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Legend and myth
Ancient Near East Tales of mermaids are nearly universal. The first known mermaid stories appeared in Assyria, ca. 1000 BCE. Atargatis, the mother of Assyrian queen Semiramis, was a goddess who loved a mortal shepherd and in the process killed him. Ashamed, she jumped into a lake to take the form of a fish, but the waters would not conceal her divine nature. Thereafter, she took the form of a mermaid — human above the waist, fish below — though the earliest representations of Atargatis showed her as being a fish with a human head and legs, similar to the Babylonian Ea. The Greeks recognized Atargatis under the name Derketo, where she was often with Aphrodite. Prior to 546 B.C., the Milesian philosopher Anaximander proposed that mankind had sprung from an aquatic species of animal. He thought that man with his extended infancy could not have survived, originally, in the manner he does presently. This idea does not appear to have survived Anaximander's death. A popular Greek legend has Alexander the Great's sister, Thessalonike, turn into a mermaid after her death. She lived, it was said, in the Aegean and when sailors would encountered her, she would ask them only one question: "Is Alexander the king alive?" (Greek: Ζει ο βασιλιάς Αλέξανδρος), to which the correct answer would be "He lives and still rules" (Greek: Ζει και βασιλεύει). Any other answer would spur her into a rage, where she transformed into a Gorgon and meant doom for the ship and every sailor onboard. Lucian of Samosata in Syria (2nd century CE) in De Dea Syria ("Concerning the Syrian Goddess") wrote of the Syrian temples he had visited: "Among them - Now that is the traditional story among them concerning the temple. But other men swear that Semiramis of Babylonia, whose deeds are many in Asia, also founded this site, and not for Hera Atargatis but for her own Mother, whose name was Derketo" "I saw the likeness of Derketo in Phoenicia, a strange marvel. It is woman for half its length, but the other half, from thighs to feet, stretched out in a fish's tail. But the image in the Holy City is entirely a woman, and the grounds for their account are not very clear. They consider fishes to be sacred, and they never eat them; and though they eat all other fowls, they do not eat the dove, for she is holy so they believe. And these things are done, they believe, because of Derketo and Semiramis, the first because Derketo has the shape of a fish, and the other because ultimately Semiramis turned into a dove. Well, I may grant that the temple was a work of Semiramis perhaps; but that it belongs to Derketo I do not believe in any way. For among the Egyptians, some people do not eat fish, and that is not done to honor Derketo." Other Among the Neo-Taíno nations of the Caribbean the mermaid is called Aycayía she of the beautiful voice. Her attributes relate to the goddess Jagua, and the hibiscus flower of the majagua tree Hibiscus tiliaceous. Examples from other cultures are the Mami Wata of West Africa, the Jengu of Cameroon, the Merrow of Ireland and Scotland, the Rusulki of Russia, and the Greek Oceanids, Nereids, and Naiads. One freshwater mermaid-like creature from European folklore is Melusine, who is sometimes depicted with two fish tails, and other times with the lower body of a serpent. It is said in Japan that eating the flesh of a mermaid can grant unaging immortality. In some European legends mermaids are said to grant wishes. Entertainment Mermaids are one of the most famous creatures of popular culture, and are depicted regularly in literature and film. This is likely due to the influence of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale The Little Mermaid (1836), which has been translated into many languages and adapted into various media, such as the 1989 Disney movie of the same name. Andersen's portrayal, immortalized with a famous bronze sculpture in Copenhagen harbour, has arguably become the standard and has influenced most modern Western depictions of mermaids since it was published. The story has been retold in other films and television programs, and regularly features in collections of fairytales. Aquamarine, a novel by Alice Hoffman, is about two 12 year old girls who discover a sassy teenage mermaid. The novel was popular among teen and preteen girls. The novel was made in to a film released in 2006 by Twentieth Century Fox and starred Sara Paxton, Emma Roberts and JoJo. Mermaids appear in the Peter Pan novel and in adaptations of it (such as the film Hook) and the Harry Potter series, specifically in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. L. Frank Baum (creator of Oz) wrote a novel about merfolk, The Sea Fairies. The comic book superhero Superman had a romantic love interest with a mermaid named Lori Lemaris. The name Lori Lemaris was probably drawn from Lorelei rock in the Rhine added to maris, from the Latin mare, meaning ocean. Mermaids are also fictional creatures in Dungeons & Dragons games. They are the females of the merfolk race. The males are known as mermen. Movies
Television
Hoaxes In the 19th century, P. T. Barnum displayed in his museum a taxidermal hoax called the Feejee (''sic'') Mermaid. Others have perpetrated similar hoaxes, which are usually papier-mâché fabrications or parts of deceased creatures, usually monkeys and fish, stitched together for the appearance of a grotesque mermaid. In the wake of the 2004 tsunami, pictures of Fiji "mermaids" were passed around on the internet as something that had washed up amid the devastation, though they were no more real than Barnum's exhibit. Artwork Perhaps one of the most famous mermaid paintings in the world was created by John William Waterhouse, painted from 1895 to 1905, entitled A Mermaid, (see the top of this article). An example of late British Academy style artwork, the piece debuted to considerable acclaim (and secured Waterhouse's place as a member of the Royal Academy), but disappeared into a private collection and didn't resurface until the 1970s. It is currently in the collection of Andrew Lloyd Weber. Advertising
Heraldry
Sirenomelia Sirenomelia, also called "mermaid syndrome", is a rare congenital disorder in which a child is born with his or her legs fused together and the genitalia reduced. This condition is about as rare as conjoined twins and is usually fatal within a day or two of birth because of kidney and bladder complications, though there are three known survivors of this disorder alive today. See also | ||||||||||||||||||||
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