Mermaids Read online

  Assyria—Birthplace of the Mermaid

  Mermaid researchers say our first real mermaid came from Assyria (Syria). According to myth, the ancient Assyrians worshiped Atargatis, a powerful moon and fertility goddess, and associated her with life-giving water.

  Mythology connects both the moon and water with the dark, mysterious, and ever-changing nature of women. Early people both revered and feared their female deities. These qualities, which people throughout the ages have associated with mermaids, may have originated with Atargatis—the goddess-turned-mermaid who threw herself into a lake after her catastrophic tryst with a shepherd (see Chapter 1)—and continue to this day.

  In the first century C.E., Syrian writer Lucian described Atargatis’s temple in the city of Ascalon on the Mediterranean as being richly appointed, with a gold ceiling and doors. The temple held a golden statue of her, covered with gemstones, and another of her consort, the god Hadad. A sacred lake near the temple was filled with pampered fish. An altar sat in the middle of the lake, and worshippers could swim to it if they wanted to make offerings to the goddess.

  Atargatis’s fame spread to Greece and Rome, and eventually through Europe and Britain as the Romans traversed the continent, bringing her legend with them. The Greeks called her Derketo, the Romans Dea Syria, meaning “the Syrian Goddess.”

  THE BIRTH OF THE CONSTELLATION PISCES

  A Greek story says that long ago an egg fell from the sky into the Euphrates River. A fish pushed the egg to shore and Derketo (the Greek name for Atargatis) hatched from it. She asked Zeus to acknowledge the fish’s help by forming the constellation Pisces, the zodiac sign represented by two fish. Ever after, fish were sacred to her.

  Babylonian Water Divinities

  One of the greatest of the ancient water deities was the Babylonian goddess Tiamat. Mythology honors this dragon-goddess and her consort, Apsu, as the parents of all the other Babylonian deities. Tiamat, it’s said, even created the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. When her murderous son Marduk cut her in half, the two rivers gushed from her eyes.

  According to Thorkild Jacobsen, former professor of Assyriology at Harvard University and author of The Sumerian Kinglist, in the beginning “all was a watery chaos.” Two primal forces, Tiamat (the sea) and Apsu (the fresh water that existed underground), mingled and created the other gods and goddesses. “They engendered the god of heaven, Anu, and he in turn the god of the flowing sweet waters, Ea.”

  The ancient Babylonians believed the Earth floated on fresh water. Ea, the god of wisdom, art, farming, and building, was also considered the ruler of these primal waters. Some images show him as a merman, with a human torso and the tail of a fish. When Ea wanted to teach knowledge to humankind, he sent the Apkulla—wise beings who supposedly had existed from the beginning of time—to carry out the task. Some of these sages appeared as human-bird composites. Others dressed in the skins of fish.

  When the Babylonians wanted to “sign” documents, they used sealstones—stones carved with their personal emblems—and pressed them into hot wax as seals. One sealstone dating back to the eighteenth century B.C.E. shows a half-human half-fish creature—the earliest-known depiction of a mermaid.

  MARINE BIOLOGIST OR MERMAID?

  In the 1983 movie Local Hero, a Texas oil company wants to buy an entire Scottish village as a site for a refinery. The film features an unusual character named Marina, which means “watery area.” A marine biologist, she has webbed toes and appears to live in the sea. Marina is also the name of the little mermaid in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale.

  Sumerian Water Deities

  Deities of all kinds populated ancient Sumer (Sumeria) as well as Assyria and Babylonia. Gods and goddesses governed every facet of Mesopotamian life—they even ruled the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers between which these city-states lay. Sumerian divinities included numerous human-animal hybrids—some benevolent and some malevolent—from whom researchers believe mermaids may have evolved. These include not only the familiar fishtailed creatures we commonly think of as merfolk, but also humans with fish heads or fish-shaped hoods, people dressed in scaly garments, and men with fish skins draped on their backs.

  One of ancient Sumer’s most important deities was a sea goddess named Nammu who birthed humankind. They thought of her as the goddess of the primeval sea, the mother of heaven and Earth—the Primordial Mother.

