Mermaids

Merfolk -- there have been reports of both genders -- have been sighted for centuries by those who travel the sea. Though not called a merfolk, the earliest known legend of a half-human / half-fish is a Babylonian God, Oannes. An ancient discussion of mermaids was written by Pliny the Elder -- who lived in the years 23-79 A.D.

So when was the latest sighting? It could have been yesterday.

Yesterday? Yes, merfolk sightings have continued over the years, even until the present day. Jerome Clark, in his book Unexplained, lists a 1978 sighting in the Philippines by a fisherman who credited a beautiful mermaid who helped him catch fish. Clark also reports late 1970s sightings in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, though some of these natives identified pictures of dugongs as merfolk.

Are merfolk an undiscovered type of sea life? There are difficult problems to solve before answering that question. For example, if they are a new species, why have no bodies washed up on shore somewhere? Sea serpents (if that is indeed what they are) and giant squid, though they live in deep water where scavengers would eat the body before it could reach shore, still manage occasionally to make land. Why are merfolk, which are more frequently sighted in shallow water, never found beached? (Clark does tell one story, chronicled by Pliny the Elder, where many merfolk were found dying on the shore. Around 1830, a mermaid was killed by a group of people off the shore of Benbecula (an island in the Hebrides, off the coast of Scotland) and the body later washed ashore, to be examined and later buried .) Why are there no pictures of merfolk? Even sea serpents have at least left some physical evidence in the form of pictures. Many merfolk sightings are undoubtedly manatees, sea cows, or dugongs, interpreted as merfolk by careless, superstitious, or credulous observers.

Other sightings are much more difficult to explain. Many sightings are recorded outside of the known habitats of sea cows, manatees, or dugongs. Some descriptions are too detailed to be mistaken if the observer didn't confabulate those details. The body of the mermaid killed in Scotland was examined closely by the sheriff, who wrote a detailed description. He described the mermaid as the body of a little girl to the waist, but with unusually developed breasts. The lower body was salmon-like, but without scales. The skin was soft and tender, and the hair was long and dark, with a glossy sheen. It is extremely unlikely that an observer that close and with sufficient time to examine the body would describe a dugong as above.

So do merfolk really exist? Many cryptozoologists (the biologists and zoologists who search for previously undiscovered species) think so. In a paper in 1986, Bernard Heuvelmans, who is known as the founder of the field, stated that only an undiscovered species could give rise to so many reports over so long a time period.

Legends

Mermaids have starred in numerous stories and legends. Some examples (many of which can be found at other web sites) are the movies Splash! and The Little Mermaid. The Disney movie was based (loosely) on Hans Christian Anderson's story by the same name. In the movies and modern books, mermaids are usually portrayed as being blonde, or red-haired. In sightings, however, they are usually said to have dark black or green hair.

Selkies, or seal-folk, are human upon the land, and seals in the water. They become human by simply slipping off their sealskins.

Mermaids have long been regarded as bad omens by sailors. They were considered to be signs of impending doom or shipwreck.

Some legends portray mermaids as able to become human-like on land, often marrying a love-struck human and living for a while on land, only to succumb to the beckoning of the sea and return, leaving a heartbroken spouse and sometimes children. In sightings, merfolk appear to be unintelligent.

Some good sites

Kurt Cagle has an excellent website devoted to mermaids, which includes legends, original submissions, and mermaid merchandise(?).

The island of Guam also has a website devoted to their local mermaid and the accompanying legend.

Valan Evers has a site with lots of great mermaid artwork.

Karen Jacubec, a student at the Australian National University School of Database and Graphics in the Humanities has a very complete page on the mythology of mermaids.

Information in this article taken from the book Unexplained, by Jerome Clark. See the reference list for complete bibliographic information.

Additional references:

Sea Enchantress: The Tale of the Mermaid and her Kin, Gwen Benwell and Arthur Waugh, New York: The Citadel Press, 1965.

Heuvelmans, Bernard, "Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals with Which Cryptozoology is Concerned." Cryptozoology 5 (1986): 1-26.</P>

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Added to site on Tuesday, September 17, 1996.