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In [[Social:Folklore|folklore]], a '''mermaid''' is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish.<ref name="oxforddictionaries1"/> Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as storms, shipwrecks, and drownings (cf. {{section link||Omens}}). 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 [[Unsolved:Merman|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 [[Unsolved:Merfolk|merfolk]] or merpeople.

The Western concept of mermaids as beautiful, seductive singers may have been influenced by the [[Unsolved:Siren (mythology)|sirens]] of [[Religion:Greek mythology|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 [[Biology:Manatee|manatee]]s 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" (1837). They have subsequently been depicted in operas, paintings, books, comics, animation, and live-action films.

== Etymologies ==

[[File:Leighton-The Fisherman and the Syren-c. 1856-1858.jpg|thumb|upright=1|''The Fisherman and the Syren'', by [[Frederic Leighton]], c. 1856–1858]]

The English word "mermaid" has its earliest-known attestation in [[Social:Middle English|Middle English]] (Chaucer, ''Nun's Priest's Tale'', c. 1390). The compound word is formed from "''{{linktext|mere}}''" (sea), and "{{linktext|maid}}".<ref name="oxforddictionaries1">{{cite web|title= Mermaid |publisher=Oxford |work = Dictionaries | url = http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mermaid?q=mermaid | archive-url = https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20181120055042/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mermaid | url-status = dead | archive-date = 20 November 2018 | access-date= 16 April 2012}}</ref><ref name="oed-mermaid">{{OED|mermaid}}; Murray, James A. H. ed. (1908) ''A New Eng. Dict.'' '''VI''', s.v."[https://books.google.com/books?id=M6ojAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA360 mermaid]"</ref>

=== Mermin ===

{{hatnote|See § Scandinavian folklore for the modern Danish {{lang|da|{{linktext|havfrue}}}}, modern Swedish {{lang|sv|hafsfru}}, etc.}}

Another English word "†mermin" ({{linktext|headword}} in the OED) for 'siren or mermaid' is older, though now obsolete.<ref name="oed-mermin">{{OED|mermin}}; Murray, James A. H. ed. (1908) ''A New Eng. Dict.'' '''VI''', s.v."[https://books.google.com/books?id=M6ojAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA361 mermin]"</ref> It derives from [[Social:Old English|Old English]] {{lang|ang|męremęnen}}, ad. {{lang|ang|męre}} 'sea' + {{lang|ang|męnen}} 'female slave',<ref name="oed-mermin"/> earliest attestation {{lang|ang|mereminne}}, as a gloss for "siren", in ''Corpus Glossary'' (c. 725).<ref name="oed-mermin"/> 
A Middle English example {{lang|enm|mereman}} in a bestiary (dated to 1275–1300<ref name="arundel-catalogue"/>) is indeed a 'mermaid', part maiden,<ref name="oed-mermin"/> part fish-like{{Refn |name="MEBestiary"}}<!--ref name="ME-bestiary-ed-morris"/-->{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|And despite the misleading spelling not a variant of "{{linktext|merman}}" (first used seventeenh century)<ref name="oed-mermin"/>}}<ref name="ME-bestiary-ed-morris"/> 
Its Old High German cognate {{lang|goh|merimenni}}{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|The word occurs variously as OHG {{lang|goh|merimenni, merime<sup>n</sup>i, meriminni, meriminnun, meriminna, merminno}}.{{sfnp|Pakis|2010|p=126, n40}} Schade's dictionary uses OHG "{{lang|goh|meremanni}}" as headword.<ref name="schade-altd_woerterbuch"/>}} is known from biblical glosses{{sfnp|Pakis|2010|p=126, n40}}<ref name="althochdeutschen-glossen"/>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|They are glosses to ''sirenes'' at Isiah 13:21 where Hebrew ''ya'anah'' ({{lang|hbo|יִעֲנָה}}), mod. Eng. bibl. tr. "ostriches" was translated as sirens by the Septuagint and Vulgate.{{sfnp|Pakis|2010|p=126, n40}}}} and [[Biology:Physiologus|Physiologus]].{{Refn|name="Vienna-ONB-223"}}
The [[Social:Middle High German|Middle High German]] cognate '''{{lang|gmh|merminne}}''',<ref name="oed-mermin"/> (mod. German "{{lang|de|meerweib}}"), "mermaid", is attested in epics,<ref name="lexer-merminne">Lexer (1872) ''Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch'', s.v. "[https://woerterbuchnetz.de/?sigle=Lexer&lemid=LM01525#1 mer-minne]"</ref> and the one in ''Rabenschlacht'' is a great-grandmother<!-- hence not so much '-maid', as '-woman', Ger. ''weib'' or ''frau'', Sw. ''fru''--> of Wittich;{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|She is Wâchilt, whose great-grandson ({{langx|de|Urenkel}}) is Wittich.<ref name="paul"/> In other words she is Velent/Wieland's grandmother.<ref name="buchholz"/> or "Wittich's father's father's mother",<ref name="davidson1958"/> in the Dietrich Cycle.}} this same figure appears in an [[Social:Old Swedish|Old Swedish]] text a '''{{lang|mis|haffru}}''',<ref name="didriks_saga-ed-hylten-cavallius"/>{{Refn|Þiðreks saga or "Dietrich's saga". But the great-grandmother's involvement is only known from the Swedish version<ref name="davidson1958"/><ref name="paff-p073"/> (Swedish epilogue{{sfnp|Paff|1959|p=129}}), from the fifteenth century Swedish reworking.<ref name="didriks_saga-ed-hylten-cavallius"/>}}{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|She is deemed an '{{linktext|undine}}' by one modern commentator.{{sfnp|Paff|1959|p=129}}<!--rather than a mermaid-->}} and in Old Norse a {{lang|non|{{linktext|sjó|kona}}}} (''siókona'' [sic.]; "sea-woman").{{Refn|Earlier portion of the Old Norse ''Þiðreks saga''.<ref name="thidrekksaga-kap84(57)"/>}}<ref name="buchholz"/><ref name="bashe"/>
Old Norse {{lang|non|'''[[Unsolved:Marmennill|marmennill]]''', -dill}}, masculine noun, is also listed as cognate to "†mermin", as well as ON {{lang|non|margmelli}}, modern Icelandic {{lang|is|marbendill}}, and modern Norwegian ''marmæle''.<ref name="oed-mermin"/>

=== Merewif ===

Old English {{lang|ang|męrewif}} is another related term,<ref name="oed-mermaid"/> and appears once in reference not so much to a mermaid but a certain sea hag,<ref name="bosworth-toller-merewif">Bosworth-Toller (1882), s.v. "[https://books.google.com/books?id=oXlii1KgDngC&pg=PA680 mere-wíf]"</ref><ref name="beowulf-ed-klaeber">''Beowulf'', Klaeber ed. (2008) [1936]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=8ek3p6ILv8wC&pg=PA52&q=merewif v. 1519]</ref> and not well-attested later.<ref name="oed-mermaid"/>{{efn|That is, the OED's entry for gave "cf. OE {{lang|ang|męrewif}} and {{smallcaps|Mermin}} [in small capitals]", meaning there is an entry for the latter but not the former.}}
Its MHG cognate {{lang|gmh|merwîp}}, also defined as "{{lang|de|meerweib}}" in modern German<ref name="schade-altd_woerterbuch"/> with perhaps "{{linktext|merwoman}}"<ref name="oed-merwoman">{{OED|merwoman}}; Murray, James A. H. ed. (1908) ''A New Eng. Dict.'' '''VI''', s.v."[https://books.google.com/books?id=M6ojAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA365 merwoman]", "name for the mermaid when older or wedded".</ref> a valid English definition.{{Refn|As "merwoman" is used for {{lang|gmh|merwîp}}, e.g., at {{harvp|Grimm|Stallybrass tr.|1883|p=490}} re the ''Nibelungenlied'' example.}} The word is attested, among other medieval epics, in the ''Nibelungenlied'',<ref name="lexer-merwip">Lexer (1872) ''Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch'', s.v. "[https://woerterbuchnetz.de/?sigle=Lexer&lemid=LM01525#0 mer-wîp]"</ref> and rendered "merwoman",{{sfnp|Grimm|Stallybrass tr.|1883|p=490}} "mermaid", "water sprite", or other terms;<ref name="lionarons"/> the two in the story<ref name="nibelungenlied"/> are translated as ON {{lang|non|{{linktext|sjó|konur}}}} ("sea-women").<ref name="lionarons"/>

== Origins ==

The [[Unsolved:Siren (mythology)|siren]] of [[Social:Ancient Greek|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 {{lang|fr|{{linktext|sirène}}}} and Spanish and Italian ''{{wikt-lang|es|sirena|sirena}}''.<ref name="Mittman Dendle 2016 p. 352">{{cite book |last1=Mittman |first1=Asa Simon |title=The Ashgate research companion to monsters and the monstrous |last2=Dendle |first2=Peter J |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=9781351894326 |location=London |page=352 |oclc=1021205658}}</ref>

=== Sirens ===

In the early Greek period, the sirens were conceived of as human-headed birds,<!--seventh century BC-->{{sfnp|Holford-Strevens|2006|pp=17–18}}<ref name="argonautica-4.891">Apollonius Rhodius, ''Argonautica'' IV, 891–919. Seaton, R. C. ed., tr. (2012), [https://books.google.com/books?id=ipANAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA354 p. 354ff]. "and at that time they were fashioned in part like birds and in part like maidens to behold".</ref> but by the classical period, the Greeks sporadically depicted the siren as part fish in art.<ref>{{harvp|Milliken|2014|p=125}}, citing {{harvp|Benwell|Waugh|1965}};<!--no page given--> {{harvp|Waugh|1960|p=}}</ref>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|The Megarian bowl, third century BC, with a scene from the ''[[Religion:Odyssey|Odyssey]]'', with sirens depicted as fish-tailed "tritonesses".<ref name="rotroff"/> Harrison names a clay lamp, possibly from the Roman period.<ref name="harrison"/><ref>{{harvp|Benwell|Waugh|1965|p=46}} and Fig. 3a</ref> A [[Chemistry:Terracotta|terracotta]] "mourning siren", 250&nbsp;BC, is the oldest representation of siren as mermaid familiar to Waugh.{{sfnp|Waugh|1960|p=77}}}}

==== Medieval sirens as mermaids ====

{{multiple image
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 | image1 = Bern Cod.318, f.013v-de natura serenae et honocentauris.jpg
 | alt1 = Siren and onocentaur, Bern Physiologus
 | caption1 = Siren and [[Unsolved:Onocentaur|onocentaur]].{{right|{{small|―''Bern Physiologus''. Berner Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 281, fol. 13v}}{{Refn|name="Bern"}}}}

 | image2 = BL-Add 11283, fo.020v-siren.jpg
 | alt2 = Siren in a Second Family bestiary, Additional manuscript
 | caption2 = Siren in a Second Family bestiary{{right|{{small|―British Library MS Add. 11283, fol. 20v.}}<ref name="BL-Add11283"/>}}

 | image3 = Bodleian-Library-MS-Bodl-764 00070 fol-074v-sirene.jpg
 | alt3 = Sirens swimming, in Bodleian bestiary
 | caption3 = Sirens swimming in sea.{{right|{{small|―Bestiary (Bodl. 764), fol. 74v<br />© Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford}}}}

