sound of church bells.

Modern literary representations of the mermaid are dominated by the influential Little
Mermaid of Hans Christian Anderson. Here the mer-world is a systematic inversion of our own,
in which not birds, but fish, fly in through open windows. Rather than causing shipwrecks, the
little mermaid saves the life of a shipwrecked prince, then makes a bargain with the sea-witch,
exchanging her tongue for a pair of human legs. Every step she takes causes her terrible pain,
and her feet bleed. Unable to win the love of the prince without her voice, she rejects the chance
to kill him and thus return to her life as a mermaid, but instead dies when he marries someone
else. Feminist interpretations of this story suggest that the little mermaid's surrender of the power
to speak in order to enter the prince's world is an image of women giving up their own voices if
they are to be accepted within patriarchy. Anderson's own message was that, by her love for the
prince, the mermaid gained the chance of winning the immortal soul she most craved.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/strange-creatures/mermaids3.htm

An article about mermaids appeared in the scientific journal Limnology and Oceanography in
1990. In it, respected biological oceanographer Karl Banse offered a tongue-in-cheek analysis of
mermaid biology and lifestyle. Banse took known facts about aquatic life and extrapolated to
theorize about mermaid characteristics [source: McClain].

In "Mermaids: Their Biology, Culture, and Demise," Banse suggests that there were once three
species of mermaid, distinguished by their geographical locations. All would have been warm-
water creatures, as they lacked the heavy blubber necessary to live in colder seas. The ones
Columbus saw were the species Siren indica, who lived in the Atlantic Ocean.

Mermaids, says Banse, fed on the flesh of humans. It's worth noting, though, that a 1967 sighting
off the coast of British Columbia had a mermaid eating salmon [source: Cameron]. In terms of
physical build, Banse disagrees with the traditional depiction of the mermaid's tail as covered in
smooth scales. Rather, he theorizes, mermaid tails had "horny skinfolds" similar to those of
armadillos and anteaters.

Due to the presence of only two breasts, he surmised they gave birth to one or two young at a
time. The paper leaves out the details of reproduction, though the lack of human genitalia seems
to point to fish-like fertilization. We might look to Hindu myth for clues to the birthing process:
The god Hanuman once had a child with Sovann Macha, the Golden Mermaid, and the child was
expelled from the mermaid's throat.

So what happened to all these mermaids? Extinction, says Banse — mermaids were wiped out by
a ballooning jellyfish population after humans overfished other marine life, destroying the
ecological balance. Mermaids' thin skin offered no protection from jellyfish stings.

But clearly they're not extinct — at least judging by the multiple sightings in Kiryat Yam. Or the
testimony of (fake scientist) Torsten Schmidt in "Mermaids: The New Evidence." Or the footage
presented in Discovery's previous production, the hugely successful "Mermaids: The Body
Found," which painted such a "wildly convincing picture" that the U.S. National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) decided to step in.

After fielding countless calls in the wake of the airing of "The Body Found," the NOAA released
a statement, trying to clear up the issue this way: "No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever
been found. Why, then, do they occupy the collective unconscious of nearly all seafaring
peoples? That's a question best left to historians, philosophers, and anthropologists"

HISTORY

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Mermaid

A mermaid (from the Middle English mere meaning "sea" and maid, meaning "girl") is
a legendaryaquatic creature with the head and torso of a human female and a fish-like
tail. The male version of a mermaid is known as a merman, and the gender-neutral
plural is merfolk or merpeople. Merfolk appear in a plethora of cultures worldwide—
legends often tell of mermaids singing to sailors, enchanting them, and luring them to
their death. The origin of the mermaid legend is often traced to the manatee or dugong,
large aquatic mammals that can sometimes have human-like characteristics.
While there have been many who claim merfolk are real, all "evidence" of their
existence has thus far proven to be a hoax. Yet the image of a beautiful human-like
creature that is at home in the water continues to attract us, reflecting our desire to have
dominion over all aspects of the natural world.
Mermaids and Mermen in Myth and Legend

