{"id":6397,"date":"2021-10-19T08:42:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T06:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=188377"},"modified":"2021-10-19T08:54:10","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T06:54:10","slug":"tails-from-the-deep-separating-the-real-folklore-of-mermaids-from-disney-stories","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/tails-from-the-deep-separating-the-real-folklore-of-mermaids-from-disney-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Tails from the deep: separating the real folklore of mermaids from Disney stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By jonathanwilkes\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 19 October 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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What image comes to mind when you hear the word \u2018mermaid\u2019? For many people, it will be Ariel, the redheaded Disney princess who trades her tail for legs and her voice for a chance to win herself a life on land. For others, the word will conjure the wan heroine of Hans Christian Andersen\u2019s original fairytale who, unlike her Disney<\/a> counterpart, is rejected by her prince and dissolves into sea foam, losing the chance to gain an immortal soul.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s largely thanks to the popularity of Andersen\u2019s fairytale that mermaids have become standardised in the west over the past two centuries. Like Ariel, they are depicted as hybrid creatures, with the torso and head of a beautiful woman and the tail of a fish. They often carry a mirror and a comb, and have the speech and personality of a human woman.<\/p>\n

However, the history of the mermaid myth, and its many manifestations across the globe, reveals a far more complex picture. Mermaids transform depending on which seas we find them in. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes monstrous, sometimes seductive, sometimes maternal \u2013 and oftentimes all of these at once \u2013 these enchanting entities can be a far cry from the tragic victim of Andersen\u2019s influential tale.<\/p>\n

Mermaids, regardless of where they call home, are persistently contradictory, ambivalent and powerful figures, used to represent the unknown and the undiscovered.<\/p>\n

Were mermaids and sirens one and the same?<\/h3>\n

The origins of mermaids are difficult to trace. While some cultural historians believe that fish goddesses in early religions were their ancestors, others consider sirens to be the first models for mermaids. Made famous by Homer<\/a>\u2019s epic poem the Odyssey<\/em>, sirens are bird-woman hybrids who lure sailors to their deaths through song and who may eat the flesh of men who do not please them sexually.<\/p>\n

In the 13th century, writer Richard de Fournival recorded three kinds of sirens, two of which are actually half woman and half fish. This helps to explain why sirens and mermaids became interchangeable in Renaissance Europe. Both were consistently associated with fertility, seduction and the dangers of sexual encounter \u2013 and people really did believe in their existence.<\/p>\n

Tales of mermaids and sirens were spread by travellers from sea to land, and sightings are recorded by sailors from the Middle Ages<\/a> right through to the 18th century. In 1608, explorer Henry Hudson wrote that on one morning \u201cone of our companie looking over board saw a mermaid\u201d, reportedly with the tail of a porpoise and long dark hair.<\/p>\n