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The siren's part-fish appearance became increasingly popular during the Middle Ages.<ref name="harrison"/> 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.{{sfnp|Waugh|1960|pp=78–79}}

This change of the medieval siren from bird to fish were thought by some to be the influence of Germanic myth, later expounded in literary legends of Lorelei and [[Religion:Undine|Undine]];<ref name="harrison" /> though a dissenting comment is that parallels are not limited to Teutonic culture.{{sfnp|Mustard|1908|p=22}}

==== Textual attestations ====

The earliest text describing the siren as fish-tailed occurs in the ''Liber Monstrorum de diversis generibus'' (seventh to mid-eighth century), which described sirens as "sea girls" ({{lang|la|{{linktext|marinae |pullae}}}}) whose beauty in form and sweet song allure seafarers, but beneath the human head and torso, have the [[Biology:Scale (anatomy)|scaly]] tail-end of a fish with which they can navigate the sea.{{Refn|{{harvp|Faral|1953}}, pp. 441ff., cited by McCulloch (1962) [1960], p. 167.<ref name="mcculloch"/>}}{{Refn|{{harvp|Pakis|2010|p=137 and n89}};{{harvp|Holford-Strevens|2006|p=29}} (both quote from the Orchard (2003) translation.<ref name="orchard"/>).}}
"Sirens are mermaids" (Old High German/Early {{langx|gmh|Sirêne sínt méremanniu}}) may be suggested in the aforementioned Old German ''Physiologus'' (eleventh century<ref name="handschriftencensus-11043"/>).{{Refn|name="Vienna-ONB-223"|Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek ms. 223, fol. 32r.<ref name="altdeutsche-physiologus-TITUS"/> Maurer (1967) ed.''Der altdeutsche Physiologus'' [note 37], 92, apud {{harvp|Pakis|2010|p=126, n37}}. (olim MS Philol. 244), von der Hagen, F.H. (1824) ed., {{URL|1=https://books.google.com/books?id=U9UGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA52|2=pp. 52–53}}.}}{{Refn|{{harvp|Pakis|2010|p=126}}, note 39 gives "Siręne sint meremanniu" citing Maurer ed. (1967), the Titus Project transcription is verifiable against the image of the manuscript, fol. 32r.<ref name="altdeutsche-physiologus-TITUS"/><ref name="handschriftencensus-11043"/>}}{{efn|Since the OHG word only means "sea-woman", it is not assured that a fish-tailed being is meant.}}
The Middle English bestiary (mid-13th century) clearly means "mermaid" when it explains the siren to be a ''mereman'',<ref name="oed-mermin"/><ref>{{harvp|Pakis|2010|pp=126–127}}, note 42, though the remark is shorthanded, stating that the "same word" as the Old High German term is used.</ref> 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.{{Refn|name="MEBestiary"|British Library Arundel MS 292, fol. 8 verso<ref name="ME-bestiary-ed-morris"/>}}<ref>{{harvp|Armistead tr.|2001}} vv, 391–462, pp. 85–86</ref><ref name="ME-bestiary-ed-morris"/>
[[Social:Old French|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.{{sfnp|Holford-Strevens|2006|p=34}}

==== Iconographic attestations ====

In a ninth-century ''Physiologus'' manufactured in France (Fig., top left),{{Refn|name="Bern"|The Bern Physiologus. fol. 13v. Rubric: "De natura serena et honocentauri". Produced c. 830, Hautvillers Abbey near Reims, France.<ref name="Berne-Cod.318"/>}} the siren was illustrated as a "woman-fish", i.e., mermaid-like, despite being described as bird-like in the text.<ref name="woodruff" /><ref name="leclercq-marx" />
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 ({{lang|la|volatilis habet figuram}}) down to their feet.{{Refn|Oxford, MS Bodley 764, fol. 74v.<ref name="Bodl764"/>{{sfnp|Hardwick|2011|p=92}}<ref>{{harvp|Holford-Strevens|2006|pp=31–32}}, Fig. 1.4</ref><ref name="bodley764-tr-barber"/>}}
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).<ref name="clark" />

====Mirror and comb====

While the siren holding a fish was a commonplace theme,<ref name="clark" /> the siren in bestiaries were also sometimes depicted holding the comb,{{sfnp|George|Yapp|1991|p=99}}{{Refn|Cf. three sirens with two holding fish and third a mirror, as in Getty MS. 100 (''{{linktext|olim}}'' Alnwick ms.)<ref name="Getty-MS100-ex-Alnwick"/>}} or the mirror.{{Refn|British Library Ms. Royal 2.B.Vii, fol. 96v.{{sfnp|George|Yapp|1991|p=99}}<ref name="BL-Roy2.B.vii-catalogue"/>}}
The comb and mirror became a persistent symbol of the siren-mermaid.{{sfnp|Holford-Strevens|2006|p=36}}<ref name="peacock"/>
In the Christian moralizing context (e.g the bestiaries), the mermaid's mirror and comb were held as the symbol of vanity.<ref name="peacock"/>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|In the bestiaries. And that is generally accepted to be the intended symbolism in ecclesiastical art, such as church carvings of mermaids,{{sfnp|Waugh|1960|p=77}}<ref name="chunko-dominguez"/> but this church view has been derided as misogynistic from a modern perspective,{{sfnp|Bacchilega|Brown|2019|p=xiv}} and it has been noted that the mirror and comb were originally the accoutrements of the love goddess Venus in Classical Times.{{sfnp|Wood|2018|p=68}}<ref>Warner, Marina ''From the Beast to the Blonde'', p. 406 ''apud'' {{harvp|Fraser|2017}}, Chapter 1. {{URL|1=https://books.google.com/books?id=EP-WDgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT16|2=§ Prehistory: Mermaids in the West}}: "comb and mirror.. probably inherited from the goddess of love, Aphrodite".</ref>}}

=== Other Greek mythical figures ===

The sea-monsters [[Unsolved:Scylla|Scylla]] and [[Unsolved:Charybdis|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,<ref>Xenophon, citing Socrates possibly spuriously, ''apud'' {{harvp|Holford-Strevens|2006|p=22}}</ref> Scylla and Charybdis lived near the sirens' domain.{{sfnp|Holford-Strevens|2006|p=29}}{{efn|In ''The Odyssey'', after Odysseus' encounter with the sirens, he headed for the place where Scylla and Charybdis dwelled.{{sfnp|Holford-Strevens|2006|pp=20}}}} In Etruscan art before the sixth century BC, Scylla was portrayed as a mermaid-like creature with two tails.{{sfnp|Holford-Strevens|2006|p=29}} 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 [[Unsolved:Melusine|Melusine]].{{Refn|Bain (2017), citing Terry Pearson and Françoise Clier-Colombani.<ref name="bain"/>}}<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Allison |first=Sarah |date=2023 |title=Melusine and the Starbucks' Siren: Art, Mermaids, and the Tangled Origins of a Coffee Chain Logo |journal=Shima |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=280–288 |doi=10.21463/shima.190 |s2cid=258306641|doi-access=free }}</ref> A sporadic example of sirens as mermaids (tritonesses) in Early Greek art (third century BC), can be explained as the contamination of the siren myth with Scylla and Charybdis.<ref name="thompson" />

The female [[Unsolved:Oceanid|Oceanid]]s, [[Unsolved:Nereids|Nereids]] and [[Unsolved:Naiad|Naiad]]s are mythical water nymphs, although they were generally depicted without fish tails. "Nereid" and "nymph" have also been applied to actual mermaid-like marine creatures purported to exist, from Pliny (cf. §Roman Lusitania and Gaul) and onwards. Jane Ellen Harrison (1882) has speculated that the mermaids or tritonesses of Greek and Roman mythology may have been brought from the [[Place:Middle East|Middle East]], possibly transmitted by [[History:Phoenicia|Phoenicia]]n mariners.<ref name="harrison" />

The Greek god [[Religion:Triton (mythology)|Triton]] had two fish tails instead of legs.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lattimore |first=Steven |title=The Marine Thiasos in Greek Sculpture |publisher=Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles |year=1976 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WPo2AQAAIAAJ |isbn=9780917956027 |pages=60–61 }}</ref> The prophetic sea deity Glaucus was also depicted with a fish tail.<ref>{{cite web |title=Glaukos |url=https://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Glaukos.html |website=Theoi.com |access-date=7 September 2025}}</ref>

According to Dorothy Dinnerstein, human-animal hybrids such as mermaids and [[Unsolved:Minotaur|minotaur]]s convey the emergent understanding of ancient peoples that humans were both one with and different from animals:
{{blockquote|[Human] nature is internally inconsistent, that our continuities with, and our differences from, the earth's other animals are mysterious and profound; and in these continuities, and these differences, lie both a sense of strangeness on earth and the possible key to a way of feeling at home here.<ref name =Dinnerstein>{{Citation|first=Dorothy |last=Dinnerstein |title=The Mermaid and the Minotaur |place=New York | publisher=Harper & Row |year=1963}}. Cited by {{Citation |title=Mermaids |contribution=History |url=http://northstargallery.com/mermaids/MermaidHistory2.htm |publisher=Northstar Gallery |access-date=20 December 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061213040757/http://northstargallery.com/mermaids/MermaidHistory2.htm |archive-date=13 December 2006 |url-status=dead }}.</ref>}}

=== Ancient Middle Eastern mythology ===

==== Kulullû ====

Depictions of entities with the upper bodies of humans and the tails of fish appear in [[Place:Mesopotamia|Mesopotamia]]n artwork from the Old Babylonian Period onwards, on cylinder seals. These figures are usually mermen (''[[Religion:Kulullû|kulullû]]''),<ref name="ornan" /> but mermaids do occasionally appear. The name for the mermaid figure may have been ''*kuliltu'', meaning "fish-woman".<ref name="BlackGreen1992" /> Such figures were used in [[History:Neo-Assyrian Empire|Neo-Assyrian]] art as protective figures<ref name="BlackGreen1992" /> and were shown in both monumental sculpture and in small, protective figurines.<ref name="BlackGreen1992" />

==== Syrian mermaid goddess ====


[[File:DemetriusIIICoin.png|thumb|upright=1.25|[[Atargatis]] depicted as a fish with a woman's head, on a coin of Demetrius III ]]<!--<ref>{{cite journal|last=Rostovtseff|first=M.|title=Hadad and Atargatis at Palmyra |journal=American Journal of Archaeology|volume=37|issue=1|date=January 1933|pages=58–63|jstor=498042|doi=10.2307/498042|s2cid=191373119}}</ref>-->