Triton's fountain, by Gianlorenzo Bernini, in Rome

Tales of these half-human, half-fish legendary creatures have circulated for millennia,
and many of the oldest can be found in ancient mythology. Although long-lived and
possessing supernatural powers, merfolk are generally depicted as mortal and without
an eternal soul. Ancient Babylonians worshiped a sea god named Ea, and merpeople
feature prominently in Polynesian mythology.[1]Ancient Syrians worshiped a mermaid
moon-goddess called Atargatis, sometimes called Derceto. In the second century,
Lucian of Samosata on Syria described Derceto in De Dea Syria (Concerning the Syrian
Goddess), saying: "I have seen the semblance of Derceto in Phœnicia, and a wonderful
sight it is; one half is a woman, but the part which extends from the thighs to the feet
ends in a fish's tail."[2]
Merpeople were often present in Greek mythology. The sea god Triton, son of the King
and Queen of the Sea, Poseidon and Amphitrite, is usually depicted with the upper
torso of a man and a fish's tail. The sirens that attempt to lure Odysseus to his death
in The Odyssey were originally portrayed as half-female, half-bird, but later depictions
portrayed them as mermaids. Another notable merman from Greek mythology is
Glaucus. According to legend, Glaucus was born human and lived as a fisherman. One
day, while fishing, he noticed that the fish he had caught were reviving and finding their
way off the land and back into the sea. He ate some of the grass the fish had been lying
on, believing it to have magical properties, and felt an overwhelming desire to be in the
sea. He jumped in the ocean, where the sea gods transformed him into a
merman. Ovid related the transformation of Glaucus in his Metamorpheses, describing
him as a blue-green man with a fishy member where his legs had been.
The Land Baby by John Collier

Merfolk are found in the folklore of most parts of the world. In Japan, it is said that
eating the flesh of a mermaid can grant immortality. Icelandic folklore tells of mermen
known as Marbendlar, and tales of mermaids and mermen were often found in the
folklore and legends of the British Isles.
Mermaids were noted in British folklore as ominous: foretelling disaster as well as
provoking it. Some were described as monstrous in size, up to 160 feet. [3] Mermaids
could also swim up rivers to freshwater lakes. As one legend goes, the Laird of Lorntie
thought he saw a woman drowning in a lake. As he went to aid her, a servant pulled him
back, warning that the woman was actually a mermaid. The mermaid then screamed
that she would have killed him if it were not for his servant. [4]

Mermaid in Clonfert Cathedral, Co. Galway, Ireland

In Irish folklore, tales of mermaids tend to be more romantic. It was believed that
mermaids could transform into human form through the removal of a cap or sea-skin.
Instead of mermaids who lure men to their death, Irish mermaid legends often tell of
men who hide the cap or sea-skin of a mermaid in order to marry them and bring them
home. There are several Irish families who claim mermaids as ancestors, and include
mermaid images on their family crests and arms.
Mermaids were often featured in the decoration of Medieval churches, particularly in the
British Isles. Often shown holding a comb and mirror, mermaids not only embodied
the sins of pride and vanity, but were also often used to represent the sin of lust. Images
of mermaids holding a fish or starfish were used to represent a Christian soul that had
been lost to the deadly sin of lust, and were placed in churches to warn churchgoers not
to be seduced by such evils.[5]
While mermaids are often represented as curious or envious of human life, mermen are
most often portrayed as more private and secretive; often they are less attractive than
their female counterparts. In Irish legends, for example, mermen are definitively ugly.
Stories abound of beautiful mermaids using their enchanting voices to sing to sailors
and finding their way close to the world of men, but such stories about mermen are less
common.

Manatees as Mermaids?
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 their voyages. It
has even been suggested that the traditional image of a mermaid with long flowing hair
could be attributed to manatees breaking the ocean surface underneath patches
of seaweed, giving the unfamiliar observer the impression of long hair.
In 1493, Christopher Columbus recorded a sighting of what was most likely a group of
manatees or dugongs, recording in the ship's log that "when the Admiral went to the Rio
del Oro he saw three mermaids which rose well out of the sea… they were not as
beautiful as they are painted though they have something of a human face." [6]

Mermaid Hoaxes
Barnum's "Feejee Mermaid"

The most famous mermaid hoax was perpetrated in the mid-nineteenth century by
legendary showman P. T. Barnum. The "Feejee Mermaid" was exhibited after Barnum
had hired a phony naturalist to support the mermaid's authenticity, and used
accomplices to send letters from various cities that spoke of the fake "Dr. Griffin" and
his remarkable mermaid. Woodcuts were given to the newspapers, and audiences soon
flocked to see the beautiful, seductive creature pictured in the woodcut. Instead, they
found that the Feejee Mermaid was a grotesque combination of ape and fish, and not at
all what they had expected. In actuality, the Feejee Mermaid was most likely the
creation of a Japanese fisherman sometime around 1810. Such half-fish half-ape
creatures were a traditional art form, and were often created for use in religious
ceremonies.[7]
Though the Feejee Mermaid was the most famous, "mermaids" have been commonly
found in carnivals, traveling circuses and side shows. More recently, in the wake of the
2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, pictures of "mermaids" were spread through
the Internet. It was claimed that the photos were of creatures that had washed up amid
the devastation, but the very same photographs had circulated in 2003, and were no
more real than Barnum's exhibit.[8]

The Little Mermaid

The statue of The Little Mermaid, a monument to Hans Christian Andersen, in Copenhagen harbor.

