To me, mermaid folklore is fascinating.  The Mermaid was portrayed as a creature of the water, a beautiful woman with the tail of a fish. To artists she has been symbolic of fertility and the unconscious - sometimes she carries a mirror that represents truth and the soul.  Male equivalents are more rare, although the Tritons of Greek mythology (embodying wantonness) were mermen. 

Lilly Mermaid and dolphinOriginally some old sailor may have mistaken a breast feeding Manatee or Dugong of East Africa as a “woman of the sea” and created the mythical ladies. A manatee does have only two breast but Manatees can also be 13 feet long, have a snout and whiskers and weigh as much as 3000 pounds!  These men must have been at sea much too long or had a bit too much grog in their daily rations. 

Sirens were not the same, as the kinder more wishful feminine Mermaid, Sirens had legs and lived at the edge of the sea (occasionally a confused artist - did depicted them as half fish) but they were not like the sweet mermaids.  They were not nice!  Luring sailors to the rocks with their irresistible serenade... ask Odysseus about his experience with them on the Odyssey.


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