Mermaid

A mermaid is a legendary creature with afemale human head and torso (if it's male, it's called a merman ) and the tail of afish, which inhabits the water. Some sailors claim to have seen mermaids; what they actually saw are probably manatees . A freshwater mermaid-like creature having two tails is a melusine , or a Nixie .

In heraldry , the charge of a mermaid is commonly represented with a comb and amirror, and blazoned as a 'mermaid in her vanity.'

In the 19th century, P. T. Barnum displayed in his museum a taxidermyhoax that was represented as the Feejee (sic)Mermaid .

Sirens in folklore are similar creaturesto mermaids. Other related types of mythical or legendary creature are water nymphs or the Banshee (on land).

Mermaids first appeared historically in Assyria , ca. 1000 BCE . Atargatis , the mother of legendary Assyrian queen Semiramis , was a goddess who loved a mortal shepherd and in the process killedhim. Ashamed, she jumped into a lake to take the form of a fish, but the waters would not conceal her divine nature. Thereafter,she took the form of a mermaid - human above the waist, fish below, though the earliest representations of Atargatis showed heras being a fish with a human head and legs, similar to the Babylonian Ea, precursor of the Biblical Noah. The Greeks recognizedAtargatis under the name Derketo, where she was often conflated with Aphrodite.

Lucian of Samosata in Syria (2nd century CE) in De Dea Syria ("Concerning the Syrian Goddess") wrote of the Syriantemples he had visited. Among them - Now that is the traditional story among them concerning the temple. But other men swear thatSemiramis of Babylonia, whose deeds are many in Asia, also founded this site, and not for Hera [Atargatis] but for her ownMother, whose name was Derketo:

I saw the likeness of Derketo in Phoenicia, a strange marvel. It is woman for half its length, but the other half, fromthighs to feet, stretched out in a fish's tail. But the image in the Holy City is entirely a woman, and the grounds for theiraccount are not very clear. They consider fishes to be sacred, and they never eat them; and though they eat all other fowls, theydo not eat the dove, for she is holy so they believe. And these things are done, they believe, because of Derketo and Semiramis,the first because Derketo has the shape of a fish, and the other because ultimately Semiramis turned into a dove. Well, I maygrant that the temple was a work of Semiramis perhaps; but that it belongs to Derketo I do not believe in any way. For among theEgyptians, some people do not eat fish, and that is not done to honor Derketo." (Part 2:ch14 )

Mermaids in fiction

Mermaids are present in many movies, books, etc., and have become one of the most popular creatures of pop culture . The first time a mermaid was envisioned within her own culture wasapparently the one in The Little Mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen , which was embodied in a bronzesculpture in Copenhagen harbor and much later was turned into a Disney movie of the same name . Other popular movies to feature a mermaid were Miranda , starring Glynis Johns and Splash , starring DarylHannah . L. Frank Baum (creator of Oz ) wrote a novel about merfolk, The Sea Fairies. Mermaids and Mermen (called Merpeople) are present in the Harry Potter series, specifically in Harry Potter and the Goblet ofFire . For many years the comic book hero Superman had a romantic love interest with a mermaid woman called Lori Lemaris (one of Superman's "LL" connections: Lex Luthor , Lana Lang , Lois Lane , Lori Lemaris). The name Lori Lemaris was probably drawn from Lorelei rock in the Rhine added tomaris from the Latin mare meaningocean.

Modern representations of mermaids

A shield and sword-wielding mermaid is on the offical emblem of Warsaw , the capitalof Poland .

External links

• Mermaids: Myth or Fish
• An interesting essay on mermaids
• Lucian of Samosata describes the mermaid goddess Derketo