Perhaps the most famous mermaid in literature is found in Hans Christian

Andersen's fairytale The Little Mermaid (1836). Translated into many languages,
Anderson's tale tells of a young mermaid who trades her voice for human legs in her
quest for the love of a prince and the acquisition of an immortal soul. Anderson's
portrayal of mermaids has arguably become the standard, and has influenced most
modern Western depictions of mermaids since its publication. The story has been retold
in numerous adaptations, the most famous of which is the 1989 Disney movie of the
same name, where, unlike the original, the Little Mermaid lives happily ever after with
her prince. A famous bronze statue by sculptor Edvard Erichsen was given to the city
of Copenhagen in 1913, depicting the famous Little Mermaid sitting on a stone in
Copenhagen Harbor.

Merfolk Music
Both mermaids and mermen have long been associated with music, and much like that
of Orpheus, the power of a mermaid's singing has the ability to enthrall. Stories abound
of mermaids who lure sailors to their death with their beautiful, enchanting songs. Along
with their legendary vanity, the hair-combing and mirrors, the association of mermaids
with music is coupled with another association of a vocal nature: they are said to be
able to confer verbal eloquence, much like the Muses of the ancient Greek myths.
Though many claim that mermen also communicate through song, tales of mermen's
songs are much rarer, as are tales of mermen in general. Mermen are more often
pictured making music with a conch shell than singing. Triton, a Greek sea-god, is often
pictured with a conch shell trumpet.

Mermaids in the Arts and Heraldry

A Mermaid by John William Waterhouse.

Images of mermaids can be found in ancient Greek pottery and mosaic. Many of these
mermaids have a split tail; a feature commonly found in ancient concepts of a
mermaid's appearance. Mermaids have long been a popular subject with painters. One
of the best known mermaid paintings, A Mermaid, was painted by John William
Waterhouse from 1895 to 1905. 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).
Mermaids are also popular in both literature and film. In addition to Andersen's famous
fairytale, The Little Mermaid, mermaids have appeared in the novel The Sea
Fairies, by L. Frank Baum, James Barrie's Peter Pan, and numerous other works of
children's literature and fantasy fiction. In film, mermaids have been the subject of many
comedies such as Miranda (1948) and Splash (1984), as well as the
famous animatedadaptation of The Little Mermaid by Walt Disney.
File:POL Warszawa COA 1.svg 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.
The official coat of arms of Warsaw, the capital of Poland, features a mermaid wielding
a sword and shield. Numerous legends tell the origin of the Warsaw mermaid; the best
known describes a mermaid who would tangle the nets of the fishermen. Because of
her enchanting singing, the fishermen did not harm her, but a wealthy merchant
captured her to display her at fairs. Rescued by one of the town's young men, the
mermaid was grateful and vowed to defend the city in time of need
http://pages.suddenlink.net/mermaids_realm/history.html

Mermaids have long fascinated humans, right from the days of Hans Christian Anderson’s novel, The
Little Mermaid, to the children of today that read about Mermaids and Mermen in J.K. Rowling’s Harry
Potter books. The fascination of humans with these peculiar creatures is not restricted to the West.
Philippines, Japanese and a variety of other completely distinct and separate cultures refer to mermaids
and mermaid like creatures.

Firstly, what is a Mermaid?

A mermaid is a creature that is half human, and half fish. Mermaids are female, while the Mermen,
naturally, are the males. They have the torso of a fish, and the upper body of a human being. Mermaids
are also often interchanged with water nymphs, water fairies and selkies. Mermaids are usually
considered to be very beautiful, and extremely attractive in looks, as opposed to one’s normal
presumption that their scales would make them look repulsive. According to legends of yore, there were
many instances where in sailors that caught a glimpse of the Mermaid were so attracted to it, that they
jumped into the sea to make contact, and were eventually drowned in the process. Some cultures
accuse Mermaids of possessing such beauty that they have a hypnotic effect on men. Some claim that
the Mermaid drowns them in the process of taking them to their underwater homes, while others insist
that Mermaids are creatures to stay away from, as they drown their victims of lust purposely, and suck
out their life from them.

