InFoRmAtIoN
mermaid 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.
Helen King.
Through the history of human mythology and religion, mermaids received much attention, but their male counterparts were much less showcased. While mermaids represented beauty and romance that the predominately male ship crews longed on the long journeys, mermen remained left behind in the folklore, usually shown only as a children made in a union of a man and mermaid.
In their appearance, mermen do not differ much from mermaids. They are mythical creatures who have form of an upper human torso, and a lower half of a fish tail. Originally celebrated as the deities, mermen slowly slipped back into the legends as the ordinary mythological creatures of the sea, who very rarely show up on the surface. The reason of that was sometimes because of their shyness and sometimes because their ugliness.
The best known deities that had the form of mermen were Babylonian Oannes, Ea (also known as Enki in Sumerian mythology) and Dagon (sea god of fertility). However, the most famous mermen god was celebrated in Greece. Triton, son of Poseidon and Amphitrite was regularly depicted on stone walls and pottery as strikingly handsome mermen with a fish tail. He often carried trident and twisted conch shell (which he used to control the sea and calm or raise storms) and was believed to have the power to multiply himself into host of smaller sea sprit demons called Triones. Indian Hindu religion also celebrates mermen, as they are believed to be the first incarnation of their supreme deity Vishnu (the only difference to the modern mermen is presence of two sets of arms, each holding one artifact - conch shell, wheel, Lotus and Mace).
Around the world, many cultures have their own myths and folklore tales about mermen. Here are some of the most notable ones:
Region of Amazon River is a home of a myth of boto -fresh water mermen who is responsible for seducing and impregnating many women while being transformed into full human form.
Finnish mythology is portraying mermen as powerful and handsome creatures that wield magic, and have ability to cure illnesses, lift curses and brew potions. They are most often portrayed with a beard made from sea weeds, and are sometimes capable of causing much destruction if they come to close to human civilization.
Glaccus was a man from Greek mythology who one day found a grass with magical properties. After he ate it he quickly transformed into mermen, who was shortly after elevated by the gods into one of the Greeks many sea spirits.
With the rise of the modern view of mermaids that started with the appearance of the Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale "The Little mermaid", mermen revived an increased attention in the minds of public. During the last few decades, mermen became part of many fantasy settings as one of the most common dwellers of the sea, and with each passing year their appeal grow more and more. Some of the most popular examples of mermen in popular culture can be found in the Disney's "The LittleMermade" franchise of cartoons, DC Comics mythology, and one of the main villains from the popular "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" cartoon in the 1980s.
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.
Myths and legends about mermaids followed the course of human history from the birth of ancient civilizations to the modern times when they have become part of popular culture and fantasy tales. Their modern name comes from the French words mer (sea) and maid (girl or young woman), symbolizing their beauty and life at the sea. However, stories from the past do not describe them as passive and vulnerable as the modern tales do. Often, they were portrayed as powerful vengeful water spirits who brought storms, misfortune and death to ones who traveled across the oceans, rivers and lakes.
Origin of mermaids can be found in the beliefs of early civilizations, who believed that live came out from the sea. Because of that ancient Babylon religion incorporated half female half fish goddess Atargatis as a symbol of fertility and life. Greeks philosophers further more refined the thought of origin of life that came from the sea with the creation of two female goddesses Aphrodite (meaning "born from the sea foam") and Venus. They represented the creation, fertility and love, but were also very vengeful, cruel, jealous and proud. Because of that, Greeks viewed mermaids as the creatures that preyed on the men. They named them Sirens and the tales of their seductive deadly song spread across entire Europe, fueling the creation of many legends and acceptance into popular culture as real beings (countless of mermaid sightings across the centuries kept this myth alive, even Christopher Columbus reported seeing what is most likely par of manatee or dugong and mistaking them for "very ugly looking mermaids").
Folk depictions of mermaids and sirens as aggressors slowly started to fade with when the human civilization finally conquered the art of traveling across the sea. With less and less tragedies happening to sailors and ships, popular culture slowly evolved them to be less deadly. Romantic view of the mermaids was introduced during 18th century with the Hans Christian Andersen's popular fairytale "The Little Mermaid". Ever since then, mermaids started being accepted as secretive and good natured creatures that are very curious about life above the sea.
Many cultures around the world had their own myths and legends about beautiful mermaids. Some thought of them as the bringers of life, creation and love, others as the protectors of the sea and its secrets, but Ancient Greek culture saw the sea as very dangerous place, filled with water spirits who preyed upon the men. Because of that their version of mermaids personified the allure of the unknown, danger of the sea and sexual attraction of beautiful woman into one mythical creature - winged sirens.
