“Mamma, are Mermaids real?”
Kaleb asked me this while we watched the Little Mermaid for the first time.
Kaleb asked me this while we watched the Little Mermaid for the first time.
My boys and I have a little tradition on the nights my husband goes off to play hockey. We get all snuggled in my bed and pick a special kid movie. On most nights I am subject to Pinocchio, Sword and the Stone, Cars and other favorite boy kid movies. Lately Kaleb has “allowed” me to pick a girl movie. I have him now addicted to Anastasia, Beauty and the Beast and my newest favorite, Tangled. He has approved of these movies because as he says, “They have a boy in them.” With this little bit of leeway I decided to introduce another classic girl movie into the mix, which has a boy in it of course.
Thanks to eBay, I am now the owner of a used copy of The Little Mermaid. Although not one of my favorite Disney movies (I know, I know, some people are hating me right now), it sure beats seeing Robin Hood for the fiftieth time and unlike Cinderella, it has a boy as one of the main characters.
So when Kaleb asked me if Mermaids were real, I decided to skip the Christmas lies that Santa is real and gave him a little background to the world of sailors and mermaid folklore.
In ancient Greece and Rome Mermaids, also known as sirens, were known to lure sailors to their death with their beautiful singing. Can anyone say Little Mermaid? Disney did their research.
Irish folklore, the mermaid can shapeshift from mermaid to human form by using a magical red feathered cap (ahhhh the red haired Ariel from The Little Mermaid). If the cap is lost or stolen, the mermaid must remain forever in human form, never to return to their underwater world. The Irish say that mermaids are old pagan women transformed and banished from the earth by St. Patrick.
In British folklore they consider the mermaid to be a bad omen. The mermaid is usually an indication of an upcoming thunderstorm, hurricane or a ship that will eventually sink and go down. The sight of a Mermaid meant death for all the sailors of the ship that sighted the Mermaid.
African folklore gives the mermaid a special place in their religion. The god of water Yemaja, is actually a mermaid, and is referred to as the mother whose offspring are like fish!
What made sailors believe they saw Mermaids?
It is believed that manatees could be behind the myth of the mermaid. These large aquatic mammals carry their young, cradled in their arms much as a human would carry a baby. It could be that sailors seeing these unfamiliar beasts for the first time would assume that they were seeing some sort of human/fish like species, and consequently spread their accounts of the sightings when they returned from their voyages. It is also thought that the traditional image of a mermaid with long flowing hair could be attributed to manatees breaking the ocean surface underneath patches of seaweed, giving the unfamiliar observer the impression of long hair.
On our next family visit to Sea World, I plan to point this out to my boys when we see the manatees. Thankfully we have annual passes because my children are obsessed with Shamu and dolphins. I believe we have ever stuffed Sea World animal…….except the manatee……may have to buy one on our next visit.
Even Christoper Columbus recorded a sighting in 1493 recorded in the ship’s log that “when the Admiral went to the Rio del Oro he saw three mermaids which rose well out of the sea… they were not as beautiful as they are painted though they have something of a human face.”
So, in our modern day culture, are we immune from believing in such mythology and fantasy? Upon researching Mermaids for this post, I found that in August of 2009, the town of Kiryat Yam in Israel offered $1 million for anyone who could prove the existence of a mermaid off its coast, after numerous people reported seeing a mermaid leaping out of the water like a dolphin and doing aerial tricks.
The prize has not yet been awarded.
Haley, thank you for inspiring one of the most creative and imaginative shoots I’ve done. It’s amazing how a whole project can emerge from a single starfish hair clip.