What Exactly Are Mermaids? Are there Real Mermaids?
Mermaids, along with other mystical creatures, play an important role in popular culture. But are they real, or did they once exist? For hundreds of years, these natural wonders that live in the vast oceans have been depicted in books, texts, and films. Is this because they were once real, as dinosaurs were, or because they are a dreamy illusion that keeps us creative and feeds our imagination? In this article, we will investigate the history of mermaids and determine whether or not they are real.
What exactly are mermaids?
Mermaids are beautiful creatures that are made up of a woman’s upper body attached to a beautiful fishtail, and they have been mentioned in texts for hundreds of years. The mystical beings have been mentioned in folklore throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Mermaid legend is derived from Merfolk or Merpeople tales. The Merfolk were water-dwelling humans, and mermaids were female representations of these mystical beings.
The male water dwellers were referred to as mermen. There is no evidence that they are real, as their depictions appear in folklore and mythology, but the Merfolk may have existed, albeit not as we know them today.
What makes a mermaid?
Mermaids have been portrayed in a variety of ways around the world, from seductive, evil sea creatures to beautiful, elegant women.
Mermaids are depicted in two colors. The first is that they are evil temptresses who use seductive songs and attractive looks to entice sailors into the sea. The other is that they are sea goddesses, painted or depicted in a beautiful, elegant manner.
They are depicted as lonely, desiring a man or a relationship, and as human. These depictions of good and evil have evolved over time, influenced heavily by Germanic Romantic poets and post-romantic painters. They are known as sirens in Greek mythology; they were dangerous creatures who tempted sailors.
When was the first mermaid documented?
One of the earliest mentions of Merfolk can be found in a Chinese text written in the fourth century BC. The Shanhaijing is a classical Chinese text that speaks of mythical beasts, mountains, and the region’s vast geography.
The term “jiorén” translates to “shark people” in Chinese and appears frequently in medieval texts. Mermen were first documented in the “Record of Strange Things” text, which was written in the early sixth century CE.
Mermaids appear in Homer’s Odyssey, which was written between 675–725 BCE, where their seductive singing kills men at sea. This is the first literary text that describes their enticing songs luring sailors in, but they manage to escape unharmed in this poem.
Around 1,000 BC, mermaids appear in Assyria. The legend tells of the goddess Atargatis, who became a mermaid after jumping into a lake after feeling ashamed of killing her lover. Because of her beauty, she was unable to take the full form of a fish and instead transformed into a mermaid. In Greek mythology, she is known as the goddess Derketo.
When was the first mermaid sighting?
Christopher Columbus made the most famous documented sighting of an actual mermaid. On January 9, 1493, he recorded in his logbook that he had witnessed something magical and unprecedented. Columbus saw three mermaids that rose above the surface of the sea off the coast of Africa.
He described them in a way that was very different from folklore tales. They weren’t as beautiful or magical, but they were more simple and fish-like with human faces.It is argued that he was mistaken and saw manatees or other sea creatures that, from a distance, could be mistaken for mermaids.
The Little Mermaid: Who Was She?
After being made into a film by Disney in 1989, The Little Mermaid became one of history’s most famous mermaid stories.
The story, written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837, told of a lonely mermaid who was willing to give up her life in the sea in exchange for a genuine human soul. The story was one of the first in which a tragic mermaid tale was turned into a happy ending, and it is possibly the most famous mermaid tale in the world.
Unlike most other depictions of seductive temptresses, this was one of the first stories to show a mermaid as naive and innocent. In Copenhagen, Denmark, where the story was written, there is a mermaid statue that is a popular tourist attraction.
Finally, there is no doubt that the fascination with mermaids will be passed down from generation to generation. However, their existence is unknown, implying that there may have been sightings or texts describing them, but there is no solid evidence to suggest they exist.
Another theory is that the Merfolk existed in folklore, but just because they lived by the sea doesn’t mean they looked like a half-fish half-human creature.
It’s possible that the descriptions were later interpreted to depict a mythical creature. Although they exist in folklore stories, there is insufficient evidence to suggest they exist in real life.
