Mermaids around the world

I always need to do a lot of research for the Harrison Lane crime mystery novels. Each book covers a different belief or folklore and for me to be able to put together the murder mystery, I need understand the belief systems that underpin it.

For Perfect Beauties, I looked at our fascination with mermaids throughout the centuries. Nowadays, in western nations, we think of The Little Mermaid as the archetypical mermaid. Disney’s The Little Mermaid is based on the original story by Hans Christian Andersen. But they haven’t always been pretty half fish creatures who fall in love with humans. In fact, some mermaids were downright nasty.

They’ve been around for a very long time. One of the first stories was 1000 BC in Syria when the beautiful goddess of fertility Atargatis threw herself into a lake and transformed into a mermaid. Christopher Columbus reported seeing mermaids while sailing around the Caribbean. It’s thought he and many others mistook manatees as half humans.

The Norman chapel in Durham Castle has what is thought to be one of the earliest surviving artistic depictions of a mermaid in England. That was built around 1078.

Mermaids were often foretellers of doom and appeared in poems and songs. In one legend a mermaid went to a Cornish village and fell in love with a chorister. The pair then returned together to a cove where they can still be heard singing together.

Some other Mermaid stories

In Scotland there is the Ceasg, a Scottish folklore mermaid with the tail of a salmon and the upper body of a beautiful woman. She can live in freshwater or salt water. It’s said that if you catch her, she will grant you three wishes, but in other stories she swallows the hero who stays alive in her stomach until he can be rescued.

Melusine is found in France and some other areas of Europe. She has a fish or serpent tail and lives in freshwater. She agreed to marry a nobleman as long as he never looked at her while she took a bath. But of course, he does, and it all goes downhill from there. The ending depends on which country the story is told in.

Ningyo is a Japanese mermaid. Ugly creatures with pointy teeth, they also have the Amabie, another half fish, half human creature. It has scaly skin and three legs with a beak like face and long hair down to the ground.

Yemaya is an African sea goddess – also known as Mama Watta (some people call her Mami Water). If she likes you then she’s strong and protective. Offerings are made to keep her happy, because if you cross her or hurt one of her children she gets very angry and could send a tidal wave.

Thalia is a Greek sea nymph, known as a nereid. She was one of the daughters of the Old Man of the Sea.

Syclla is also from Greek mythology and was again not a particularly nice woman. She had a fish tail and tormented sailors and gobbled them down in one. Sirens in Greek mythology were humanlike and sang beautifully, attracting sailors to their death.

Selkies are seals that turn into people. They’re a mixed bunch with different stories where sometimes they save people or bring fish to the starving, but other times they drown you.

In Russia and Eastern Europe the Rusalkas are similar to the Greek sirens but are said to be the restless spirits of the unclean dead. Often young women who had violent deaths or committed suicide after abuse. They appear as beautiful women who lure young men and drown them.

That’s not all the mermaid stories – and I haven’t even got started on Mermen! I’m sure the tales of mermaids will be with us in lots of different forms for a long time yet.