Blog post 4: Mermaid Mythologies

Like any other mythology, mermaids have different mythologies, came from different places and perspective view. Since mermaids are not real, I searched some mermaid mythologies on the internet.

MERMAID MYTHS: Death and Destruction

I found several articles on the internet about mermaid mythology. And I read an article that entitled "Mermaids and Sirens" from the site witcombe.sbc.edu, Proffessor Chris Witcombe says that, a powerful and often feared aspect of women is their ability to seduce men. In mythology, when a divine female seduced a mortal man, it usually culminated in his death and destruction. Almost every civilization has believed that life began in the sea and so water has been identified as female and associated with women. In mythology, the treacherousness of water is personified as alluring and irresistible women without souls who lure unwary men to a watery death. They may appear as mermaids, sirens, undines, ladies of the lake, nixies, or water nymphs.

Sometimes, I wonder where mythologies came from. Because some mythologies are somewhat weird. For example this one, they said that life began in the sea and water has been identified as female and associated with women. Weird but interesting, why is it like that. This article tells that the powerful and feared aspect of women, is their ability to seduce a man. That is why in mythology, when a divine female seduced a mortal man, or an ordinary man it is usually to be result of his death and destruction. Why? Because mermaids and other mythical water creatures in some stories, are great danger to humans. Mermaids lure and destruct sailors with their beautiful voices and drown them to death. They die because, mermaids are usually described as "irresistible" by their physical appearance and enchanting beautiful voice. So it seems like mermaids have powers. But in other stories, they do something good to sea men. They warn them if there is a storm coming. But it only happens when sailors do something good to mermaids.

According to Professor Chris,
"A  powerful and feared aspect of a woman, is their ability to seduce a man. "

For me, this is kinda' true, only for it is a powerful thing. Because when a woman can seduce a man, it only means she has the power of beauty. Why? Think why most men are seduced by women. It is because of their beauty right? It's all because of their physical appearance. That is why in these generation, men are more likely to like and court women who's attractive than women who has an average look.


OTHER MERMAID MYTHOLOGY

A medallion

           I read some articles about mermaid mythologies.. Some of them are being compared to Sirens, that some articles says that mermaids and sirens are most likely the same. In the article "Mythical Beings: Sirens/Mermaid" from the site quicksilvermint.com, Michael Stewart says that sirens and mermaids are not the same. According to him, in Greek mythology, the sirens were sea nymphs who lived on an island surrounded by cliffs and rocks. Approaching sailors were drawn to them by their enchanting singing, causing them to sail on the cliffs and drown. Odysseus escaped the Sirens by having all his sailors plug their ears with wax and tie him to the mast. He was curious as to what the Sirens sounded like. When he heard their beautiful music, he ordered the sailors to untie him but they ignored him. When they had passed out of earshot, Odysseus stopped thrashing about and calmed down, and was released.

          He describe sirens as birds with the heads of women while mermaids as a female human head and torso (if it's male, it's called a merman) and the tail of a fish, which inhabits the water. Mermaids first appeared historically in Assyria, ca. 1000 B.C.E. Atargatis, the mother of legendary 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 Era, precursor of the Biblical Noah. The Greeks recognized Atargatis under the name Derketo, where she was often associated with Aphrodite.

          As I was telling a while ago, Sirens and Mermaids are almost the same. The only difference between them are their appearance. In addition, since they are most likely the same, they are depicted as a beautiful woman or as a mermaid. That's why in some languages (such as French) the word for mermaid is Siren adds to this confusion.