Mermaids: The Myths, Legends, and Lore

INTRODUCTION

THE Mermaid Mystique

[H]umans must be much more aware of their surroundings if they wish to see these beings. We tend to be aware of the big picture and forget to look at the small, lovely details in life.

—D. J. Conway, Magickal Mermaids and Water Creatures

Mysterious, magical, and mesmerizingly beautiful, mermaids have enchanted humanity for thousands of years. No matter where you go on planet Earth, you’ll hear stories of these elusive and evocative sea creatures who are sometimes benevolent, sometimes destructive, but always alluring. They swim in the seven seas; splash about in rivers, lakes, and streams; and even frolic in fountains and wells. And these magical creatures play a more important role in today’s society than you may think.

Disney’s animated version of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Little Mermaid is one of the biggest box office hits of all time; in its first week, the movie grossed more than $6 million—and that number is now well into the billions. Seventy-five percent of Copenhagen’s tourists go to see the Little Mermaid statue. Each year, hundreds of thousands of spectators and exhibitionists crowd the streets of New York’s Coney Island to celebrate mermaids in the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. And tens of millions of online sites are dedicated to mermaids. Why are we so fascinated?

Some researchers theorize that we’re drawn to the dichotomy of light and dark that mermaids embody. These lovely ladies are simultaneously desirable and dangerous. They can bring good luck or disaster. Seafarers have long swapped stories about mermaids charming sailors with their heavenly singing, then smashing their ships and drowning the hapless seamen. Mermaid myths usually depict these sensuous sirens with a dual nature—they can be benevolent or malevolent, depending on what mood they’re in at any given time. Like women, it’s a mermaid’s prerogative to change her mind—and when she does, watch out!

As you explore the history of mermaids in these pages, read the scores of colorful myths and legends about sea-beings, and chuckle at some of the oddities associated with them, you’ll find yourself intrigued by these beguiling beings of the deep. But, as you dive in, be careful. You never know what mysteries are lurking in the fathoms below.

"Who would be

A mermaid fair,

Singing alone,

Combing her hair

Under the sea,

In a golden curl

With a comb of pearl,

On a throne?

I would be a mermaid fair;

I would sing to myself the whole of the day;

With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;

And still as I comb I would sing and say,

‘Who is it loves me? who loves not me?’ "

—Lord Alfred Tennyson, The Mermaid

CHAPTER 1

THE Origins OF Mermaids

MERMAIDS HAVE SPLASHED ABOUT the waters of the world for millennia. But where do these lovely creatures of the sea come from, and how have they captured the imaginations of people around the globe? Here we’ll explore the origins of these mysterious aquatic beings, from the streams and rivers of ancient Babylonia to the shining seas of the New World and beyond.

The Symbolism of Water

The

sea has long been connected with emotions, intuition, and the unconscious. Deep, dark, and mysterious, the ocean still holds secrets we may never discover. We generally give water a feminine face, associating its changeable nature—its fertility and nourishment, its undulating and sensual rhythms—with women. The ocean’s duality mirrors that of mermaids—it brings food, but also devastating storms. So perhaps it’s no surprise to find the waters of the world populated by female sea creatures who can protect human beings or destroy them.

Psychoanalysts might explain mermaids as symbols of the male psyche—specifically of a man’s unconscious feminine side, or anima in Jungian terminology. A man who’s out of touch with his inner female might see women as alluring, yet frightening—an image that gets projected onto mermaids. Remember, it’s mostly men who see mermaids and it’s men whom these awesome beauties usually drown.

Life on Earth cannot survive without water, and our ancestors naturally attributed mystical powers to it. Ancient cultures worshiped powerful water goddesses whom they thought ruled the oceans, lakes, and rivers. In those long-ago times, when the universe was more mysterious and magical than it is today, people believed deities of all kinds controlled virtually every aspect of existence—and water divinities were among the most revered and feared. From these mighty gods and goddesses came the merfolk we know today.

Some early people thought human beings evolved from merfolk—and in a way, perhaps we did. Science tells us that all life originated in the sea, and human embryos develop from fish-like forms in the salty amniotic fluid of their mothers’ wombs. Maybe we love mermaids because when we look at them we see reflections of ourselves.

Of the Water Born

We depend on water for our very existence, so it’s no surprise that people have long attributed magical and divine properties to water. The word mer comes from the Old English mere, meaning sea. In French, the word for sea is mer and the word for mother is mere, suggesting that the sea is mother to us all.

And as the sea nurtures people from all cultures and walks of life, so, in one form or another, do mermaids appear in virtually all cultures past and present—and their stories are as colorful as the people who tell them.

The ancient Greeks called her sea goddess.

According to the Roman poet Ovid’s epic Metamorphoses, when the Trojans’ ships burned during the Trojan War, their wood transformed into the bodies of sea goddesses—or as Ovid described them, the green daughters of the sea—and mermaids were born.

The Celts called her merrow.

Merrow comes from muir, meaning sea, and oigh, meaning maid. An Irish legend says pagan women became mermaids when St. Patrick chased them from the land in the process of converting Ireland from the Old Religion to Christianity.

