Mermaid

In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish.^[1] Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as floods, storms, shipwrecks, and drownings. In other folk traditions (or sometimes within the same traditions), they can be benevolent or beneficent, bestowing boons or falling in love with humans.

The male equivalent of the mermaid is the merman, also a familiar figure in folklore and heraldry. Although traditions about and sightings of mermen are less common than those of mermaids, they are generally assumed to co-exist with their female counterparts. The male and the female collectively are sometimes referred to as merfolk or merpeople.

The Western concept of mermaids as beautiful, seductive singers may have been influenced by the Sirens of Greek mythology, which were originally half-birdlike, but came to be pictured as half-fishlike in the Christian era. Historical accounts of mermaids, such as those reported by Christopher Columbus during his exploration of the Caribbean, may have been sightings of manatees or similar aquatic mammals. While there is no evidence that mermaids exist outside folklore, reports of mermaid sightings continue to the present day.

Mermaids have been a popular subject of art and literature in recent centuries, such as in Hans Christian Andersen's literary fairy tale "The Little Mermaid" (1836). They have subsequently been depicted in operas, paintings, books, comics, animation, and live-action films.

The English word "mermaid" is not very old, with the earliest attestation in Middle English (Chaucer, Nun's Priest's Tale, c. 1390). The compound word is formed from "mere" (sea), and "maid".^[1][2]

The Fisherman and the Syren, by Frederic Leighton, c. 1856–1858

Sirens in Physiologus and bestiaries

Siren in a Second Family bestiary

―British Library MS Add. 11283, fol. 20v.^[39]

Sirens swimming in sea.

―Bestiary (Bodl. 764), fol. 74v
© Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

Atargatis depicted as a fish with a woman's head, on a coin of Demetrius III

Nibelungenlied

Hagen unloads Nibelungen treasure where the Rhine mermaids await. Adventure 19.

Hagen with the prophetic mermaids, Hadeburg and Sigelind. Adventure 25.

—Pfizer ed. (1843) Nibelungen noth. Wooodcuts by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld and Eugen Napoleon Neureuther.

Mermaid carving on a bench end

―Zennor, Cornwall.

The margýgr (she has a fish-like tail but is cropped in this view) vs. St. Olaf^[v]

―Flateyjarbk fol. 79r^[174]

Raymond discovers Melusine in her bath, Jean d'Arras, Le livre de Mélusine, 1478.

Ilya Repin, Sadko (1876)

"Ningyo no zu": A flier of a mermaid, dated 5th month of Bunka 2 (1805).

Suvannamaccha and Hanuman, mural at Wat Phra Kaew, Bangkok.

Bartholin's siren (1654). He came into the possession of its hand and ribs (shown right).

Anthropomorphos

―Johannes Jonston Historia naturalis in Latin, 1657^[272]

Renard's illustrated book of marine life

"Monster or Siren (mermaid)"^[293]

―Louis Renard Poissons, ecrevisses et crabes.. autour des isles Moluques et sur les côtes des terres Australes, 2nd edition, 1754^[294]

A dugong (ditto book)

P.T. Barnum's Fiji mermaid (1842)

An alleged ningyo or merman/mermaid specimen (side view) ―Baien's sketch (1825)

A mummified "Sea Devil" (Persian: شیطان دریا) fish, Mashhad Museum, Iran.

Arthur Rackham, Rhinemaidens, from The Rhinegold & The Valkyrie (1910).

An illustration of Vanity Fair's Becky Sharp as a man-killing mermaid, by the work's author William Thackeray.

Arms of Warsaw