In the earliest Greek myths, sirens represented the beautiful women who rested on the shore of the ocean, singing song of love and sometimes playing string musical instruments. Men who heard their song became instantly enhanced, mesmerized, and walked to them where they received only gruesome death, sometimes by drowning or sometimes being eaten. Sometimes they were portrayed as sea mermaids, but most often they were winged women whose song forced ships into rocky shores or led mesmerized men to fall from high cliffs and mountains. Over the centuries they became personification of dangerous beautiful women (femme fatales), and sometimes even ordinary women were called Sirens if their seductive lifestyle led to some misfortune or death.
In the Greek mythology sirens were the daughters of river god Achelous who lived on the island of SirenumScopuli, Antemusia Islands, Plorum cape or Capreae mountains, but they were not viewed as deities. In some myths they were created to be the playmates of young Persephone (daughter of Zeus, Goddess of Springtime), but were created in to monsters by her mother Demeter after Persephone was abducted by Hades.
In the written text that survived to this day we have information of many names of those daughters, with most famous being Parthenope (maiden face), Ligea (shrill) and Leucosia (white being). Other less common sirens were Aglaope (beautiful face), Aglaophonos (beautiful voice),Molpe (music), Raidne (improvement), Teles (perfect), and Thelxepeia (soothing words). Greek literature mentioned sirens on many occasions most notably in Euripides' "Helen" (where anguished Helen called the help of "Winged maidens, daughters of the Earth") and Homer's Odyssey (where Odysseus and his crew were enchanted by the sirens song, until they regained their minds with the help of Orpheus' music).
Because of the strong belief in Greece, myth of sirens spread across Europe, where it was adapted into many other forms (especially in Roman Empire, Spain, France, Italy, Poland and England). There they were viewed exclusively as a water dwelling creatures (which brought confusion and mixing with the mermaids), but they remained hostile, dangerous and capable to wreck chaos. Their popularity in western world had big impact on many myths and legends, and Latin name "Sirenia" today lives as a term that describers order of order of fully aquatic, herbivorous mammals (such as dugong and manatee who have some visual resemblance to mermaids and sirens).
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.
Helen King.
- Mermaids are the mythical creatures that were initially created as the personifications of the water deities of ancient civilizations. They were celebrated as the bringers of life and fertility because of the sea endless supply of food, and also as forces of great nature power and destruction.
- The most common cause of constant sighing of mermaids during the centuries was manatees (sea cows). Their mermaid-like appearance caused sailors to mistake them when viewing them from afar. Even Christopher Columbus reported seeing ugly and fat mermaids on his first voyage to America.
- Mermaids are presented in almost every culture across the world as beautiful women who have fish tails as lower half of their bodies (sometimes snake tails), long hair and beautiful voice that can mesmerize or hypnotize men who hear it.
- Modern view of mermaids was shaped by Hans Christian Andersen 1836 fairytale "The Little Mermaid" which describes how mermaid princess gave up her voice for a chance to be together with prince that lived on the land. Original story did not have happy end, which was changed in very popular animated movie made by Disney.
- Some of the powers of the mermaid are immortality, seeing the future, telepathy and hypnosis.
- Modern day view of mermaids is often mixed with sirens, who are much more aggressive and dangerous creatures.
- Sirens are often attributed with the powers of destruction, ability to gather storms, lure sailors in the death, lead ships to crash into rocks, cause insanity and conjure fog.
- Sirens are vengeful and carnivorous mythical creatures from the Greek pantheon of goods. Even thought they were often presented as flying creatures, Greek myth of water sirens became very popular in the Europe.
- The most famous deities that carried the form of mermaid were Assyrian goddess Astarte, Greek Triton and Aphrodite, and African deity MamiWata. They all represent beauty, fertility, danger of seduction, force of nature and destruction.
- The most famous local folktales about mermaids is Guam's Sirena, and Brazil's Iara.
- Mermaids are the female members of the underwater race of merfolk. Males are called mermen, and are supposedly ever more shy and secretive than their female counterparts. In almost every story about them they never come to the surface to the ocean.
- The most used weapons of merfolk are tridents made of whale bone or coral, sharp shells, octopus-ink darts, and shark teeth.
- Mermaids are always naked, but they carry some fashion accessories - pearl necklaces, crowns, bracelets, hand mirrors, combs and sometimes musical instruments.
- In modern popular culture, there are four types of mermaids. Traditional mermaids that can only live in the sea, skin sheading mermaids that can walk on the land for the short periods of time (most common in Irish folklore), shape-shifting mermaids that can change to the human form at their wish, and entirely human form merfolk that can live on both land and sea (popularized in the Persian collection of folktales "One Thousand and One Nights").
- Mermaids and sirens represent very important parts of pirate mythos. During the golden age of the piracy, mermaid sightings reached their peak and many stories about them entered into folklore of Central America.
- Mermaids can today be seen in many corporate logos and official seals. Sirens were also inspiration for naming the "sirenia" order of water dwelling herbivorous mammals.
