Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including the Near East, Europe, Africa and Asia. The first stories appeared in ancient Assyria, in which the goddess Atargatis
transformed herself into a mermaid out of shame for accidentally
killing her human lover. Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous
events such as floods, storms, shipwrecks and drownings. In other folk
traditions (or sometimes within the same tradition), 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 sightings of mermen are less common than those of mermaids, they are generally assumed to co-exist with their female counterparts.
Depictions of entities with the tails of fish, but upper bodies of human beings appear in Mesopotamian artwork from the Old Babylonian Period onwards. These figures are usually mermen, but mermaids do occasionally appear. The name for the mermaid figure may have been kuliltu, meaning "fish-woman".
Mermaids - those half-human, half-fish sirens of the sea — are legendary sea creatures chronicled in maritime cultures since time immemorial. The ancient Greek epic poet Homer wrote of them in The Odyssey. In the ancient Far East, mermaids were the wives of powerful sea-dragons, and served as trusted messengers between their spouses and the emperors on land. The aboriginal people of Australia call mermaids yawkyawks – a name that may refer to their mesmerizing songs.
Merfolk are generally portrayed as beautiful women (mermaids) or handsome men (mermen) with fish- or dolphin-like tails in place of legs. Sometimes they are not so pretty, but still fall under the Cute Monster Girl heading. Others are more blatantly sea-creatures with few human characteristics and are quite ugly, for example the Harry Potter merman . Sometimes they have features reminiscent of other, more exotic seas-creatures, and sometimes they are sea-animals that become human-like
under certain circumstances.
The male equivalent of the mermaid is the merman, also a familiar figure in folklore and heraldry. Although traditions about and sightings of mermen are less common than those of mermaids, they are generally assumed to co-exist with their female counterparts.
Depictions of entities with the tails of fish, but upper bodies of human beings appear in Mesopotamian artwork from the Old Babylonian Period onwards. These figures are usually mermen, but mermaids do occasionally appear. The name for the mermaid figure may have been kuliltu, meaning "fish-woman".
Mermaids - those half-human, half-fish sirens of the sea — are legendary sea creatures chronicled in maritime cultures since time immemorial. The ancient Greek epic poet Homer wrote of them in The Odyssey. In the ancient Far East, mermaids were the wives of powerful sea-dragons, and served as trusted messengers between their spouses and the emperors on land. The aboriginal people of Australia call mermaids yawkyawks – a name that may refer to their mesmerizing songs.
Merfolk are generally portrayed as beautiful women (mermaids) or handsome men (mermen) with fish- or dolphin-like tails in place of legs. Sometimes they are not so pretty, but still fall under the Cute Monster Girl heading. Others are more blatantly sea-creatures with few human characteristics and are quite ugly, for example the Harry Potter merman . Sometimes they have features reminiscent of other, more exotic seas-creatures, and sometimes they are sea-animals that become human-like
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| This is my favorite mermaid fan art that I have made hope you like it. |
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