For this week's blog, I'm going to be telling you the roots of mermaid mythology. I wanted to do this topic because mermaids are one of my five favorite mythical creatures. Why? Because they're so fascinating and majestic, why wouldn't you be interested in them? Of course, we think of mermaids as these kind and benevolent creatures, when in fact, they're not. The earliest known mermaid legends came from Syria around 1000 B.C. where the Syrian goddess Atargatis dove into a lake to take the form of a fish, but the powers there wouldn't let her give up her beauty, so only her bottom half became a fish, and she kept her to half in human form. Arabian nights tales version of this myth was that mermaids were sing to men on ships or shores nearby, hypnotizing them. those who were affected would rush out to see and be either drowned, eaten, or sent to their doom. The evil mermaids weren't the only way they were seen as dangerous. Some believed that even well-intended mermaids would cause danger to men who believed they saw a woman drowning and would dive into the waters to save them. Other tales say that mermaids either forgot or didn't understand that humans couldn't breathe underwater, and they would pull them down into the depths of the sea, accidentally drowning them while doing so. Today mermaids are more seen as sweet and helpful to humans. Many cultures believed that mermaids were immortal and had powers that could cure disease and grant wishes to be able to share their immortality. European countries tend to have more negative views of mermaids but many countries in the Pacific Isles see them as signs of good fortune or better. In Warsaw, Poland the mermaid is the symbol of the city and tales of mermaids have come everywhere from central Africa to Canada to Israel.
I believe that mermaids do exist. We don't know what's out there in the deep sea. we're constantly discovering new species of sea life that were thought to have gone extinct millions of years ago. About a year or two ago, there was a documentary on Animal Planet on mermaids and what they found on the beaches. They don't look anything like how we imagined, in fact, they look scary. I found a picture from that documentary on Animal Planet called "Mermaid: The Body Found".