The word Mermaid itself is a word made of two parts; the first being the word Mer, the ancient English
word for sea, and maid referring to a female.

Historical insight of the Mermaid

Unlike the Disney movie, The Little Mermaid, the original mermaid referred to by various cultures and
civilizations, and their records and books testify to the presence of the mermaid. However, many of
these reports cite that the mermaids were not very pretty, as depicted in the movie! The numbers of
references available to Mermaids, from Russia to Japan, India to East Indies, The British Isles to the
Atlantic Ocean bring forth a spirit of curiosity and awe in these magnificent and wonderful creatures
that grace the sea.

One of the earliest mentions of the mermaids dates back to well over five thousand years ago, and finds
mention in ancient Mesopotamian culture. According to them, it was the merman, Oannes, which rose
everyday from the water and gave man knowledge, reasoning and brought writing, wisdom, science and
other such civilization institutions. The Mesopotamian culture credits Oannes with the deed of thrusting
forward the civilization by advancing their development and helping man in technology.

The Assyrians mention mermaids or half human half fish like creatures in records that date back to 1000
BC. According to their folklore, the first mermaid was a goddess that loved a human shepherd, and
eventually killed him. The story goes forth that she tried to hide in a lake out of sheer ill fame and agony,
but the waters could not contain the power of her beauty. Hence, she was transformed into half a fish,
and lo! The first Mermaid was born!

The Greeks also recognized the Assyrian Mermaid and referred to her as Derketo. According to Greek
mythology, King Alexander the Great’s sister was transformed to a Mermaid after her death, and she
still lives in the seas in the Aegean.

The Arabians and Persians also mention the Mermaids and Mermen in their famous folk lore, the
Arabian Nights. References to Mermaids and Merpeople are made in a number of stories. However,
more than as half human and half fish creatures, the Arabian version of the Mermaid looked like a
normal human being, but had the uncanny ability to breathe underwater. Some of the stories of the
Arabian Nights deal almost completely with these strange peoples, their cities, their way of life and their
character. The Arabian Nights also make mention of the mermaids that have the hypnotic effect on
sailors. This time it is not their looks that make the sailors helpless and drive them to their doom, but
the beautiful and irresistible songs that the mermaids sing to lure them into their traps.

Strangely enough, the British and English mention of the Mermaid in their folklore does not do the
mermaid any kinder. They consider the mermaid to be a bad omen and the Mermaid is usually an
indication of an upcoming thunderstorm, hurricane or a ship that will eventually sink and go down. The
sight of a Mermaid meant death for all the sailors of the ship that sighted the Mermaid.

The number of paintings of Mermaids and Mermen by various artists and the poems written on these
fascinating creatures has indeed reinforced firmly the fact that they possess a strong hold over native
cultures throughout the world.

The African folklore is also not far behind in the tales of Mermaids. African culture gives the mermaid a
special place in their religion. The god of water Yemaja, is actually a mermaid, and is referred to as the
mother whose offspring are like fishes! The Africans deem the water goddess Yemaja as a very
important and crucial personality among all their gods. According to them, the water goddess Yemaja,
supports all life underneath the water, and without her existence, no other sea creature can survive.

The West Africans also mention the Mami Wata, which is their version of the mermaid, which matches
the description of what we currently consider the Mermaid to be. According to their legends, Mami
Wata is a powerful spirit that can bestow upon one horde of wealth, health, power and immense
beauty. The spirit however, demands in return, a strict confidential sexual fidelity. The goddess sprit is
difficult to please and any slight displeasure caused to the spirit by the human partner will result in the
complete removal of all the accumulated wealth and powers of the human being, rendering the
unfaithful mate helpless in the world. There are festivities that are celebrated in Western Africa even
today, of which Mami Wata forms an important part.

Legends from Warsaw say that the Mermaid swam all the way to Warsaw from the Baltic seas, in order
to take the position of the slain Griffin that the mermaid greatly loved and admired. The Griffin was the
defender of Warsaw, and was killed in the war that followed a Swedish invasion. As a tribute to the
loyalty and courage of the Griffin, the Mermaid took its place unhesitatingly, and has ever since, been
the symbol of Warsaw.

Christopher Columbus also reported sightings of Mermaids in his travel logs. He claimed that he saw
three mermaids that were playing with themselves in the water. According to him, the mermaids were
not as beautiful as ancient texts and literature had mentioned they were, and he testified that they had
a face that resembled a human one with striking and distinctive human like facial features.Henry

Hudson, the explorer and traveler also reported sightings of Mermaids along the coasts of Russia, near
the North Pole. The explorer claims that the mermaid, upon attracting the attention of the whole crew
of his boat, looked earnestly upon all the sailors that gathered. He reported that the Mermaid had long,
flowing black hair, white skin and fully developed breasts of a woman.