A mermaid-like goddess, identified by Greek and Roman writers as Derceto or Atargatis, was worshipped at Ashkelon.<sup><ref name="macalister" /><ref name="ringgren" /></sup> In a myth recounted by Diodorus Siculus in the first century BC, Derceto gave birth to a child from an affair. Ashamed, she abandoned the child in the desert and drowned herself in a lake, only to be transformed into a human-headed fish. The child, Semiramis, was fed by doves and survived to become a queen.<ref name="grabbe"/>
In the second century, Lucian described seeing a Phoenician statue of Derceto with the upper body of a woman and the tail of a fish. He noted the contrast with the grand statue located at her Holy City (Hierapolis Bambyce), which appeared entirely human.{{Refn|Lucian. ''De Dea Syria'' 14. Lightfoot ed., tr. (2003). Cited and translation quoted by {{harvp|Hasan-Rokem|2014|p=182}}.<ref name="hasan-rokem"/>}}<ref name="d-syra14-cowper">''De Dea Syra'', 14 ''apud'' {{harvp|Cowper|1865|pp=9–10}}</ref>

In the myth, Semiramis's first husband is named Onnes. Some scholars have compared this to the earlier Mesopotamian myth of Oannes,{{sfnp|Smith, W. Robertson|1887|p=313–314}} one of the ''[[Unsolved:Apkallu|apkallu]]'' or seven sages described as fish-men in [[Social:Cuneiform|cuneiform]] texts.<ref name="breucker" />{{Refn|Oannes was later described by the Babylonian writer [[Biography:Berossus|Berossus]] as having an extra human head beneath the head of its fish body.<ref name="goodman"/>{{sfnp|Waugh|1960|p=73}}}} While Oannes was a servant of the water deity Ea, having gained wisdom from the god,<ref name="breucker" /> English writer Arthur Waugh understood Oannes to be equivalent to Ea,<ref>{{harvp|Waugh|1960|p=73}}: "the first merman in recorded history is the sea-god Ea, or in Greek, Oannes",</ref> and proposed that surely "Oannes had a fish-tailed wife" and descendants,{{sfnp|Waugh|1960|pp=73–74}} with Atargatis being one deity thus descended, "through the mists of time".{{sfnp|Waugh|1960|pp=73–74}}

Diodorus's chronology of Queen Semiramis resembles the feats of Alexander the Great (campaigns to India, etc.), and Diodorus may have woven the Macedonian king's material via some unnamed source.<ref name="grabbe" /> There is a mermaid legend attached to Alexander the Great's sister, but this is of post-medieval vintage (see below).<ref name="russell"/>

=== Rational attempts at explanation ===


Sometime before 546 BC, [[Biography:Milesian school|Milesian]] philosopher [[Biography:Anaximander|Anaximander]] postulated that mankind had sprung from an aquatic animal species, a theory that is sometimes called the Aquatic Ape Theory. He thought that humans, who begin life with prolonged infancy, could not have survived otherwise.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anaximander |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |title=Anaximander |access-date=14 January 2020 |first=James |last=Evans }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://classicalwisdom.com/philosophy/evolutionary-theory-in-ancient-greece-rome/ |title=Evolutionary Theory in Ancient Greece & Rome |date=30 March 2019 |first=Jacob |last=Bell |website=Classical Wisdom Weekly |access-date=14 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200114061418/https://classicalwisdom.com/philosophy/evolutionary-theory-in-ancient-greece-rome/ |archive-date=14 January 2020 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Naturalistic theories on the origins of the mermaid postulate that they derive from sightings of [[Biology:Manatee|manatee]]s, [[Biology:Dugong|dugong]]s or even [[Biology:Pinniped|seals]].{{sfnp|Waugh|1960|pp=77–78}}<ref>{{Citation | title = Dugongs and Mermaids, Selkies and Seals  | year = 1978 | page = 95 | first = A. Asbjørn | last = Jøn  | url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280883413 |quotation=these 'marine beasts' have featured in folk tradition for many centuries now, and until relatively recently they have maintained a reasonably standard set of characteristics. Many folklorists and mythographers deem that the origin of the mythic mermaid is the [[Biology:Dugong|dugong]], posing a theory that mythologised tales have been constructed around early sightings of dugongs by sailors.}}</ref> Another theory, tangentially related to the aforementioned Aquatic Ape Theory, is that the mermaids of folklore were actually human women who trained over time to be skilled divers for things like sponges, and spent a lot of time in the sea as a result. A proponent of this theory is the British author William Bond, who has written several books about it.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-origins-of-the-mermaid-myth-william-bond/1110956704 |title=The Origins of the Mermaid Myth |first1=William |last1=Bond |first2=Pamela |last2=Suffield |date=2012 |website=barnesandnoble.com |access-date=2022-04-29}}</ref>

== Medieval literature ==

=== Merwomen in Germanic literature ===
{{multiple image
 | align = right
 | total_width = 400
 | perrow =2
 | header= ''Nibelungenlied''

 | image1 = Pfizer (1843)-ed-Nibelungen Not-p211-Hagen&merminnen.jpg
 | alt1 = Hagen sinking the Nibelungen hoard, Rhine maidens
 | caption1 = Hagen unloads Nibelungen treasure where the Rhine mermaids await. Adventure 19.

 | image2 = Pfizer (1843)-ed-Nibelungen Not-p281-Hagen&meerweiber Hadeburg&Sigelind.jpg
 | alt2 = Hagen and the prophetic meerweiben
 | caption2 = Hagen with the prophetic mermaids, Hadeburg and Sigelind. Adventure 25.

 | footer ={{right|{{small|—Pfizer ed. (1843) ''Nibelungen noth''. Wooodcuts by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld and Eugen Napoleon Neureuther.}}}}
}}

==== Nibelungenlied ====
Two prophetic merwomen (MHG pl.: {{lang|gmh|merwîp}}), Sigelinde (MHG: Sigelint) and her maternal aunt<ref name="lexer-muome">Lexer (1872) ''Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch'', s.v. "[https://woerterbuchnetz.de/?sigle=Lexer&lemid=LM01525#2 muome ''swf.'']".. {{lang|de|mutterschwester}}</ref> Hadeburg (MHG: Hadeburc) are bathing in the Danube River{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|But perhaps not too far from the meadows opposite the Rhine River where they pitched camp in an earlier passage in the Nibelungenlied,<ref name="nibelungenlied"/> and occurs at the confluence of the Rhine and the Danube in ''Þiðreks saga'',<ref>{{harvnb|Paff|1959|p=214}}: "at a point near ' where the Rhine and Danube [Dúná] join"</ref> hence Wagner's reinvention of them as [[Unsolved:Rhinemaidens|Rhinemaidens]].{{sfnp|Magee|1990|p=65}}}} when Hagen von Tronje encounters them (''Nibelungenlied'', Âventiure 25).<ref name="nibelungenlied"/>{{sfnp|Grimm|Stallybrass tr.|1883|p=490}}<ref name="lionarons"/>

They are called ''sjókonar'' ("sea women") in the Old Norse ''Þiđreks saga''.<ref name="lionarons"/> There is a swan maiden tale motif<ref name="kemmis"/> involved here (Hagen robs their clothing), but Grimm argued they must have actually been swan maidens, since they are described as hovering above water.<ref>Grimm ''apud'' {{harvp|Magee|1990|p=63}} and {{harvp|Grimm|Stallybrass tr.|1883|p=490}}</ref>

In any case, this brief segment became the "foundational" groundwork of subsequent [[Unsolved:Nixie (folklore)|water-nix]] lore and literature that developed in the Germanic sphere.<ref name="kemmis"/>

They are a probable source of the three Rhine maidens in Richard Wagner's opera ''Das Rheingold''.<ref name="mueller2011"/> Though conceived of as swan-maidens in Wagner's 1848 scenario, the number being a threesome was suggested by the woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld and Eugen Napoleon Neureuther in the Pfizer edition of 1843 (fig. on the left).<ref name="millington&spencer1993"/>

==== Rabenschlacht ====

Middle High German ''mereminne'' 'mermaid' is mentioned, among other epics, in the ''Rabenschlacht''<ref name="lexer-merminne"/><ref name="rabenschlacht-ed-martin"/> ("Battle of Ravenna", 13th cent.) of the Dietrich cycle. The mermaid (or {{linktext|undine}}{{sfnp|Paff|1959|p=129}}) is named Wâchilt and is the ancestress{{efn|MHG: ''ane''; modern {{langx|de|Ahn}}.}} of the traitorous Wittich who carries him off at the time of peril to her "submarine home".{{sfnp|Paff|1959|p=129}}<ref name="bashe"/><ref name="davidson1958"/> This material has been found translated as a medieval ''Þiðreks<!--no, not the famous one, do not wikilink--> saga'' only in a late, reworked Swedish version,<ref name="davidson1958"/> i.e., one of the closing chapters of ''Ðiðriks saga'' (fifteenth century,<ref name="didriks_saga-ed-hylten-cavallius">Hyltén-Cavallius, Gunnar Olof ed. (1854). ''Sagan om Didrik af Bern'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=5K4YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA300 Kap. 383, p. 300]. ''Den gamla svenska bearbetningen af Didriks saga'' is dated as ''ifrån 1400-talet'' (fifteenth century or later), [https://books.google.com/books?id=5K4YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR23 p.xxiii]</ref> also known as the "Swedish epilogue"{{sfnp|Paff|1959|p=71}}).<ref>Haymes tr. (1988), p. 270: "The End of Vidga and Thidrek, according to the Swedish Chronicle of Thidrek", Ch. 439. Vidga takes up residence in Sjaland.</ref><ref name="paff-p073"/> The mermaid/undine is here translated as Old Swedish {{lang|mis|haffru}}.<ref name="didriks_saga-ed-hylten-cavallius"/>

The Old Norse ''Þiðreks saga'' proper<ref name="thidrekksaga-kap84(57)">Bertelsen, Henrik ed. (1905). ''Þiđriks saga af Bern '' [https://books.google.com/books?id=IGtBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA73&q=siokononar Kap. 84<sup>1</sup> (57), '''I''':73]: "Vaðe rise ier asiolande svnr villcinus konongs ok siokononar ..."</ref>{{Refn|The so-called ''Vilkinasaga'' ends before this chapter, according to Bertelsen's notes. But ''Þiðreks saga'' was frequently referred to as ''Vilkina saga'' by early commentators.}} calls the same mermaid a {{lang|non|{{linktext|sjó|kona}}}} ({{lang|non|siókona}} [sic.])<ref name="buchholz"/><ref name="davidson1958"/> or "sea-woman".<ref name="bashe"/>{{Refn|Or Ger. ''Meerfrau''.<ref name="buchholz"/>}} The genealogy is given in the saga: the sea-woman and Villcinus (Vilkinus), king of Scandinavia together had a son, Vaði (Wade) of (Sjóland=Sjælland, Zealand) who was a giant ({{lang|non|risi}}); whose son was Velent (Wayland the Smith), whose son after that was Viðga Velentsson (Wittich or Witige),<ref name="thidrekksaga-kap84(57)"/>{{sfnp|Paff|1959|p=53}}<ref name="davidson1958"/><ref name="bashe"/><ref name="buchholz"/> who became a companion/champion of King Þiðrekr (Dietrich von Bern).<ref name="nordisk">{{cite encyclopedia |title=279-280 (Nordisk familjebok / Uggleupplagan. 32. Werth - Väderkvarn) |chapter-url=https://runeberg.org/nfcl/0156.html |entry=Vidrik Verlandsson |encyclopedia=Nordisk familjebok |year=1921 |publisher=[[Project Runeberg]]}}</ref>

