Mermaids

By James C Christensen

Mermaids are known by different names in different parts of the world. Here are a few names of Mermaids: Ben-Varry - Isle of Man Mermaid Ceasg - Scottish highland Dinny-Mara - Isle of Man Merman Gwragedd Annwn - Lake Maidens of Welsh legends Liban - called sanctified Mermaid whose form is seen in carvings in Christian churches Loreli - German or Rhine mermaid Melusine - One of the most famous Eurpean Mermaids. She had a double tail. Merrow - Irish Mermaids whose appearance was dreaded because it heralded the coming of storms Rusalki Vila - Russian & Slavonic water Mermaids Tritons - Mediterranean Mermen

Mer-People (Mermaids and Mermen) are Water-Folk who live primarily beneath the sea. Mermaids are the guardians and avengers of women. They can predict storms and future events. Some can even grant wishes. They are great teachers of wisdom and knowledge.

Water spirits can replenish our energy. They refresh and renew our spirits. Undines are usually female. The Undines work to awaken our deepest emotions, They stimulate our compassion and intuition. Just like guardian angels, each of us has an undine to watch over our life.

Mermen are generally considered uglier and by far less kindly than mermaids. They have no interest in mankind, unlike mermaids who often try to seduce human males, and are known for starting huge storms and drowning ships in ire and revenge if a mermaid is hurt. However, "Benwell... describes the Scandinavian Merman or Havmand as a handsome creature with a green or black beard, living on cliffs and shore hills as well as in the sea, and says that he was regarded as a beneficent creature." (An Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katharine Briggs)

Some, Mermen though, would warn of danger and be helpful, or even bring young sailor men down beneath the sea with them, where the men would either drown or live in blissful happiness, "depending on their captor's attitude"

Mermaids, or their counterparts Sirens, are heard of in all parts of the world. Even though mermaids are the more popular in folklore, "the first representation of the half-human, half-fish hybrid was a male; the sea-god Oannes (or Ea), the 'great fish of the ocean', who was also the sun-god, rising out of the sea each day and disappearing back under the waves each night... Oannes was worshipped by the Babylonians around 5000 BCE... It is said he taught man the arts and sciences.... Oannes' goddess counterpoint was Atargatis (or, Atergatis, or, in Greece, Derketo) a Semetic moon goddess who became the first official mermaid, being depicted with a fish's tail; fish were sacred to her." (http://www.newage.com.au/panthology/mermaid.html)

It is not unusual or surprising that this moon-goddess was depicted as a mermaid as the tides ebbed and flowed with the moon then as it does now and this was incorporated into the god-like personifications that we find in their art and the ancient literature. Atargatis is one of the first recorded mermaids and the legend says that her child Semiramis, an historical queen of Babylon, was a normal human and because of this Atargatis was ashamed and killed her lover. Abandoning the infant she became wholly a fish.

However, not all ancient water gods or spiritual personifications took on the form of a mermaid or a merman all of the time. Water-nymphs for example can be mistaken for mermaids, they are beautiful in their appearance and are also musically talented, which mermaids are well known for, be it their singing or playing of a musical instrument. Sirens too are forever being mistaken for mermaids. The Siren and the Mermaid are two seperate entities, one having the upperbody of a young woman and the lowerbody of a bird, the other the upperbody of a young woman and the lower body of a fish.

The Indians, amongst their many gods, worshipped one group of water-gods known as the Asparas, who were celestial flute-playing water-nymphs.

In Japanese and Chinese legends there were not only mermaids but also sea-dragons and the dragon-wives. The Japanese mermaid known as Ningyo was depicted as a fish with only a human head; where as the Polynesian mythology includes a creator named Vatea who was depicted as half-human form and half-porpoise.

Greek and Roman Mythology is often placed together as the two are very similar and it is in the literature from these cultures that one finds the first literary description of the mermaid, and indeed the mermen. Homer mentions the Sirens during the voyage of Odysseus but he fails to give a physical description. Ovid writes that the mermaids were born from the burning galleys of the Trojans where the timbers turned into flesh and blood and the 'green daughters of the sea'

Posiedon and Neptune were often depicted as half-man and half-fish but the most popular motif of the ancient world that depicts mermen was the representations of the tritons, Triton being the son of the powerful sea-god. The trident, known to have been carried by the sea-god and thought to be magical. The Nereids, who were the daughters of Nereus and the Oceanides, who were associated with Ocean and the Naiads who lived in the fresh waters of the ancient world, while being water creatures were depicted as humans and not merpeople.