There is also the story of the Viceroy of Goa, in India, that performed a completely autopsy on the
bodies of seven mermaids recovered by them from fishermen, after they were caught in their nets off
the coasts of Ceylon, currently Sri Lanka.

There are also reports from Borneo, where local fishermen claimed to have trapped a mermaid in their
nets, following which they brought it to land, and kept it in a large vat, where it died after a few days.
According to them, the mermaid made the noises of a mouse, and shrieked many times, before it finally
died.

Sailors of the ship The Halifax also claimed that they had hunted down mermaids in the seas, and eaten
them. They claimed that mermaid meat tasted like veal, and that they were successful in capturing
many such mermaids, near the East Indies.

P.T.Barnum, in the year 1842, claimed to the world that he had finally procured the body of a real
mermaid from an English scientist that found the Mermaid near the islands of Fiji. He called his exquisite
display, the Fiji Mermaid. However, the Mermaid was a fake, and again, there was no concrete proof
towards the existence of the mermaid in this world.

From "Mermaid.net: History

http://www.realmermaids.net/mermaid-
history/history-of-mermaid/

History of Mermaids

Mermaids (or Sirens) are mythological water creatures (or spirits) that
have appeared in the folklore and popular culture of almost every sea
fearing civilizations during the last few thousand years. Often depicted
as beautiful women with lower portion of body resembling fish tail, these
legendary creatures managed to create around them both the
atmosphere of romantic myths and horror stories. In the beginning,
mermaids represented the unknown of the sea, dangers of open water,
and unexplored water territories, but as our culture and science evolved
to modern state, mermaids and sirens took a firm hold in our imagination
and became part of art and media.
As the early human civilization formed around the rivers and seas, their
religion often had a great focus on the dangers and wonders that were
hid in them. Because of that some of the earliest known gods were
depicted as some combination of men and fish, with 7000 year old
Babylonian god Ea (bringer of knowledge, arts and sciences, later
known as Oannes by the Greeks) being first one. As the time went on
female sea gods appeared, and the first one that had the greatest
resemblance to the mermaid was Assyriangoddess Astargatis, who
decided to hide herself from the mortals after she accidentally killed one
of them. After diving below water to become fish, sea refused to hide her
beauty and decided to not transform upper half of her body. Greeks
adopted some parts of her origin, morphing her into Aphrodite. The
clearest example of merfolk in Greek mythology was the son of
Poseidon and Amphitrite called Triton, who is most often shown
as mermen who blow the conch shell while riding the sea waves.
As the myth about mermaids spread across the world, various cultures
adopted many traits to them, sometimes creating creatures with vastly
different attitudes toward the mortals. Greeks for example feared
mermaids, and they called them sirens - dangerous creatures who lured
the sailors to the sea with their songs and drowned them. Similar
superstition was present on British Isles where sailors regarded
mermaids, sirens and sea nymphs as evil spirits of the sea and bad
omens (sighting the mermaid represented the coming of the storm,
sinking of the ship and almost always eventual death of the person who
saw them).

Many however accepted mermaids as the good willed creatures that are
extremely shy but also very curious about life above the sea. Chinese
legends speak that tears of elusive sirens form the most beautiful pearls
on Earth, Chinese sailors thought that sirens can grant immortality to the
worthy man, and Irish held belief that mermaids are calling the sailors to
the sea with their songs as the sign of love. Persian viewed mermaids
not as half fish, but also as complete human beings that were able to live
in the sea. In the many stories that were written about them (even in the
famous collection of folk tales One Thousand and One Nights) there are
depicted as beautiful men and women who can have children with
ordinary people, and their children can also live in the sea if they want
so.
Another source of mermaid popularity was their elusive nature and
constant stream of sightings that was promoted in media. Dozens of
highly publicized sightings from all four corners in the world kept the
myth of the sirens fresh in the public minds, and even fake or
manipulated findings of dead merfolk bodies did not managed to shatter
their popularity.
The biggest driving force of mermaid popularization came in 1836 with
the fairytale "The Little Mermaid" written by Hans Christian Andersen.
This work of fiction that describes the quest of mermaid princess to
come to the land solidified mermaids as the popular mythological
creatures, and all the future media work had this fairytale as their basis.