- Sirens and mermaids are well represented in modern day pop culture, media and arts. They are the often included in fantasy books and movies and songs are written about them regularly.
- Deities - Some of the earliest mermaids were goddesses who represented fertility, beauty, sex, but also very destructive force of nature that can be found at sea. Most famous examples are Assiraian goddess Astarte, Greek Aphrodite and African Mami Wata.
- Mythical creatures - As the humans slowly learned how to survive to the sea, mermaids become part of the folklore and legends. They were no more gods, but spirits of the sea that brought both good and bad things to the sailors who encountered them.
- Human transformation - Some myths speak of the mermaids that could transform into human state. Irish folklore especially protects this lore to this day, and famous Persian book "Arabian Nights" speak in multiple occasions of the human race of sea dwellers (without fishtails) that can live both in water and on dry.
- Commercialized modern day -Current pop-culture view of mermaids was formed in Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale "The Little Mermaid", and its modern day adaptation in Disney's animated movie of the same name.
- Middle East -Babylonians and Assyrians were the first who showcased some of their gods as water creatures, most notably mermaid goddess Astarte.
- Europe - European view of mermaids was greatly influenced by the Greek culture and their myths of Sirens - malevolent and carnivorous creatures that lured sailors into their deaths.
- Asia - Chinese and Japanese cultures have their own stories about beautiful mermaids, who can grant riches and immortality to those who are worthy
- Carribean - Haitian tradition of Vodou mentions water spirit called Lasiren, beautiful mermaid that bears close resemblance to the African goddess Mami Wata.
- Africa - African goddess MamiWata had a big influence on the people of Africa, their diaspora and many other cultures around the world.
- South America - The most famous siren from South America is Iara, Amazonian water spirit that is blamed for many deaths and misfortunes in that continent.
- Mermaids - Lovely, wise and very shy creatures of the sea that in stories often fall in love with sailors and bear them children.
- Sirens - Dangerous spirits of the sea that can conjure storm and fog, foretell death, read minds and generally wreak havoc of every level. For a long time they were one of the sources of blame for many shipwrecks and deaths on long sea journeys.
- ShipSavers - Sirens that are bound to help guide ships trough rough waters filled with dangerous rocks. Some scientist and historians claim that they represented nothing but migration patterns of manatees and dugongs, animals that were traditionally often mistaken for mermaids and sirens.
- SpellSingers - Mermaids and Sirens who can lure the sailors to the sea, and the wandering isolated males to the shores where they are awaiting them. Sometimes with good intentions, sometimes not.
- ShapeShifters - Several mermaid myths mention shape shifting sirens, which are able to transform into sea animals, fishes, snakes, and off course humans.
- WeatherWorkers - Mermaids and Sirens who have ability to control the weather, usually at the expense of sailors who are nearby.
- Pear Weepers - Popular myth of mermaids who can weep tears that instantly transforms into most beautiful pearls. Some believe that they are made when mermaid walks on her newly form legs on the shore, which each new step being more painful than the last.
Through the history of human mythology and religion, mermaids received much attention, but their male counterparts were much less showcased. While mermaids represented beauty and romance that the predominately male ship crews longed on the long journeys, mermen remained left behind in the folklore, usually shown only as a children made in a union of a man and mermaid.
In their appearance, mermen do not differ much from mermaids. They are mythical creatures who have form of an upper human torso, and a lower half of a fish tail. Originally celebrated as the deities, mermen slowly slipped back into the legends as the ordinary mythological creatures of the sea, who very rarely show up on the surface. The reason of that was sometimes because of their shyness and sometimes because their ugliness.
The best known deities that had the form of mermen were Babylonian Oannes, Ea (also known as Enki in Sumerian mythology) and Dagon (sea god of fertility). However, the most famous mermen god was celebrated in Greece. Triton, son of Poseidon and Amphitrite was regularly depicted on stone walls and pottery as strikingly handsome mermen with a fish tail. He often carried trident and twisted conch shell (which he used to control the sea and calm or raise storms) and was believed to have the power to multiply himself into host of smaller sea sprit demons called Triones. Indian Hindu religion also celebrates mermen, as they are believed to be the first incarnation of their supreme deity Vishnu (the only difference to the modern mermen is presence of two sets of arms, each holding one artifact - conch shell, wheel, Lotus and Mace).
Around the world, many cultures have their own myths and folklore tales about mermen. Here are some of the most notable ones:
Region of Amazon River is a home of a myth of boto -fresh water mermen who is responsible for seducing and impregnating many women while being transformed into full human form.
Finnish mythology is portraying mermen as powerful and handsome creatures that wield magic, and have ability to cure illnesses, lift curses and brew potions. They are most often portrayed with a beard made from sea weeds, and are sometimes capable of causing much destruction if they come to close to human civilization.