  The Sumerians also honored a water god, Enki, who was their equivalent of Babylon’s god Ea. Known as the lord of water and wisdom, Enki was sometimes pictured in early artwork with water flowing from his shoulders. He also has ties to the serpent deities found in other cultures—his symbol, much like the caduceus adopted by doctors as their emblem, showed two serpents wrapped around a staff. We even find parallels between Enki and Noah, the man who built the ark in Christian mythology. In Sumerian mythology, Enki taught a man named Ziusudra to build a boat that would save human beings during the flood.

  A SPLASH OF ENLIGHTENMENT

  When it came time for people to leave their primitive ways behind, Sumerian myths say a mermaid emerged from the ocean to educate humanity in social, scientific, and artistic areas.

  The Arabian Nights

  Imagine the beautiful Scheherazade thousands of years ago delighting the Persian king Shahryah with magical tales of mermaids. The stories she tells in One Thousand and One Nights (known as The Arabian Nights in the English-speaking world) explore fantastic and fanciful worlds where anything can, and does, occur. Here we find familiar accounts of mermaids who bedazzle sailors with their glorious singing, and then either drown or devour the helpless men. But many other merfolk and water deities also play starring roles in these tales.

  The Adventures of Bulukiya

  One of the 1001 stories in this beloved compilation, this tale features a seafarer who comes upon whole societies of mermaids while searching for an herb that will confer immortality.

  Djullanar the Sea-girl

  This tale describes sea people who, although anatomically human, lived in the underwater realms. They married earthly humans and produced offspring who could breathe underwater.

  Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman

  In this story a fisherman who goes to live underwater discovers a world with practices and values that are entirely different from those on Earth, and where the inhabitants don’t wear clothes or work.

  Julnar the Sea-Born and Her Son King Badr Basim of Persia

  Here a king falls in love with a beautiful sea-born creature who tells him she and her kind “walk in the waters with our eyes open, as do ye on the ground.”

  This fascinating collection of stories, drawn from Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Egyptian, and Indian folklore over a period of many centuries, shows how from antiquity merfolk sparked the imaginations of diverse populations—just as they do today.

  MAIL A MERMAID

  Mermaids make colorful subjects for postage stamps. A picture of a selkie female with her captor appears on a Faroese 5.50 KR stamp. The English 90p stamp features a blue mermaid, modestly covering her breasts. In Australia, a mermaid by artist Aaron Lee Pocock graces the 60c stamp.

  The Nubile Nymphs of Greece

  “According to the philosophers of antiquity, every fountain had its nymph; every ocean wave its oceanid. The water spirits were known under such names as oreades, nereides, limoniades, naiades, water sprites, sea maids, mermaids, and potamides.”

  —Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

  Cultures have a way of assuming the myths of others and adapting various deities to suit their own needs. Consequently, many Greek deities have Roman counterparts. The Greeks and Romans also co-opted gods and goddesses from other countries and shoe-horned these divinities into their own pantheons. Characteristics of Assyria’s Atargatis, for example, can easily been seen in the Greek’s Aphrodite and the Roman’s Venus.

  We don’t find many mermaids in Greek and Roman myths, but we do encounter plenty of water nymphs, who
comprised a group of minor aquatic deities. Nereus (a sea god) and Doris (a nymph) had fifty nymph daughters, known collectively as the nereids. The Greeks and Romans, it seems, eschewed the powerful, tempestuous, life-and-death-giving goddesses that many other cultures worshiped, preferring the sweetly seductive, nubile nymphs instead.

  As discussed in Chapter 1, the Greeks categorized the nymphs according to their environments. Naiads (from the Greek word for running water) lived in flowing freshwater: streams, springs, and fountains. The oceanids made their homes in the oceans, and the nereids (also saltwater spirits) dwelt in the seas, primarily the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Aegean, which surround Greece. These lovely water spirits, despite their lack of fishy attributes, may have served as inspirations for mermaids.