The British Isles too had their fair share of merfolk mythology. The Cornish knew mermaids as Merrymaids; the Irish knew them as Merrows or Muirruhgach and some sources write that they lived on dry land below the sea and had enchanted caps that allowed them to pass through the water without drowning, while the women were very beautiful the men had red noses, were piggy eyed, with green hair and teeth and a penchant for brandy.

In the Shetlands the mermaid is known as the Sea-trow who are able to take off their animal skin that allows them to swim through the water like a fish, and then walk on land like humans.

The neck are to be found in Scandanavia, along with the Havfrue (merman) and the Havmand (mermaid), the neck however were able to live in both salt- and fresh-water. The Norwegian mermaid known as Havfine were believed to have very unpredictable tempers. Some were known to be kind, others to be incredibly cruel; it was considered unlucky to view one of these havfine.

The German Mythologies of mermaids are plenty. There are the Meerfrau; the Nix and the Nixe who were the male and female fresh-water inhabitants and it was believed that they were treacherous to men. The nixe lured men to drown while the nix could be in the form of an old dwarfish character or as a golden-haired boy and in Iceland and Sweden could take the form of a centaur. The nix also loved music and could lure people to him with his harp, if he was in the form of a horse he would tempt people to mount him and then dash into the sea to drown them. While he sometimes desired a human soul he would often demand annual human sacrifices. The Germans also knew the Melusine as a double-tailed mermaid as did the British heraldry as well.

Russian Mermaid mythology includes the daughters of the Water-King who live beneath the sea; the water-nymph that drowns swimmers known as the Rusalka and the male water-spirit known as the Vodyany who followed sailors and fishermen.

The Africans believed the tales of a fish-wife and river-witches.

Above are examples of the beginings of the mermaid mythology that starts with the merman depictions of water-deities and other such pagan identies. The stories of mermaids as one may think of today, were formed after the rise of Christianity.

There is a theory that during the suppression of pagan deities the mermaid and other minor supernatural beings were not seen as a threat to the growth and popularity of Christian beliefs. Some writers even go so far as to believe that the Church actually believed in the mermaid mythology, and for two particular reasons; the first is that the mermaid served as a moral emblem of sin, the femme fatale label we know so well was nurtured with this form of thinking; and the second was the quality of evidence from contemporary and ancient authors on the existence of mermaids added to this 'belief' the Church found in mermaids.

Mermaids are the symbols of feminism, beauty, sexuality and fertility. However, the male-dominated Christian Church used the symbol of the mermaid to turn people from sin and the temptations of the flesh. "Mermaids are represented in Irish early Christian medieval and post-medieval art, frequently as a warning to Christians against the sins of vanity, pride and lust," according to T.K (http://cgi-bin.iol.ie/resource/ga/archive/1995/Nov30/old.html). They promoted the idea that mermaids were "dangerous temptresses and had no souls of their own," which only was another push against women in general, such as in the witch-burning crazes when "harmless old wise women were put to death by burning or hanging for practicing traditional herb-lore." In Elizabethan times, it was even the sign of prostitution. (http://www.newage.com.au/panthology/mermaid.htm)

The symbol of the mermaid with her comb and mirror in hand seems to first be depicted during the Middle Ages. This came to represent to the Church vanity and female beauty which could cause the destruction of men. And so the mermaid mythology turned from that of near godlike status, including the fear that the sirens brought, to one of aesthetic values. The mermaid became a focus for misogynists and as thus rather than causing fear in the laity the mermaid became even more fascinating.

"Whilst the Sirens tempted Odysseus with supreme knowledge, a god-like attribute, later the emphasis shifted to worldly temptation. Thus the mermaid/siren symbol was used by the Mediaeval Church as embodying the lure of fleshly pleasures to be shunned by the God-fearing. The mermaid became a victim of the repressive sexual attitudes of the Christian Church. Mermaid carvings figured prominently in church decorations in the Middle Ages, to symbolically serve as a vivid reminder of the fatal temptations of the flesh. These rapacious soul-eaters (the legacy of the bird-sirens) were of course not considered to have souls of their own. Thus the legends of the more highly-principled mermaids, anxious to acquire souls, arose."