Amazing Mermaids Dancing In the Sea

Mermaids have long been sea creatures that have become part of fantasy. They can be a part of a community known as Merfolk which includes both mermaids and mermen. To see if there are such creatures, you have to go down below the sea.

These creatures have long been part of legends and their stories can be found in books like “The Mystery and Lore of Monsters” by C.J.S. Thompson.

Babylonians had a deity known as Era or Oannes, the Fish-god. He is depicted with a bearded head, a crown, and the body of a man but from the waist down a fish.

Greek mythology has stories of Triton, the merman messenger of the sea.

Hans Christian Andersen delighted children with his stories particularly “The Little Mermaid.” This mermaid became very popular when Disney created an animated movie about her.

In folklore, mermaids are often associated with misfortune and death luring sailors off course onto rocky shoals. Some terrifying mermaids were portrayed in the 2011 movie “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”.

Norway and the Orkney Islands

Finfolk are shape-shifters of the sea. They are looked at as nomads alternating between living on land and in their ancestral home – Finfolkaheem. They have antagonistic relationships with humans abducting humans from their spouses and turning them into servants. Finfolk love silver and a human can escape them by throwing a silver coin their way.

Scotland and the Orkney Islands

Selkies are gentle creatures who live with seals while in the water. They shed their skin to become human on land. In Gaelic stories, they're associated with “maid-of-the-sea”. Selkie legends have tragic endings like a sealskin being stolen and when the selkie gets married and has children with a human he later finds the sealskin and gets called back to the sea.

Ireland

Magical caps known as cohuleen druiths enable merrows to live underwater. Female merrows have long green hair and are the beautiful half of human fish mythology, Male merrows are considered hideous and frightening making merrow females want to have relationships with human men. Their offspring can have scales and webbing between their fingers. Merrows are known to get tired of the land and try to find a way to return to the sea.

France

Melusine is a feminine spirit found in many medieval European folktales. They have serpentine tails and at times wings. Their stories are told in France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Albania. The legend describes Melusine as a willful maiden who attempts to take revenge on her father on behalf of her mother but is punished by her mother and given a serpent's tail. Images of her can be seen on Starbucks coffee cups, having a Melusine-like mermaid as its logo.

Japan

Japanese folklore had terrifying monsters described as giant fish with human faces, a monkey's mouth, and at times horns and fangs known as Ningyo. A twist to the tale is that anyone who eats this creature will have eternal youth and beauty. However, catching one brings terrible storms and misfortunes to villages.

Africa

Mami Wata is a “water spirit” that at times is described as a mermaid and other times a snake charmer. In African folk tales, Mami Wata makes its way to the Americas during the Atlantic slave trade. At times she can take human form but never be fully human. She is associated with healing, fertility, and sex.

New Zealand

Mermaids are part of the Maori folklore. Marakihau is a taniwha or guardian of the sea. She has a human head and the body of a fish with a long, tubular tongue blamed for destroying canoes and swallowing great quantities of fish.

Brazil

Brazilian tales include Iara, the “Lady of the Waters”. Originally Iara was known as a water snake. Still later with changing folklore, she became an immortal woman with green eyes and brown skin who would lure sailors to her underwater palace. There they became her lovers. Iara is blamed for many accidents in the Amazon when men disappear.