  TEMPESTUOUS THESSALONIKE

  Alexander the Great’s sister Thessalonike (for whom the Greek city was named) supposedly transformed into a mermaid after her death. As a mermaid, she appeared to seamen and asked, “Does Alexander the Great live?” If sailors gave the wrong answer, Thessalonike whipped up ferocious storms to punish them. If they answered correctly, however, she spared them. The correct response was “He lives and reigns and conquers the world.”

  Greek Water Gods and Goddesses

  What about male water spirits in Greek mythology? Actually, quite a few male deities with fishy and/or snaky tails ruled the waters of ancient Greece—let’s meet a few of them.

  The powerful serpent-like river god Oceanus was so enormous he encircled the globe. He and his wife, Tethys, created the rivers of the world—3,000 of them. The Greeks also had their version of the Babylonian’s merman water god, Ea, whom they called Oannes. Most important to the story of mermaids, though, is the river god Achelous, for whom Greece’s largest river is named. It was Achelous, the son of Oceanus and Tethys, who fathered the infamous temptresses, the Sirens.

  When it comes to water spirits, Greek mythology had its bad guys as well as its good guys. Greek folklore contained lots of scary water monsters. Typhon, a huge and terrifying beast, combined a man’s body with a serpent’s tail. The goddess Ceto governed the perils of the sea, including aquatic beasts such as sharks, killer whales, and sea monsters that threatened early seafarers. She and her husband Phorcys produced numerous children known collectively as the Phorcydes—some nice, some nasty. The “nice girls” included the Hesperides (nymphs) and the Graeae (water goddesses). Among the “bad girls” were Medusa and the infamous gorgons, who had poisonous snakes sprouting from their heads instead of hair, and the terrifying Scylla, who gobbled up six of Odysseus’s seamen. Over time, the name “Ceto” became synonymous with sea monster.

  FROM MER TO MAN

  In the fifth century B.C.E., the noted pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander of Miletus postulated that humans evolved from merfolk.

  Triton: The Best-Known Merman of Them All

  The best known of all Greco-Roman water gods is Triton, son of Poseidon (Neptune to the Romans) and Amphitrite, who ruled the ancient seas. Myth says they all lived together in a magnificent golden palace beneath the seas. Although his parents didn’t have fishtails themselves, Triton did. Sometimes artwork even shows him with not just one but two tails—and occasionally with two legs and a fishtail. The Roman poet Ovid described him as “sea-hued” with “shoulders barnacled with sea-shells.”

  Triton is often depicted blowing a curly conch shell, as he is in Bernini’s famous Roman fountain, and his music was said to control the seas. In ancient times, people followed the merman’s lead and blew the spiral-shaped shells of large sea snails known as Tritons or Triton trumpets.

  Triton spawned a whole family of fish-guys called the Tritons—and a few fish-girls known as Tritonids or Tritonesses. The males of the species, according to second-century geographer Pausanius, had torsos covered with fine, shark-like scales, human-like faces and hands, and tails similar to a dolphin’s.

  The Tritons served as escorts for Aphrodite. This sea-born goddess (the Greek’s equivalent of Venus) presided over smooth sailing and, naturally, mariners loved her. Often she appears in art and literature with a dolphin as a companion. This gives her a “fish” connection, even though Aphrodite herself had a fully human body. Botticelli’s famous painting places the goddess on a huge scallop shell, another link to sea creatures.

  MERMEN IN THE SKY?

  Triton is the largest moon of the planet Neptune. The sea god Neptune, for whom the planet was named in 1846, is the Roman version of the Greek’s Poseidon, Triton’s father.

  MERMEN MASCOTS

  Even if you didn’t know about this famous Greco-Roman merman before, you’ve probably heard Triton’s name. A number of athletic teams have adopted him as their symbol, including the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

  The Sirens

  “On Greek vases or Roman murals [the Sirens] appear as bird-women, sometimes just with human heads, sometimes human to the waist so that they have arms with which to play musical instruments.”

  —Gail-Nina Anderson, “Mermaids in Myth and Art,” www.forteantimes.com

  The term “sirens” has become synonymous with dangerously beguiling women as well as mermaids. But the original Sirens weren’t mermaids at all. Rather, they combined the features of women and birds.