Thus the saga is an early source which associates a famed clan of merfolk with a place in Denmark, Sjælland. This was the divided portion of Villcina-land inherited by the bastard prince Vaði/Wade according to the saga.<ref>{{harvp|Paff|1959|pp=53}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=sP8ZAAAAYAAJ&legitimate 217]</ref> The Swedish epilogue transposed the locations concerning the battle (from Italy to Germany), and claimed the rescued Viðga/Witige was brought to Sjælland. That is to say, the crucial battle had been in Ravenna, Northern Italy in the German epic ''Rabenschlacht''), but the battle spot was changed to Gronsport, somewhere on the Moselle, in Northern Germany in the Swedish version.{{sfnp|Paff|1959|pp=35, 73, 85}}{{Refn|Identification of Gronsport with a specific modern city has not been made; von Der Hagens tr. (1855) ''Wilkina- und Niflunga-Saga oder Dietrich von Bern und die Nibelungen'', {{URL|1=https://books.google.com/books?id=g2YAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA267 |2='''III''': 267n}} states he doesn't know.}}<ref name="paff-p073">{{harvp|Paff|1959|p=71}}: "The Swedish epilogue (II, 395) purports to know the true story of the death of Viðga and þíðrikr: after þíðrikr chased Viðga into the sea (see Musulá) Viðga's great-grandmother, an undine, conveyed him to Sjælland". Cf. {{harvp|Paff|1959|pp=51–53, 129}}.</ref>

== Folkore worldwide ==
The mermaid is a harbinger of shipwreck in English-Scottish balladry, though the attestation (Child ballad 289<ref name="child_ballad289"/>), dates no older than the 18th century. No analogues were found by Child outside the English language, though versions were transmitted to America.<ref name="belden1940"/> In Norway the {{lang|no|havfrue}} was considered the harbinger of  "storm and bad weather"{{sfnp|Faye|1833|p=59}}<ref name="thorpe2-p027-norw"/> The notion of the mermaid's signifying bad omen is both Western and Eastern.<ref>{{harvp|Ōbayashi|1979|p=68}}: "{{lang|ja|人魚は洋の東西をとわず、概して不吉な存在で、悲劇の主人公である}} The mermaid is both in the East and West, generally an unlucky presence and the protagonist of tragedy".</ref> A number of such omens were recorded in Japan by the Kamakura shogunate, for example, the entry in the ''Azuma kagami'' for year 1247 (Hōji 1) records a beaching of a "big fish" (as it was called here), tied to the {{interlanguage link|Battle of Hōji|ja|宝治合戦}} the same year.{{sfnp|Castiglioni|2021|p=13}}<ref>{{harvp|Ōbayashi|1979|pp=68–69}} gives two examples, one from Bunji 5/1189 and another from Kanpō 3/1743, which is later during the Tokugawa shogunate</ref>

== Folklore of Britain and Ireland ==

The Norman chapel in Durham Castle, built around 1078, has what is probably the earliest surviving artistic depiction of a mermaid in England.<ref name="wood.r"/> It can be seen on a south-facing capital above one of the original Norman stone pillars.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Norman Chapel |url=http://www.durhamworldheritagesite.com/architecture/castle/intro/north-range/norman-chapel |website=Architecture |publisher=Durham World heritage |access-date=11 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120509014808/http://www.durhamwor/|archive-date=9 May 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[File:Zennor Mermaid Chair.JPG|upright|thumb|Mermaid carving on a bench end, Zennor, Cornwall]]

Mermaids appear in British folklore as unlucky [[Unsolved:Omen|omen]]s, both foretelling disaster and provoking it.{{sfnp|Briggs|1976|p=287}} Several variants of the [[Social:Ballad|ballad]] ''Sir Patrick Spens'' depict a mermaid speaking to the doomed ships. In some versions, she tells them they will never see land again; in others, she claims they are near shore, which they are wise enough to know means the same thing. Mermaids can also be a sign of approaching rough weather,<ref>{{cite book |first=Francis James |last=Child |title=The English and Scottish Popular Ballads |volume=2 |page=19 |place=New York |publisher=Dover |year=1965}}.</ref> and some have been described as monstrous in size, up to {{convert|2000|ft|m}}.{{sfnp|Briggs|1976|p=287}}

In another short ballad, "Clerk Colvill" (Child ballad No. 42), the mermaid seduces the title character and foretells his doom. It has been surmised that in the original complete version, the man was being penalized for spurning her, though the Scandinavian counterparts that tells the complete story feature an elf-woman or elf queen rather than mermaid.<ref name="child_ballad042"/> In "The Mermaid" (Child ballad 289),<ref name="child_ballad289"/> her sighting forebodes a vessel's deadly shipwreck.<ref name="belden1940"/>

Mermaids have been described as able to swim up rivers to freshwater lakes. In one story, the Laird of Lorntie went to aid a woman he thought was drowning in a lake near his house; his servant pulled him back, warning that it was a mermaid, and the mermaid screamed at them that she would have killed him if it were not for his servant.<ref>{{cite book |first=K. M. |last=Briggs |title=The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature |page=57 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |place=London |year=1967}}</ref> But mermaids could occasionally be more beneficent; e.g., teaching humans cures for certain diseases. [[Unsolved:Merman|Mermen]] have been described as wilder and uglier than mermaids, with little interest in humans.{{sfnp|Briggs|1976|pp=288, 290}}

According to legend a mermaid came to the [[History:Cornwall|Cornish]] village of Zennor, where she used to listen to the singing of a chorister, Matthew Trewhella.{{sfnp|Waugh|1960|p=82}} The two fell in love, and Matthew went with the mermaid to her home at Pendour Cove. On summer nights, the lovers can be heard singing together. The legend, recorded by folklorist William Bottrell, stems from a fifteenth-century mermaid carving on a wooden bench at the Church of Saint Senara in Zennor.{{sfnp|Wood|2018|p=68}}<ref name="matthews"/> Some tales raised the question of whether mermaids had immortal souls, answering in the negative.{{sfnp|Briggs|1976|p=289}}

In Scottish mythology, a ''[[Religion:Ceasg|ceasg]]'' is a freshwater mermaid, though little beside the term has been preserved in folklore.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Watson |first=E. C. |title=Highland Mythology |journal=The Celtic Review |volume=5 |issue=17 |year=1908 |page=67 |url=https://archive.org/stream/celticreview05edinuoft#page/66/mode/2up |doi=10.2307/30069982 |jstor=30069982 }}</ref> Mermaids from the Isle of Man, known as ''ben-varrey'', are considered more favorable toward humans than those of other regions,<ref name=Briggs>Briggs, Katharine (1976). ''An Encyclopedia of Fairies''. Pantheon Books. pp. 22–23. "Ben-Varrey". {{ISBN|0-394-40918-3}}.</ref> with various accounts of assistance, gifts and rewards. One story tells of a fisherman who carried a stranded mermaid back into the sea and was rewarded with the location of treasure. Another recounts the tale of a baby mermaid who stole a doll from a human little girl, but was rebuked by her mother and sent back to the girl with a gift of a pearl necklace to atone for the theft. A third story tells of a fishing family that made regular gifts of apples to a mermaid and was rewarded with prosperity.<ref name =Briggs /> In Irish lore, Lí Ban was a human being transformed into a mermaid. After three centuries, when Christianity came to Ireland, she was baptised.{{sfnp|Briggs|1976|pp=266–7}}<!-- The Irish mermaid is called [[Unsolved:Merrow|merrow]] in tales such as "Lady of Gollerus" published in the nineteenth century.-->

== Scandinavian folklore ==

=== Haffrue ===

The mermaid corresponds to [[Danish language|Danish]] and [[Social:Bokmål|Bokmål]] Norwegian {{lang|da|{{linktext|havfrue}}}}, whereas merman answers to Danish/Norwegian ''havmand''.<ref name="olsen-dansk-engelsk-havfrue&havmand"/><ref name="brynildsen-norsk-engelsk-hav-frue&mand"/>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Tracing this etymologically to Old Norse is elusive. Old Swedish ''haffru'' was used as a translation word in the Sweidish saga of Didrik (14 cent.) as mentioned under §Etymologies.}}
As a side-note, a supposed Old Norse ''haffrú'' is the etymological source of Norman French ''havette'' for a man-snatching water-sprite, according to one linguist.{{Refn|Wartburg, Walther von (1922-) ''Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch'', '''XVI''': 112, [https://apps.atilf.fr/lecteurFEW/index.php/site/index searchable index], translated by Gorog, in his supplementary list of Norman words borrowed from Old Norse which were missed by Fries, Jan de (1962). ''Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch''.<ref name="gorog1964"/>}}{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|The initial "h" is an aspirated h here could very well be pronounced, even in modern Normandy, especially for words borrowed from the Germanic, as Gorog points out elsewhere.<ref name="gorog1961"/> Wartburg (Gorog tr.) glosses "navette" as "sort of water-sprite (''[[Religion:Undine|ondine]]'') which attracts passers-by at night.. and plunges in with them", adding that in the patois of Valognes, it is used as a bugbear to frighten children from approaching water.}}

An early description of the ''Havfrue'', and her mate ''Havmand'', was given by the [[History:Denmark–Norway|Danish]] Bishop Pontoppidan (1753).<ref name="pontoppidan"/><ref name="pontoppidan-eng"/> They were considered the mating female and male of the creature, inhabiting the North Sea,{{sfnp|Pontoppidan|1753a|p=302}}{{sfnp|Pontoppidan|1755|p=186}} and their offspring was called {{lang|no|marmæle}} (var. {{lang|no|marmæte}}),{{sfnp|Pontoppidan|1753a|pp=304, 312, 317}}{{sfnp|Pontoppidan|1755|pp=187, 192, 195}} as repeated by later commentators.<ref name="faye-havmaend">{{harvp|Faye|1833|p=59}}: "''Havmaend og Havfruer'' (mermen and mermaids)", in the plural</ref><ref name="thorpe2-p027-norw"/> Though he was aware of fabulous fables being told about them,{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|And documented some of these fables, as the mermaid purportedly foretelling the birth of Christian IV.}}{{sfnp|Pontoppidan|1753a|p=303}}{{sfnp|Pontoppidan|1755|p=186}} he was convinced such creature existed. But as they were non-human, he argued the term ''Havmand'' (merman) should be avoided, in favor of some coined term such as '''sea-ape''' ({{langx|da|hav-abe}}).{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Or even the eccentric "Sea-Quoyas Morrov", after apparently the native Angolan name for some ape, because a mermaid capture in Angola was also documented.}}{{sfnp|Pontoppidan|1753a|p=306}}{{sfnp|Pontoppidan|1755|p=188}} He also knowingly employed [[Social:Old Norwegian|Old Norwegian]]/Old Norse ''maryge'' [sic.] and ''hafstrambe'' [sic.]{{efn|Recté ''margýgr'' and ''hafstrambr'', as described below}} as the Norwegian names of the mermaid and merman respectively.{{sfnp|Pontoppidan|1753a|loc=p. 302n; p. 304}}{{sfnp|Pontoppidan|1755|loc=p. 183; p. 186n}}