The Latvians call her nara, and the Estonians call her näkineitsi.

According to the folklore of the indigenous people of Latvia and Estonia, children who were drowned in the Red Sea by the Pharaoh morphed into mermaids.

The question of how mermaids came into being may never be answered—but that, too, is part of their mystery and mystique.

THE MERMAIDS OF NOAH’S ARK

Merfolk even appear in the beloved Bible story of Noah’s Ark, according to Christian mythology of the infamous flood. A fifteenth-century illustration from the notable Nuremberg Bible pictures a mermaid, a merman, and even a merdog swimming beside Noah’s Ark.

Half-Fish, Half-Human, and All Divine

Darwin may have been quite correct in his theory that man descended from the apes of the forest, but surely woman rose from the frothy sea, as resplendent as Aphrodite on her scalloped chariot.

—Margot Datz, A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids

Many ancient traditions viewed mermaids as more than simply enticing sirens of the deep—these beauties were divine. Water gods and goddesses governed the oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers of the world. Stories of these deities have been handed down to us through the ages via oral tradition, art, and music.

The first recorded story of a mermaid comes to us from Assyria, circa 1000 B.C.E. Mythology tells us that Atargatis fell in love with a human being—a young shepherd—as gods and goddesses often did in those days. Some legends say she accidentally killed him; others say she became pregnant and was shocked when their daughter was born human. Either way, the distraught goddess threw herself into a lake. Legend has it that the water could not hide her otherworldly beauty, so she became a mermaid, half-fish, half-human—and remained divine.

But long before Atargatis, the ancient world honored its water gods and goddesses. The early Babylonians, for example, credited the man-fish god Ea (a.k.a. Oannes) with teaching humankind agriculture, architecture, and much more. The Phoenicians worshiped a half-fish, half-man god named Dagon. According to the Aborigines, life-giving spirits called yawkyawks, who looked like women with fishtails, resided in Australia’s sacred water holes. Ancient Greek and Roman art depicts water deities with bodies that combined the traits of humans and aquatic creatures, the most famous being the god Triton, son of the sea rulers Poseidon and Amphitrite.

Merfolk quite likely derived from these ancient divinities. Though less formidable than Ea, Dagon, Poseidon, and Amphitrite, mermaids and mermen possessed their own powers—from bestowing good luck on humans to brewing up ferocious storms at sea. Merfolk could be compassionate or malevolent—and might just as well destroy people as rescue them.

OF SHELLS AND CONCHES

Triton served as the model for the famous marble Fountain of Triton in Rome, sculpted by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the mid-1600s. The fountain, considered to be one of Rome’s most beautiful, features the half-man, half-fish god seated on an open shell and blowing his signature conch.

Nymphs, Sprites, and Other Minor Divinities

Lots

of lesser water deities also delighted the ancient world. The Greeks had a special fondness for nymphs, who had the sleek, svelte bodies of beautiful young women or girls—no scaly appendages. Sometimes the nymphs rode dolphins or other water creatures—a fishy link with their merfolk relatives. Our word nymph comes from the Greek nymphē. In English it means a young girl, often with seductive qualities. The Greeks categorized these feminine spirits according to the type of water they inhabited.

• Oceanids lived in the oceans.

• Nereids resided in the seas and the foam along rocky coastlines.

• Naiads preferred freshwater—lakes, rivers and streams, marshes, and even fountains.

But the Greeks weren’t the only ones who believed in water deities. Early Europeans, from the Mediterranean regions to Scandinavia, believed in water sprites—some playful, some dangerous—and they told tantalizing stories about mysterious beings who could breathe both water and air. Sprite comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning spirit. These elemental spirits cavorted in lakes, rivers, and waterfalls, sporting human-like bodies with blue-green skin. But these spirits lacked the mermaid’s characteristic fishtail—that feature was tacked on later, after sailors spread stories of mermaids around the world.

In Africa, water spirits including Mami Wata (see Chapter 8) not only appeared with fishtails, they also showed up with the extremities of snakes or crocodiles attached to their human torsos. Some of these spirits may have spawned tales of mermaids in the Caribbean regions, when slaves brought their folklore with them to the West.

MARRIAGE LORE

Greek lore says that if a man manages to steal a water nymph’s scarf he can force her to marry him.

Mixed Marriages

Some folklore suggests that mermaids evolved from trysts between gods and water nymphs, or between sea deities and humans. Greek and Roman gods frequently crossed species lines in their amorous adventures. The lusty Olympian Zeus, for instance, impregnated an oceanid named Metis, and Apollo was besotted with Chlidanope, a beautiful freshwater nymph.

Tales of mixed marriages between divinities, spirits, humans, and creatures of many types abound in mythology (remember the romance between a shepherd lad and the Assyrian goddess Atargatis, who supposedly launched the mermaid race?). Mermaids themselves frequently seek human partners, as did the little mermaid in Hans Christian Andersen’s famous story and the Greek ondines.

Myths, folklore, and occult texts dating back to ancient Greece speak of water elementals called ondines or undines. Elementals are nonphysical beings who inhabit the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and they can sometimes be seen by humans. Although modern occultism