Merpeople, and other marine legends
Created | Updated Jul 25, 2005
The sea is one of the most mysterious environments on earth. Even today it is by no means fully understood, so it is little wonder that our ancestors imagined creatures as strange and wonderful as the oceans themselves. However, even the strangest legends don't spring out of nowhere, and there is usually and explanation for their presence in our consciouseness.
Sirens and merpeople.
Contrary to popular belief, these are not the same at all. Whether the merpeople legend evolved from the siren legend is uncertain, but they are very different beings.
Sirens were creations of the ancient Greeks. They were Pisinoe, Aglaope and Thelxiope, companions of Pesephone, who was carried off by Hades 1. The sirens begged Zeus for wings to enable them to look for her, and consequently they became half-woman and half bird. They lived on an island in the middle of the ocean, and would sing to sailors, luring them to be eaten. Once a sailor heard their song he would be in their control, and would wish to be as close to them as possible, steering the ship into the rocks and wrecking it.
In Greek legend there are two recorded cases of ships sailing past the Sirens without mishap. The first was the Argonauts, who had the protection of Orpheus 2, whos' singing was more bewitching than that of the sirens, and broke their spell.
The second ship to pass was the ship of Odysseus, on its way home from the Trojan wars. Before they set sail they had been entertained by the goddess Circe 3, who had warned Odysseues to make sure the ears of his crew were blocked with wax. She advised him that if he wanted to hear the Sirens for himself, he should instruct the crew to tie him up and refuse to untie him until they were out of range. Odysseus obeyed, and spent that part of the journey tied to the main mast, enabling him to hear the beautiful song for himself.
It isn't known from where the legend originally sprang from. Perhaps it was just a way of explaining dissapearances of whole ships, which often happened, even when the sailors were fully competant. However, the origin of the merpeople legend is more eaily explainable.
Popular belief is that this particular legend grew up from sightings of sea creatures from a distance, by sailors who'd been deprived of female company for weeks or months. The most likely creatures would be manatees and Sea Cows4, which were rare animals and not easily recognisable on sight, while their shyness meant they kept well away from boats where ever possible. This could all mean that, seen from a distance, they may have been mistaken for mermaids.
Merpeople5 are legendary beings with the tail of a fish and the top half of a human. They come in both sexes, although mermaids are more common, both in legend and literature. They are often considered magical, with the ability to give people powers, or to tell the future, and frequently they fall in love with men, either luring them to their death by drowning or transforming into human women.
While there are many books and films concerning merpeople, The Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen deserves a special mention, not only because of it's fame but because it led to her famous statue in Copenhagen. The story is atypical of most, both for the character of the mermaids and the ending. It features around a nameless heroine, always referred to as the little mermaid, in lower case. On her fifteenth birthday she is allowed to venture above water, where she rescues a prince from a shipwreck, falling in love with him. Her desperation to be with him, coupled with her longing for an immortal soul, leads her to beg the sea witch to make her human. This is done in return for her voice, with the warning that not only will her feet hurt like knives, but that if the prince should marry another then she will turn to foam at sunset.
The prince and the mermaid become great friends, despite her dumbness, but ultimately he is engaged to a princess he has never met. When he does meet her he is convinced that it was she who saved from the shipwreck, and marries her while the little mermaid looks on. Her sisters offer their hair to the witch in return for the little mermaids life, and the sea-witch consents and tells them the counterspell- have blood from the heart of the prince spill onto her feet. The sisters give the mermaid a knife and instruct her to stab the prince, that she might be cured, but instead she throws it away and waits for death. She becomes foam. and the story ends with her finding out how to earn for herself an immortal soul.
The story was adapted by Disney, who took 6certain liberties with it, and now the original is sadly not as well known, although it is extremely famous in Denmark, Andersens' home country.