  Myth says these daughters of the Greek river god Achelous had such enchantingly beautiful voices that seafarers who heard them became delirious with delight—and either smashed their ships onto rocks or jumped overboard and drowned. According to legend, the Sirens also played musical instruments, which could be why we often see pictures of mermaids holding lutes or flutes.

  The Sirens’ best-known role in ancient literature is in Homer’s epic poem Odyssey, where they attempt to lure the hero Odysseus to his death. However, Homer doesn’t describe these beautiful beasties as possessing aquatic characteristics.

  Not until the rise of Christianity did the Sirens begin to relinquish their feathers in favor of fishtails. Some researchers speculate that this shift occurred because Christian art and literature associated wings with angels and the church fathers wanted to avoid confusion. After all, the Sirens were dangerous temptresses, symbolizing the concept of feminine seduction and evil that began with Eve. Thus, it seemed better to give them fishy or snakelike appendages that recalled the serpent in the Garden of Eden and, not coincidentally, obscured their reproductive organs.

  Carved in stone, Sirens and mermaids decorate many medieval Christian churches, including France’s Notre Dame de Cunault and England’s St. Laurence, Ludlow (Shropshire). Early illuminated manuscripts also used Sirens to illustrate their pages—and depicted them as the beautiful, bare-breasted mermaids we know and love today.

  Siren Sightings

  In a Greek legend, a fisherman named Glaucus started out as a human being. However, he became a merman after eating what he believed to be enchanted grass that he thought had brought some fish he’d caught back to life. Feeling irresistibly drawn to the sea, Glaucus dove in, and the sea deities transformed his legs into a fishtail. The Roman poet Ovid recounts Glaucus’s story in Metamorphoses.

  “It was rather annoying to Jack that, though living in a place where the merrows were as plenty as lobsters, he never could get a right view of one.”

  —William Butler Yeats, Irish Folk Stories and Fairy Tales

  CHAPTER 5

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  Mermaids OF THE British Isles AND Ireland

  MORE THAN 3 MILLION PEOPLE make their homes along the United Kingdom’s coastline of nearly 20,000 miles, and people who live near the sea always swap stories about mermaids. Ireland—a country known for its fairies, leprechauns, and other mythical beings—has its share of mermaid legends as well. In fact, the UK Travel Bureau touts Britain and Ireland as “THE spiritual home of ancient Myths, Magic and Legends.” Colorful tales of aquatic folk also come from the Isle of Man, the Faroes, Orkneys, Shetlands, and Britain’s other islands. Mermaids even captured the imagina
tions of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Donne, Yeats, and other literary giants. What’s so alluring about these countries’ merfolk? Read on!

  The Selkies

  In many parts of Scotland, England, and Ireland tales are told of a mysterious race of beings known as the selkies. The term comes from the Scottish word selch for seal. According to legend, the selkies or “seal wives” don the skins of seals that let them navigate the waters surrounding Britain and Ireland. When they decide to come ashore, they remove their sealskins and shapeshift into human beings—men as well as women, for both sexes exist among the selkies.

  Like mermaids, these aquatic creatures can breathe underwater and the ocean is their true home. Welsh legend suggests that selkies were actually born human, but soon after birth they chose to live in the ocean instead of on land. Selkie females are reputed to be irresistibly beautiful, with tantalizing voices.

  Unlike merfolk of other cultures, these comely creatures don’t usually harm human beings. Fishermen consider them good luck and seeing a selkie can mean a bountiful catch. Most selkies only stay on land for short periods of time and establish close, personal connections with only one human at a time. Often that person—even if he’s married to a selkie—doesn’t realize his mate’s true identity. Selkies must keep their sealskins safely hidden while on land, for without their magic pelts the selkies can’t return to the sea.

  Some people believe they descended from the selkies. A Scottish legend says the MacCodrum clan fell into this group. Known in Gaelic as Clann Mhic Codruim nan rón (Clan MacCodrum of the seals), the family supposedly lived as seals during the day and shapeshifted into human beings at night.