The Icelandic cognate form is ''{{lang|is|haffrú}}'' with several synonyms,{{efn|{{lang|is|margýgur, hafgygur}} ('mer-troll'), {{lang|is|haffrú}} ('sea-maid'); {{lang|is|mey-fiskr}} ('maiden-fish').}}<ref name="jon_arnason-saebuar"/><ref name="jon_arnason-eng-vol2-intro"/> though instead of these the commonly used term today is ''{{lang|is|hafmey}}''.<ref name="olina_thorvardardottir"/>
The Faroese forms are ''{{lang|fo|havfrúgv}}'' ({{lang|fo|havfrúg}}).<ref name="jakobsen"/>{{sfnp|Hayward|2017|p=8}} The Swedish form is {{lang|sv|hafsfru}},<ref name="tauchnitz"/> with other synonyms such as {{lang|sv|sjöjungfru}},{{sfnp|Hayward|2017|p=8}}{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|In Sweden also and {{lang|sv|sjö-kona}} ({{lang|sv|sjö-kuna}} in the dialect of Ruhnu, Estonia).<ref name="rietz"/>}} or {{lang|sv|sjörå}}<ref name="tauchnitz"/> ('sea-fairy', the maritime counterpart of the forest {{lang|sv|[[Religion:Skogsrå|skogsrå]]}}).<ref name="thorpe2-p076-swedish"/>

=== Other aliases ===

The terms ''margýgur'' or ''havgýgur'' as aliases for mermaid were apparently current among the populace in modern-age Iceland, according to Jón Árnason{{Refn|Though he is clearly dependent on past written literature also, e.g.  Jón Guðmundsson the Learned (d. 1658), who also classified the mermen/mermaids among elves.}}<ref name="jon_arnason-saebuar"/><ref name="jon_arnason-eng-vol2-intro"/> alongside the ''marbendill'' (modern Icelandic for ON ''marmennill'').<ref name="nansen"/> Benjamin Thorpe (1851) writing on Norwegian folklore gave ''margygr'' for mermaid (and ''[[Unsolved:Marmennill|marmennill]]'' for merman) as Norwegian folk terms,<ref name="thorpe2-p027-norw"/>{{efn|And also {{harvp|Bassett|1892|p=172}}}} but these are interpolations, which the source, Andreas Faye's ''Norske sagn'' (1833),{{Refn|Thorpe,<ref name="thorpe2-p027-norw"/> identifies Faye as the general source on p. 9, note 2. .}} only side-noted as occurrences of old terms in medieval literature.<ref>{{harvp|Faye|1833|p=59}}. Note (''Anm.''). The merman ({{langx|non|marmendill}}) in ''Halfs saga'' (fourteenth century) and ''Landnámabók'';  ''margygr'' ({{langx|non|margyr}}) in the saga of St. Olaf.</ref>

=== General characteristics ===

The beautiful ''havfrue'' of Scandinavia may be benevolent or malicious, and legends about her abducting maidens (cf. infra) is given as a case of point for her malice.<ref name=keightley1850/> 
It is said the ''havfrue'' will avenge harm done to it, as in the Norwegian anecdote of one who was lured near the ship, and had her hand cruelly lopped off on the gunwale. She caused a storm that nearly drowned the wicked sailor.<ref>{{harvp|Faye|1833|pp=59–60}}, cited by {{harvp|Bassett|1892|pp=172–173}}</ref>

=== Omen, prophecy and wisdom ===

The appearance/sighting alone betides an impending storm.<ref name=keightley1850/> Norwegians do not wish to see the havfrue, as she heralds storm or bad weather (Norway).<ref>{{harvp|Faye|1833|p=59}}: "bebude Storm og Uveir"; {{harvp|Bassett|1892|p=172}}: ""</ref><ref name="thorpe2-p027-norw"/> The appearance of the ''sjörå'' forebodes a storm or poor catch in Swedish tradition, much as the appearance of the ''[[Religion:Skogsrå|skogsrå]]'' (wood-nymph) presages poor catch for the hunter.<ref name=keightley1850/><ref name="thorpe2-p076-swedish"/> According to the superstitions of Swedish fishermen, if one saw a ''sjörå'' who was harbinger of tempest and bad catch, one should not tell his comrades but strike flint against steel to light a spark.<ref name="thorpe2-p076-swedish"/>

In other cases the Scandinavian mermaid is considered to be prophetic.<ref name=keightley1850/> The tale type "The Mermaid's Message" ({{langx|no|Havfruas spådom}}, ML 4060) is recognized as a {{interlanguage link|Migratory Legend|no|Vandresagn}}, i.e., a group of tales found in Scandinavia with parallels found elsewhere, according to the scheme devised by Reidar Thoralf Christiansen.<ref name="kvideland&sehmsdorf"/> This may not necessarily involve the mermaid's spaeing, and in the following example of this ML type tale, she merely imparts wisdom: A fisherman who performs favors and earns the privilege to pose three questions to a mermaid. He inquires about the most suitable material for a flail, to which she answers calf's hide, of course, and tells him he should have asked about how to brew water (into beer), which would have benefited him more greatly.<ref>Chapter 52: Spirit of the Sea / 52.4 "Mermaid and the Fisherman" in: {{harvp|Kvideland|Sehmsdorf|1988|pp=261–262}} ''apud'' Rekdal, Olav (1933) "Havfrua og fiskaren", ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=_w1RAQAAMAAJ&q=Havfrua Eventyr og segner]'' p. 110. Collected in 1923 from Guri Finnset in Eikisdalen, Romsdalen (Norway).</ref>

=== Merfolk as abductors ===

The Swedish ballad "Hafsfrun"<ref name="arwidsson"/> (≈{{interlanguage link|Havsfruns tärna|sv|lt=''Havsfruns tärna''}}, SMB 23, TSB A 51<ref name="visdatabas-havfruns_tarna"/>) is an instance where a mermaid kidnaps a human girl at age fifteen, and when the girl's brother accomplishes the rescue, the mermaid declares she would have cracked{{efn|The original text gives ''knäckt'' (i.e. cracked), rather than ''kneckt''<ref name=keightley1850/> or ''knackt''.{{sfnp|Grimm|Stallybrass tr.|1883|loc='''2''': 494–495}}}} her neck if she knew she would be thus betrayed.{{Refn|Folksong text published by Adolf Ivar Arwidsson,<ref name="arwidsson"/> discussed by Grimm{{sfnp|Grimm|Stallybrass tr.|1883|loc='''2''': 494–495}} and Keightley.<ref name=keightley1850/>}} The Swedish merman ''Hafsman''[''nen''] steals a human woman to become his bride according to folklore.<ref name="grafstroem&forssell"/>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|The Swedish ballad "Hafsmannen" is based on the abduction theme, and recounts the same myth as Danish ballad "Rosmer Havmand".<ref name="goedecke"/>}}

=== Marmaele ===

As aforementioned, the mermaid ({{langx|no|havfrue}}) takes the merman ({{langx|no|havmand}}) for husband, and produce children called ''marmæler'' (sing. {{langx|no|marmæle}}, "sea-talkers"), which the fishermen sometimes bring home to gain insight into the future.<ref>{{harvp|Faye|1833|pp=58–59}}, cited by {{harvp|Bassett|1892|p=172}}</ref> Early sources say that Norwegian fishermen who capture the ''marmæte'' or ''marmæle'' may bring them home but do not dare keep it for more than 24 hours before turning them back into the sea whence they found it.{{sfnp|Pontoppidan|1755|p=195}}

=== Margýgr ===

[[File:Flateyjarbok Olaf Tryggvason (cropped).jpg|thumb|The margýgr vs. St. Olaf{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Facsimiles of the miniature painting are found in [[Fridtjof Nansen]]'s book<ref name="nansen"/> and Dubois's paper.<ref name="dubois">{{cite journal|last=DuBois|first=Thomas A. |title=A History Seen: The Uses of Illumination in 'Flateyjarbók' |journal=The Journal of English and Germanic Philology |volume=103 |number=1 |date=January 2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MWxXAAAAYAAJ&q=B%C3%A6singr |pages=33–35 (fig. 15)<!--1–52--> |jstor=27712401}}</ref>}}{{right|{{small|―Flateyjarbk fol. 79r}}<ref name="dubois"/>}} ]]

Jón Árnason describes the ''margýgur'' as yellow-haired woman who is fish from the waist down, who drags careless seamen to the depths of the sea.<ref name="jon_arnason-saebuar"/><ref name="jon_arnason-eng-vol2-intro"/> However, ''margygr'' literally means something like "mer-troll",<ref name="jon_arnason-eng-vol2-intro"/> and in medieval tradition, the ''margygr'' is more of a "sea monster"<ref name="sayers"/> or "sea-ogress".<ref name="laity"/>{{Refn|Also "giantess who emerges from the sea",<ref name="borovsky"/> and "described.. as disgusting trolls".<ref name="bugge-tr-schoefield"/>}}

According to a version of the ''Saga of St. Olaf'' (Olaf II of Norway) the king encountered a ''margygr'' whose singing lulled voyagers to sleep causing them to drown<ref name="thorpe2-p027-norw"/><ref name="olafs_saga_helga-flateyjar"/> and whose high-pitched shrieks drove men insane.<ref name="sayers"/><ref name="olafs_saga_helga-flateyjar"/> Her physical appearance is described thus: "She has a head like a horse, with ears erect and distended nostrils, big green eyes and fearful jaws. She has shoulders like a horse and hands in front; but behind she resembles a serpent".<ref name="olafs_saga_helga-flateyjar"/><ref name="bugge-tr-schoefield"/> This ''margygr'' was also said to be furry like a seal, and gray-colored.<ref name="olafs_saga_helga-flateyjar"/><ref name="borovsky"/>

