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In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as floods, storms, shipwrecks, and drownings. In other folk traditions (or sometimes within the same traditions), they can be benevolent or beneficent, bestowing boons or falling in love with humans. The male equivalent of the mermaid is the merman, also a familiar figure in folklore and heraldry. Although traditions about and reported sightings of mermen are less common than those of mermaids, they are in folklore generally assumed to co-exist with their female counterparts. The male and the female collectively are sometimes referred to as merfolk or merpeople. The Western concept of mermaids as beautiful, seductive singers may have been influenced by the sirens of Greek mythology, which were originally half-birdlike, but came to be pictured as half-fishlike in the Christian era. Historical accounts of mermaids, such as those reported by Christopher Columbus during his exploration of the Caribbean, may have been sightings of manatees or similar aquatic mammals. While there is no evidence that mermaids exist outside folklore, reports of mermaid sightings continue to the present day. Mermaids have been a popular subject of art and literature in recent centuries, such as in Hans Christian Andersen's literary fairy tale "The Little Mermaid" (1836). They have subsequently been depicted in operas, paintings, books, comics, animation, and live-action films. Etymologies The English word "mermaid" has its earliest-known attestation in Middle English (Chaucer, Nun's Priest's Tale, c. 1390). The compound word is formed from "mere" (sea), and "maid". Mermin Another English word "†mermin" (headword in the OED) for 'siren or mermaid' is older, though now obsolete. It derives from Old English męremęnen, ad. męre 'sea' + męnen 'female slave', earliest attestation mereminne, as a gloss for "siren", in Corpus Glossary (c. 725). A Middle English example mereman in a bestiary (c. 1220?; manuscript now dated to 1275–1300) is indeed a 'mermaid', part maiden, part fish-like. Its Old High German cognate merimenni is known from biblical glosses and Physiologus. The Middle High German cognate merminne, (mod. German "meerweib"), "mermaid", is attested in epics, and the one in Rabenschlacht is a great-grandmother; this same figure is in an Old Swedish text a haffru, and in Old Norse a sjókona (siókona [sic.]; "sea-woman"). Old Norse marmennill, -dill, masculine noun, is also listed as cognate to "†mermin", as well as ON margmelli, modern Icelandic marbendill, and modern Norwegian marmæle. Merewif Old English męrewif is another related term, and appears once in reference not so much to a mermaid but a certain sea hag, and not well-attested later. Its MHG cognate merwîp, also defined as "meerweib" in modern German with perhaps "merwoman" a valid English definition. The word is attested, among other medieval epics, in the Nibelungenlied, and rendered "merwoman", "mermaid", "water sprite", or other terms; the two in the story are translated as ON sjókonur ("sea-women"). Origins The siren of Ancient Greek mythology became conflated with mermaids during the medieval period. Some European Romance languages still use cognate terms for siren to denote the mermaid, e.g., French sirène and Spanish and Italian sirena. Some commentators have sought to trace origins further back into § Ancient Middle Eastern mythology. Sirens In the early Greek period, the sirens were conceived of as human-headed birds, but by the classical period, the Greeks sporadically depicted the siren as part fish in art. Medieval sirens as mermaids The siren's part-fish appearance became increasingly popular during the Middle Ages. The traits of the classical sirens, such as using their beautiful song as a lure as told by Homer, have often been transferred to mermaids. These change of the medieval siren from bird to fish were thought by some to be the influence of Teutonic myth, later expounded in literary legends of Lorelei and Undine; though a dissenting comment is that parallels are not limited to Teutonic culture. Textual attestations The earliest text describing the siren as fish-tailed occurs in the Liber Monstrorum de diversis generibus (seventh to mid-eighth cent.), which described sirens as "sea girls" (marinae pullae) whose beauty in form and sweet song allure seafarers, but beneath the human head and torso, have the scaly tail-end of a fish with which they can navigate the sea. "Sirens are mermaids" (Old High German/Early Middle High German: Sirêne sínt méremanniu) is explicit in the aforementioned Old German Physiologus (eleventh century). The Middle English bestiary (mid-13th century) clearly means "mermaid" when it explains the siren to be a mereman, stating that she has a body and breast like that of a maiden but joined, at the navel, by a body part which is definitely fish, with fins growing out of her. Old French verse bestiaries (e.g. Philipp de Thaun's version, written c. 1121–1139) also accommodated by stating that a part of the siren may be bird or fish. Iconographic attestations In a ninth-century Physiologus manufactured in France (Fig., top left), the siren was illustrated as a "woman-fish", i.e., mermaid-like, despite being described as bird-like in the text. The Bodleian bestiary dated 1220–12 also pictures a group of fish-tailed mermaid-like sirens (Fig. bottom), contradicting its text which likens it to a winged fowl (volatilis habet figuram) down to their feet. In the interim, the siren as pure mermaid was becoming commonplace, particularly in the so-called "Second Family" Latin bestiaries, as represented in one of the early manuscripts classified into this group (Additional manuscript 11283, c. 1170–1180s. Fig., top right). (Mirror and comb) While the siren holding a fish was a commonplace theme, the siren in bestiaries were also sometimes depicted holding the comb, or the mirror. The comb and mirror became a persistent symbol of the siren-mermaid. In the Christian moralizing context (e.g the bestiaries), the mermaid's mirror and comb were held as the symbol of vanity. Other Greek mythical figures The sea-monsters Scylla and Charybdis, who lived near the sirens, were also female and had some fishlike attributes. Though Scylla's violence is contrasted with the sirens' seductive ways by certain classical writers, Scylla and Charybdis lived near the sirens' domain. In Etruscan art before the sixth century BC, Scylla was portrayed as a mermaid-like creature with two tails. This may be tied to images of two-tailed mermaids ranging from ancient times to modern depictions, and is sometimes attached to the later character of Melusine. A sporadic example of sirens as mermaids (tritonesses) in Early Greek art (third century .... Discover the Carla Brunsdon popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Carla Brunsdon books.