Glaccus was a man from Greek mythology who one day found a grass with magical properties. After he ate it he quickly transformed into mermen, who was shortly after elevated by the gods into one of the Greeks many sea spirits.
With the rise of the modern view of mermaids that started with the appearance of the Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale "The Little mermaid", mermen revived an increased attention in the minds of public. During the last few decades, mermen became part of many fantasy settings as one of the most common dwellers of the sea, and with each passing year their appeal grow more and more. Some of the most popular examples of mermen in popular culture can be found in the Disney's "The LittleMermade" franchise of cartoons, DC Comics mythology, and one of the main villains from the popular "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" cartoon in the 1980s.
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.
Myths and legends about mermaids followed the course of human history from the birth of ancient civilizations to the modern times when they have become part of popular culture and fantasy tales. Their modern name comes from the French words mer (sea) and maid (girl or young woman), symbolizing their beauty and life at the sea. However, stories from the past do not describe them as passive and vulnerable as the modern tales do. Often, they were portrayed as powerful vengeful water spirits who brought storms, misfortune and death to ones who traveled across the oceans, rivers and lakes.
Origin of mermaids can be found in the beliefs of early civilizations, who believed that live came out from the sea. Because of that ancient Babylon religion incorporated half female half fish goddess Atargatis as a symbol of fertility and life. Greeks philosophers further more refined the thought of origin of life that came from the sea with the creation of two female goddesses Aphrodite (meaning "born from the sea foam") and Venus. They represented the creation, fertility and love, but were also very vengeful, cruel, jealous and proud. Because of that, Greeks viewed mermaids as the creatures that preyed on the men. They named them Sirens and the tales of their seductive deadly song spread across entire Europe, fueling the creation of many legends and acceptance into popular culture as real beings (countless of mermaid sightings across the centuries kept this myth alive, even Christopher Columbus reported seeing what is most likely par of manatee or dugong and mistaking them for "very ugly looking mermaids").
Folk depictions of mermaids and sirens as aggressors slowly started to fade with when the human civilization finally conquered the art of traveling across the sea. With less and less tragedies happening to sailors and ships, popular culture slowly evolved them to be less deadly. Romantic view of the mermaids was introduced during 18th century with the Hans Christian Andersen's popular fairytale "The Little Mermaid". Ever since then, mermaids started being accepted as secretive and good natured creatures that are very curious about life above the sea.
Many cultures around the world had their own myths and legends about beautiful mermaids. Some thought of them as the bringers of life, creation and love, others as the protectors of the sea and its secrets, but Ancient Greek culture saw the sea as very dangerous place, filled with water spirits who preyed upon the men. Because of that their version of mermaids personified the allure of the unknown, danger of the sea and sexual attraction of beautiful woman into one mythical creature - winged sirens.
In the earliest Greek myths, sirens represented the beautiful women who rested on the shore of the ocean, singing song of love and sometimes playing string musical instruments. Men who heard their song became instantly enhanced, mesmerized, and walked to them where they received only gruesome death, sometimes by drowning or sometimes being eaten. Sometimes they were portrayed as sea mermaids, but most often they were winged women whose song forced ships into rocky shores or led mesmerized men to fall from high cliffs and mountains. Over the centuries they became personification of dangerous beautiful women (femme fatales), and sometimes even ordinary women were called Sirens if their seductive lifestyle led to some misfortune or death.
In the Greek mythology sirens were the daughters of river god Achelous who lived on the island of SirenumScopuli, Antemusia Islands, Plorum cape or Capreae mountains, but they were not viewed as deities. In some myths they were created to be the playmates of young Persephone (daughter of Zeus, Goddess of Springtime), but were created in to monsters by her mother Demeter after Persephone was abducted by Hades.
In the written text that survived to this day we have information of many names of those daughters, with most famous being Parthenope (maiden face), Ligea (shrill) and Leucosia (white being). Other less common sirens were Aglaope (beautiful face), Aglaophonos (beautiful voice),Molpe (music), Raidne (improvement), Teles (perfect), and Thelxepeia (soothing words). Greek literature mentioned sirens on many occasions most notably in Euripides' "Helen" (where anguished Helen called the help of "Winged maidens, daughters of the Earth") and Homer's Odyssey (where Odysseus and his crew were enchanted by the sirens song, until they regained their minds with the help of Orpheus' music).
Because of the strong belief in Greece, myth of sirens spread across Europe, where it was adapted into many other forms (especially in Roman Empire, Spain, France, Italy, Poland and England). There they were viewed exclusively as a water dwelling creatures (which brought confusion and mixing with the mermaids), but they remained hostile, dangerous and capable to wreck chaos. Their popularity in western world had big impact on many myths and legends, and Latin name "Sirenia" today lives as a term that describers order of order of fully aquatic, herbivorous mammals (such as dugong and manatee who have some visual resemblance to mermaids and sirens).