== Western European folklore ==
<!--Don't add material about American (Disney) film under this /*Western Europe*/ section. Do it under /*Arts, entertainment, and media*/ if you must-->
[[File:Bookofmelusine.jpg|thumb|left|Raymond discovers Melusine in her bath, [[Jean d'Arras]], ''Le livre de Mélusine'', 1478.]]
[[Unsolved:Melusine|Melusine]] is a mermaid-like character from European folklore, cursed to take the form of a [[Unsolved:Serpent (symbolism)|serpent]] from the waist down. Later depictions sometimes changed this to a fish tail.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://archive.org/details/melusine00jeanuoft | title=Melusine, Compiled (1382–1394&nbsp;AD) by Jean D'Arras, Englisht About 1500 | publisher=Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner | year=1895 | access-date=20 November 2012 | last = Donald | first = A.K.}}</ref> At some point, possibly in the late nineteenth century, her name became attached to the two-tailed mermaid of heraldry.<ref name=":0" />

The [[Company:Alchemist|alchemist]] [[Biography:Paracelsus|Paracelsus]]'s treatise ''A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits'' (1566) spawned the idea that the water elemental (or water sprite) could acquire an immortal soul through marriage with a human; this led to the writing of De la Motte Fouqué's novella ''Undine'', and eventually to the famous literary mermaid tale, Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid".<ref name="jarvis">{{cite book|last=Jarvis |first=Shawn C. |editor-last=Haase |editor-first=Donald |title=The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales [3 Volumes] |publisher=Greenwood |year=2007 |url=https://archive.org/details/the-greenwood-encyclopedia-of-folktales-and-fairy-tales/page/621/mode/2up |pages=619–621 |isbn=978-0-313-04947-7}}</ref>

During the Romanesque period, mermaids were often associated with lust.<ref>Yves Morvan, ''La Sirène et la luxure'', Communication du Colloque "La luxure et le corps dans l'art roman", Mozac, 2008</ref><ref>Teodolinda Barolini, ''La Commedia senza Dio: Dante e la creazione di una realtà'', 2003, p.150</ref>

== Byzantine and Ottoman Greek folklore ==
The conception of the ''siren'' as both a mermaid-like creature and part bird-like persisted in Byzantine Greece for some time.{{sfnp|Wood|2018|pp=51–52}} The ''[[Biology:Physiologus|Physiologus]]'' began switching the illustration of the siren as that a mermaid, as in a version dated to the ninth century.<ref name=bain/> The tenth century Byzantine Greek dictionary ''Suda'' still favored the avian description.<ref>"{{URL|http://www.stoa.org/sol-entries/sigma/280|Seirênas}}", "Suda on Line", tr. Robert Dyer on 13 June 2002<!--@16:57:29-->.</ref>{{sfnp|Wood|2018|pp=51–52}}

There is a modern Greek legend that Alexander the Great's sister Thessalonike turned into a mermaid ({{langx|el|γοργόνα}}) after her death, living in the Aegean. She would ask the sailors on any ship she encountered only one question: "Is King Alexander alive?",({{langx|el|"Ζει ο Βασιλεύς Αλέξανδρος;"}}) to which the correct answer was: "He lives and reigns and conquers the world" (Greek: "Ζει και βασιλεύει και τον κόσμον κυριεύει").<ref name=russell/> This answer would please her, and she would accordingly calm the waters and bid the ship farewell. Any other answer would enrage her, and she would stir up a terrible storm, dooming the ship and every sailor on board.<ref>{{Cite book|chapter=Alexander and the Mermaid |title=Folktales from Greece | last1=Mitakidou | first1=Christodoula | last2=Manna | first2=Anthony L. | last3=Mitakidou | first3=Soula | year=2002 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fHt6Jqnmkv0C&pg=PA93 |page=96<!--93–96--> |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic | isbn=1-56308-908-4}}.</ref> This legend derives from an Alexander romance entitled the ''Phylláda tou Megaléxandrou'' (Φυλλάδα του Μεγαλέξανδρου) dating to the Ottoman Greece period,<ref name=russell/> first printed in 1680.<ref name=garstad/>

== Eastern Europe ==

[[File:Ilya Repin - Sadko - Google Art Project levels adjustment 2.jpg|thumb|Ilya Repin, ''Sadko'' (1876)]]

[[Religion:Rusalka|Rusalka]]s are the Slavic counterpart of the Greek sirens and [[Unsolved:Naiad|naiad]]s, often seducing sailors to their doom.{{sfnp|Naroditskaya|Austern|2006|p=6}}<ref name="Ivanits 1992 76">{{cite book | last =Ivanits| first = Linda J.| title= Russian folk belief| year= 1992| publisher= M.E. Sharpe| location = Armonk, NY | isbn = 978-0-87332-889-0| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=-s36xYcqG1EC&pg=PA77 | edition= 1st pbk. | others = Schiller, Sophie illustr.| page = 76}}</ref> The nature of rusalkas varies among folk traditions, but according to ethnologist D.K. Zelenin they all share a common element: they are the restless spirits of the unclean dead.<ref name = "Ivanits 1992 76"/> They are usually the ghosts of young women who died a violent or untimely death, either by murder or suicide, before their wedding, especially by drowning. Rusalkas are said to inhabit lakes and rivers. They appear as beautiful young women with long pale green hair and pale skin, suggesting a connection with floating weeds and days spent underwater in faint sunlight. They can be seen after dark, dancing together under the moon and calling out to young men by name, luring them to the water and drowning them. The characterization of rusalkas as both desirable and treacherous is prevalent in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and was emphasized by nineteenth-century Russian authors.<ref>{{cite book | last =Illes|first= Judika |chapter=Rusalka |title= The encyclopedia of spirits: the ultimate guide to the magic of fairies, genies, demons, ghosts, gods, and goddesses |year= 2009 |publisher= HarperOne | location =New York|isbn = 978-0-06-135024-5 |chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=jDr51XX_YjEC&pg=PA871| page=871}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Warner |first=Elizabeth |title=Russian myths |year=2002 |publisher=Univ. of Texas Press|location=Austin, TX |isbn = 978-0-292-79158-9 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_PoesCeU0iUC&pg=PA42| page = 42}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| editor-last= Kelly | editor-first = Katherine E.|title = Modern drama by women 1800s–1930s: an international anthology|year= 1996 | publisher = Routledge| location = London |isbn = 978-0-415-12493-5 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=HCcl02qHH70C&pg=PA326| page= 326}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IO_qBgAAQBAJ&pg=PR64 |title=Russian Folk Belief|last=Ivanits|first=Linda J.|date=4 March 2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781317460398}}</ref>

In ''Sadko'' ({{langx |ru|Садко}}), a Russian oral epic poem (''bylina''), the title character—an adventurer, merchant, and ''gusli'' musician from Novgorod—lives for some time in the underwater court of the Sea Tsar and marries his daughter, Chernava, before finally returning home.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kononenko |first1=Natalie |editor1-last=Beissinger |editor1-first=Margaret H. |title=The Oxford Handbook of Slavic and East European Folklore |date=11 April 2025 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-008077-8 |page=492 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AC9KEQAAQBAJ |language=en |chapter=Byliny: Russian Folk Epic}}</ref> The tale inspired such works as the poem ''Sadko'' by Alexei Tolstoy,<ref>{{Citation | title = A History of Russian Poetry | first = Evelyn | last = Bristol | year = 1991 | isbn = 0-19-504659-5 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=VxNgAAAAMAAJ | page = 149| publisher = Oxford University Press }}</ref> the opera ''Sadko'' composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dixon-Kennedy |first1=Mike |title=Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend |date=8 December 1998 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-57607-063-5 |pages=245–248 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p8woAAAAYAAJ |language=en}}</ref> and the painting ''Sadko'' by Ilya Repin.<ref name="SterninKirillina">{{cite book |last1=Sternin |first1=Grigori |last2=Kirillina |first2=Jelena |year=2011 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u2Gwmo3Uaa4C&pg=PA134 |title=Ilya Repin |location=New York |publisher=Parkstone International |page=134 |isbn=978-1-78042-733-1 }}</ref>

== Chinese folklore ==
 <!--Please add content to [[Unsolved:Merfolk|merfolk]] if it is not gender-specific female -->
A [[Unsolved:Merfolk|merfolk]] race called the {{interlanguage link|Di people (merfolk)|zh|氐人族|lt=Di people|preserve=1}} are described as populating its own nation in the ''Shanhaijing'' (''Classic of Mountains and Seas'') compilation of Chinese geography and mythology, dating from the fourth century BC.<ref name="shanhaijing-strassberg-diren-dipeople"/>{{sfnp|Magnani|2022|p=89}} The ancient work also included several types of human-headed fish, such as the {{interlanguage link|chiru (fish)|zh|赤鱬|lt=''chiru''|preserve=1}} or "red ru fish";<ref name="shanhaijing-strassberg-chiru-redrufish"/>{{sfnp|Magnani|2022|p=89}} as well as creature with some humanlike qualities like the ''renyu'' ({{lang|zh|人魚}}) or "human-fish".<ref name="shanhaijing-strassberg-renyu-humanfish"/>{{sfnp|Magnani|2022|p=89}}

There is an account of the {{interlanguage link|hairenyu|ja|海人魚|lt=''hairenyu''}}({{lang|zh|海人魚}}; literally "sea human fish"), given in the ''Taiping guangji'' compilation, sourced from the work entitled ''Qiawenji'' ({{lang|zh|洽聞記}}). The female of its kind had a head like beautiful woman's, with hair like a horse's tail, and white skin like jade without scales, covered with multicolored downy hair (or peach fuzz), and legless. The male and female had sexual organs like humans, so that [[Social:Widow|widow]]s and {{linktext|widowers}} would keep them in their ponds, and the creatures could perform [[Biology:Sexual intercourse|sexual intercourse]] normally as a human would.<ref name="taiping_guangji464"/>{{sfnp|Magnani|2022|p=91}}{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|The anecdote is set in ''Donghai'' or "Eastern Sea" which designates "East China Sea" on a modern atlas (and this is given in Magnani's translation), but is "Eastern Sea" given by Groot translating this passage.<ref name="groot"/> Historically, the name could apply to the Sea of Japan.<ref name="schottenhammer"/>}}

An anecdote considered relevant{{sfnp|Matsuoka|1982|p=56}} concerns a ''renyu'' ("human fish") allegedly seen by the ship carrying Zha Dao ({{lang|zh|査道}}), and emissary to Korea. She had an unkempt hairdo and scarlet mane extending to the back of her elbows. Zha ordered the crew to bring her aboard with poles, but she escaped. Zha explained that she was a ''renyu'', adept at copulating with humans, and was a type of human dwelling in the sea. The anecdote in the lost ''Cuyiji'' ("Records of Bygone Extraordinary Things") from the Northern Song period,<ref name="zheng&kirk&buell&unschuld-Cuyiji"/>{{sfnp|Matsuoka|1982|p=56}}<ref name="yoshioka-cit-hino"/> survives in quotes, e.g., from ''leishu'' compilation ''Gujin tushu jicheng'' ({{lang|zh|古今圖書集成}} "Comprehensive Compendium of Illustrations and Books, Ancient and Modern").<ref name="gujin_tushu_jicheng144"/>

== Korean folklore ==
[[Place:Korea|Korea]] is bound on three sides by the sea. In some villages near the sea in Korea, there are mysterious stories about mermaids. Mermaids have features just like humans. Kim Dam Ryeong, a mayor of the town , saved four captured mermaids from a fisherman, as recorded in the ''Eou yadam'' (''unofficial histories'').<ref>{{cite book|last1=Keith |first1=Sarah |last2=Lee |first2=Sung-Ae |author-link2=<!--Sung-Ae Lee--> |chapter=Legend of the Blue Sea: Mermaids in South Korean folklore and popular culture |editor-last=Hayward |editor-first=Philip |title=Scaled for Success: The Internationalisation of the Mermaid |year=2018 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0861967322|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mrFiDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA74 |pages=78–79}}</ref> In Dongabaek Island of Busan is a tale of Princess Hwang-ok from Naranda, a mythical undersea kingdom of mermaids; this tale is based on the historical Heo Hwang-ok from [[Place:India|India]].{{sfnp|Keith|Lee|2018|pp=73–74}} Another tale concerns a mermaid named Sinjike ({{langx|ko|신지끼}}) who warned fishermen of impending storms by singing and throwing rocks into the sea from Geomun Island. The island's residents believed her to be a goddess of the sea and that she could predict the weather.{{sfnp|Keith|Lee|2018|p=74}}

=== Tale of Nangan ===
The Tale of Nangan is a mermaid legend handed down in [[Place:Pyongyang|Pyongyang]], the capital of Goguryeo (currently [[Place:Pyongyang|Pyongyang]]). One day, a fisherman named Lee Jin-su went to the Dragon Palace and spent the day enjoying himself. Upon his departure, he received a mermaid, which was said to grant eternal youth and longevity if eaten. Suspicious of it, Lee hid it away without eating it, but his daughter Nangan ate it. She obtained rare and unchanging beauty, but was never blessed with marriage or children. At the age of 300, she climbed Moranbong and went missing.<ref>{{Cite book|editor=Park Young-jun|translator=Editorial Department of Korea Culture Books|others=Masatoshi Ando [Trans./Supervision]|year=1975|title=Korean Folktales and Legends 2: Goguryeo and Baekje Edition|publisher=Korea Culture Books|pages=134–137}}</ref>
There is a theory that this Korean legend of Nangan was transmitted to Japan and became the origin of the Yao Bikuni folktale.<ref name="matsuda" />

== Japanese folklore ==

{{Main|Unsolved:Ningyo}}

[[File:Ningyo-no-zu-Bunka02-05.jpg|thumb|"Ningyo no zu": A flier of a mermaid, dated fifth month of Bunka 2 (1805).]]

The Japanese equivalent is {{nihongo||人魚|ningyo|extra=literally "human-fish"<ref name="hayward2018-ch03"/>}}<!--despite the literal sense of its appellation-->. According to one dictionary, ''ningyo'' oftentimes refers to a "half-woman and half-fish fabulous creature", i.e., mermaid, though the term ''ningyo'' is technically (though not customarily<!--Kojien 5th edition defined it as female only, 6th edition revised this, as Nakamaru points out-->) inclusive of mermen.<ref name=nakamaru-citing-kojien/> Despite being phrased as a "half-woman half-fish", the ''ningyo'' has typically been pictorialized as having a human female head on a fish-like body (see fig. right).<ref name="hayward2018-ch03"/>

A famous ''ningyo'' legend concerns the {{interlanguage link|Yao bikuni|ja|八百比丘尼}} who is said to have partaken of the flesh of a merfolk and attained miraculous longevity and lived for centuries. It is not discernible whether the flesh was a female; a pair of translators call it "flesh of a mermaid" in one book,<ref name=yoda&alt2013/> but merely a "strange fish with a human face" in another.<ref>{{harvp|Toriyama|2017|p=120}}, notes by Yoda and Alt.</ref>

A ''ningyo'' might be counted as a ''[[Unsolved:Yōkai|yōkai]]'' since it is included in Toriyama Sekien's ''Hyakki Yagyō'' series.<ref name=toriyama-eng/> Gender is unclear, as it is only described as a being with "a human face, a fish body". However, Sekien's ''ningyo'' picture actually represents a "human-fish" that lives in Western China, also known as the Di people {{interlanguage link|Diren (merfolk){{!}}Diren|zh|氐人族}}, according to the inscription printed alongside.<ref name=toriyama-eng/> They are described in the ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'' and translated as the "Low People"<ref name=shanhaijing10regions-within-sea-south/>{{sfnp|Birrell tr.|2000|p=136}} or the "Di People".<ref name="shanhaijing-strassberg-diren-dipeople"/>

==Indian, Southeast Asian, and Polynesian folklore==
[[File:Hanuman_and_Mermaid_Suvannamaccha.jpg|thumb|[[Religion:Suvannamaccha|Suvannamaccha]] and [[Religion:Hanuman|Hanuman]], mural at Wat Phra Kaew, [[Place:Bangkok|Bangkok]].]]
In [[Religion:Hinduism|Hinduism]], [[Religion:Suvannamaccha|Suvannamaccha]] (literally "golden mermaid") is a daughter of Ravana who also appears in the [[Social:Thai language|Thai]] and other Southeast Asian [[Religion:Versions of Ramayana|versions of Ramayana]].<ref name="Satyavrat2006">{{cite book | author=Satyavrat Sastri | title=Discovery of Sanskrit Treasures: Epics and Puranas | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=seljAAAAMAAJ | access-date=24 July 2012 | year=2006 | publisher=Yash Publications | isbn=978-81-89537-04-3 | page = 77}}</ref> She is a mermaid princess who tries to spoil [[Religion:Hanuman|Hanuman]]'s plans to build a bridge to [[Unsolved:Lanka|Lanka]] but falls in love with him instead.<ref name="Desai2005">{{cite book | author=S.N. Desai | title=Hinduism in Thai Life | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VmsKr7lqTjwC&pg=PA135 | access-date=24 July 2012 | year = 2005 | publisher=Popular Prakashan | isbn=978-81-7154-189-8 | page=135 }}</ref>

In Cambodia, she is referred as Sovanna Maccha, a favorite for Cambodian audiences.<ref name=":5">[http://vorasith.online.fr/cambodge/reamker.htm Le Reamker] – Description of Ream Ker in French</ref>

=== Indonesia ===
In the Javanese culture of Indonesia, Nyai Roro Kidul is a sea goddess and the Queen of the Southern Seas; the mermaid queen is said to inhabit the southern beach in [[Java]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Illes |first=Judika |chapter= <!---->|title=The Encyclopedia of Spirits |publisher=HarperOne |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-06-135024-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jDr51XX_YjEC&pg=PA768 |page=768}}</ref> She has many forms; in her mermaid form, she is called Nyai Blorong.<ref>Robson, Stuart. The Kraton, KITLV Press 2003, Leiden, {{ISBN|90-6718-131-5}}, p. 77</ref>

=== Philippines ===

In the [[Social:Tagalog language|Tagalog language]] mermaids are known as ''sirena'' and ''siyokoy'' respectively.<ref name="TE">{{Citation|title=Tagalog-English Dictionary |first=Leo James |last=English |publisher=Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer; National Book Store |place=Manila |isbn=971-91055-0-X |year=1986 }}, 1583 pp.</ref> The general term for mermaid among all ethnic groups is Sirena.<ref>Philippine Demonological Legends and Their Cultural Bearings, Maximo Ramos, Phoenix Publishing 1990</ref>

In the Philippines, mermaid concepts differ per ethnic group. Among the Pangasinense, the Binalatongan mermaid is a Queen of the sea who married the mortal Maginoo Palasipas and ruled humanity for a time.<ref name="The Beyer Ethnographic Series">The Beyer Ethnographic Series</ref> Among the Ilocano, mermaids were said to have propagated and spread through the union of the first Serena and the first Litao, a water god.<ref name="The Beyer Ethnographic Series"/> Among the Bicolano, mermaids were referred as Magindara, known for their beautiful voice and vicious nature.<ref>Bikol Beliefs and Folkways: A Showcase of Tradition. Nasayao, 2010</ref>

In the folktale "Mermaid" ([[Social:Cebuano language|Cebuano language]]: {{lang|ceb|Ang Kataw}}) localized in Cebu and Bohol Provinces, a couple named Juan and Juana is about to have a daughter, but the pregnant wife has a constant craving for [[Biology:Milkfish|milkfish]] (Cebuano: {{lang|ceb|{{linktext|awa}}}}). One day his fishing caught nothing, but met a talking milkfish wearing a crown, the "King of the Fishes" (Cebuano: {{lang|ceb|{{linktext|hari |sa |mga}}}}) who offered to give him plenty every day, in exchange for the taking the child later, at 7 years of age. She was eventually swept away by the waves, and presumed lost to the king. The parents, hoping to see her again on the beach did so finally, on a moonlit night, witnessed a black haired woman with the body of a milkfish, whom they knew was Maria.{{Refn|name="alburo-tr"|Alburo, Erlinda K. ed. tr.,<ref name="alburo1977"/> Reprinted in ''The Penguin Book of Mermaids''.{{harvp|Bacchilega|Brown|2019|pp=223–234}} }}

=== New Zealand ===

Mermaids are characters in the myth of "Pania of the Reef", a well-known tale of [[Religion:Māori mythology|Māori mythology]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Pania of the Reef |url=https://publicart.nz/artworks/italian-marble-company-of-carrara-1954 |publisher=Public Art Heritage: Aotearoa New Zealand |access-date=7 September 2025}}</ref>

== African folklore ==
Mami Water (Lit. "Mother of the Water") are water spirits venerated in [[Place:West Africa|West]], [[Place:Central Africa|Central]] and [[Place:Southern Africa|southern Africa]], and in the African [[Software:Diaspora|diaspora]] in the Caribbean and parts of [[Earth:North America|North]], Central and [[Earth:South America|South America]]. They are usually female, but are sometimes male. They are regarded as diabolical beings, and are often [[Social:Femme fatale|femme fatale]]s, luring men to their deaths.<ref name="sacred_waters_intro">{{Cite book | last = Drewal | first = Henry John | title = Sacred Waters: Arts for Mami Wata and other divinities in Africa and the diaspora | contribution = Introduction: Charting the Voyage | place = Bloomington | publisher = Indiana University Press | year = 2008 | isbn = 978-0-253-35156-2 | page = 1}}.</ref> The [[Social:Persian language|Persian]] word "پری دریایی" or "maneli" means "mermaid".<ref>{{cite book |title=Honeymoon in Tehran |isbn=978-0-8129-7790-5 |first=Azadeh |last=Moaveni |publisher=Random House |year=2010 |page=[https://archive.org/details/honeymoonintehra00azad/page/240 240] |quote=The banning of some names, like Maneli (meaning Mermaid) [...] seemed to have no rationale at all |url=https://archive.org/details/honeymoonintehra00azad/page/240 }}</ref>

Among the Shona of Zimbabwe, njuzu are mermaid-like spirits.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bernard |first=Penny S. |date=2003 |title=Ecological Implications of Water Spirit Beliefs in Southern Africa: The Need to Protect Knowledge, Nature, and Resource Rights |url=https://media.tracks4africa.co.za/users/files/w386028_1755.pdf |journal=USDA Forest Service Proceedings |pages=150}}</ref> The [[Religion:Jengu|jengu]], also known as the "Itongo" (Sea Queen), of Cameroon is sometimes depicted as half woman and half fish.{{sfn|Nkemleke|Neba|2020|page=390}}

=== The Man Who Caught a Mermaid ===
A folktale from Madagascar. The story described below was collected by Natsuki Kawasaki as a tale handed down in [[Place:Antsohihy|Antsohihy]], Sofia Region, Mahajanga Province.

One day, a poor fisherman named Butu caught a beautiful mermaid in a river. The mermaid told him that she knew Butu wanted a wife, and that was why she had entered his net. The mermaid transformed into a human form and became Butu's wife on the condition that he keep her true identity a secret. The mermaid possessed mysterious powers, and Butu's life became comfortable. However, one day, under the influence of alcohol, Butu revealed his wife's true identity. The wife used her mysterious powers to return Butu's house to its former shabby state and returned to the river. The next morning, when Butu sobered up, it was already too late, no matter how much he regretted it.<ref>{{Cite book|editor=Natsuki Kawasaki|date=2007-01-30|title=Folktales of Madagascar|publisher=Ronsosha|pages=47–63, 144–145|isbn=978-4-8460-0439-2}}</ref>

== Arabian folklore ==

=== ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ===
The ''[[Religion:One Thousand and One Nights|One Thousand and One Nights]]'' collection includes several tales featuring "sea people", such as "Jullanâr the Sea-born and Her Son King Badr Bâsim of Persia".<ref name=Irwin>{{Cite book|title= One Thousand and One Nights: A Companion|first = Robert | last=Irwin|publisher=Tauris Parke Paperbacks| year=2003| isbn=1-86064-983-1| page = 209}}</ref> Unlike depictions of mermaids in other mythologies, these are anatomically identical to land-bound humans, differing only in their ability to breathe and live underwater. They can (and do) interbreed with land humans, and the children of such unions have the ability to live underwater. In the tale "Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman", the protagonist Abdullah the Fisherman gains the ability to breathe underwater and discovers an underwater society that is portrayed as an inverted reflection of society on land. The underwater society follows a form of [[History:Primitive communism|primitive communism]] where concepts like money and clothing do not exist. In "The Adventures of Bulukiya", the protagonist Bulukiya's quest for the [[Unsolved:Elixir of life|herb of immortality]] leads him to explore the seas, where he encounters societies of mermaids.<ref name=Irwin />

== Americas folklore ==
The Neo-Taíno nations of the Caribbean identify a mermaid called ''Aycayia''<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.conexioncubana.net/index.php?st=others&sk=pdef&id=a |title = Diccionario de Argot Cubano |publisher = Conexion Cubana |access-date = 24 April 2012 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110930102913/http://www.conexioncubana.net/index.php?st=others&sk=pdef&id=a |archive-date = 30 September 2011 |url-status = dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Bennett | first=Lennie |title=Four exhibitions woven into 'Textures' |url=http://www.tampabay.com/features/visualarts/article680572.ece |date=10 July 2008 |website=Tampa Bay |publisher=The St. Petersburg Times |access-date=25 April 2009 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201152219/http://www.tampabay.com/features/visualarts/article680572.ece |archive-date=1 December 2008 }}</ref> with attributes of the goddess Jagua and the hibiscus flower of the majagua tree ''[[Biology:Hibiscus tiliaceus|Hibiscus tiliaceus]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.hear.org/starr/hiplants/images/thumbnails/html/hibiscus_tiliaceus.htm |title= Hibiscus tiliaceus&nbsp;– Hau (Malvaceae)&nbsp;– Plants of Hawaii |publisher= Hear.org |access-date= 24 April 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080508172241/http://www.hear.org/starr/hiplants/images/thumbnails/html/hibiscus_tiliaceus.htm |archive-date= 8 May 2008 |url-status= dead }}</ref> In modern Caribbean culture, there are a number of mermaids that are derived from West African originals and transplanted by enslaved West Africans. These include Watramama in Suriname and Guyana, Mamadjo in Grenada, Yemanya or Yemaya in Brazil and Cuba, Erzulie in Haiti, and Lamanté in Martinique.{{sfn|Nies|2014|page=306}} There is a mermaid recognized as a Haitian ''vodou'' loa called ''Lasirèn'' (from the French {{langx|fr|la siréne}}, "the mermaid"), representing wealth, beauty and romance, but also the possibility of death.{{sfn|Nies|2014|page=307}}

=== Iara and Ipupiara ===
In Brazilian folklore, the [[Unsolved:Iara (mythology)|iara]], also known as ''mãe-d'agua'' ("lady/mother of the water") is a water-dwelling beauty whom fishermen are prone to fall prey to.<ref name="souza"/><ref name="herrera-sobek"/> According to eighteenth-century sources, she is a long-haired woman who enchant men by night, and those who succumb die, "drowned by passion".<ref name="soares&silva&barbosa"/> Folklore also blamed disappearances of men on the Iara who lured them singing in the indigenous language.<ref name="soares&silva&barbosa"/>

The ascribed hair and eye color differs depending on the tradition in various regions.<ref name="diana@todamateria"/> According to the tale of the Manaus tribe, she has hair of the color of the [[Biology:Handroanthus|pau d'arco]] tree's flowers{{efn|yellow or white to pink, it is not clear.}} (var. green hair) and pink skin,{{Refn|hair of "pau d'arco" color and skin as pink as ''colhereira'' occurs in Affonso Arinos (1917) "A Yara",<ref name="arinos1917"/><ref name="tocantins1963"/> "pink skin and green hair" in the variant of the same tale in Dorson, Mercedes; Wilmot, Jeanne edd. (1997) "The Legend of the Yara" ''Tales from the Rain Forest''.<ref name="elswit2015"/>}} while she is black-haired according to some.<ref name="diana@todamateria"/><ref name="tocantins1963"/> Other commentators insist Iara is a "beautiful white woman who lives in a river",{{sfnp|Teixeira|1992|p=33}} reputedly golden-haired,<ref name="herrera-sobek"/> and blue-eyed<ref name="cascudo-alamoa">{{harvp|Cascudo|1962|loc='''1''': 25}}, "ALAMOA": "{{lang|pt|A pele, olhos e cabelos da Alamoa são as da convencional Iara, pele branca, olhos azuis , cabelo louro}}."</ref> though the blond, blue-eyed image was not attested until after the mid-nineteenth century, to the best knowledge of Camara Cascudo.{{efn|The authority in question, Cascudo sees the influence of Gonçalves Dias's "romantic indigenization".}}<ref name="cascudo-mae-dagua">{{harvp|Cascudo|1962|loc='''1''': 364}}, "IARA", cross-referenced to: {{harvp|Cascudo|1962|loc='''2''': 441–442}} "MÃE-D'ÁGUA".</ref> Cascudo in his earlier writing contended that though the Iara was rooted in two indigenous beings, the water-devil Ipupiara (cf. below) and the [[Religion:Boiuna|Cobra-Grande]], he also saw the combining of the Portuguese lore of the Enchanted Moura (moorish girl), who was dark-skinned.<ref>Cascudo (1983) [1947], ''Geografia dos mitos brasileiros'', p. 134. Cited and summarized by {{harvp|Teixeira|1992|p=33}}</ref>{{efn|Cascudo's ''Dicionario do folclore brasileiro'' (1954) explores numerous other contributing European lore and indigenous water-myth.}} The Iara became increasingly regarded as a woman-fish, after the image of the European sirens/mermaids.<ref name="noguera"/><ref name="morais"/>

It is often argued that the legends of the Iara developed around the eighteenth century out of the indigenous myth of the {{interlanguage link|Ipupiara (monster)|pt|Ipupiara (criptozoologia)|lt=Ipupiara}} among the Tupinambá people. The Ipupiara was originally conceived of as a male water-dweller that carried fishermen to the bottom, devouring their mouths, nose, fingertips and genitals.<ref name="souza"/> European writers during the age of exploration disseminated the myth, but the {{interlanguage link|Pero de Magalhães Gandavo|pt|lt=Gandavo}} (1576){{efn|Pero de Magalhães Gandavo. ''História da Província de Santa Cruz'' (1576)}} included an illustration of "Hipupiàra" with female breasts. Subsequently the Jesuit {{interlanguage link|Fernão Cardim|pt|lt=Cardim}}{{efn|''Do clima e terra do Brasil'', 1584}} wrote that the "Igpupiàra" also consisted of females that look like women with long hair.<ref name="fonseca"/> Though somewhat vague in the case of Gandavo, Cardim had injected Christian opinion of relegating the role of emasculating men to the female kind.{{Refn|Fonseca<ref name="fonseca"/> invoking the ''[[Social:Vagina dentata|vagina dentata]]'' concept and quoting {{cite book|editor-last=Walker |editor-first=Barbara G. |title=The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects |publisher=Harper & Row |date=1983 |page=328 |quote=Christianity made the vagina a metaphor for the gate of hell and revived the ancient fear-inducing image of the ''vagina dentata'' (toothed vagina) that could bite off a man's penis}}}} Later with the introduction of African slaves, the Yoruba myth of Iemanjá was admixed into the telling.<ref name="souza"/>

=== Alamoa ===
The Alamoa is a well known legend in the island of [[Place:Fernando de Noronha|Fernando de Noronha]], northeast of the Brazilian mainland. An alluring half-naked woman, she who would seduced men by night, and the charmed lovers who followed her end up falling off the island cliff, off Pico hill.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://becodenoronha.com.br/blog/alamoa-a-lenda-da-sereia-de-fernando-de-noronha/|title=Beco de Noronha - Fernando de Noronha |access-date=2023-01-26 |website=becodenoronha.com.br |language=pt-br}}</ref><ref name="pessoa&sousa2022"/> Again, modern commentary paints her as a "beautiful white woman ({{lang|pt|linda mulher branca}})",<ref name="pessoa&sousa2022"/> which would be consistent with the name Alamoa being an older form of {{lang|pt|{{linktext|alemão}}}}, which now means "blonde, fair-skinned woman"{{efn|''alemão'' in the first instance means "German woman", but by transference, became a "fair blonde".}}{{Refn|One source considers Alamoa to be a corruption of the now standard ''alemão'',<ref name="pessoa&sousa2022"/> but others explain Alamao to be the more antiquated form.<ref name="proenca1969"/>}} whereas older literature describes her as [[Fulvous|fulvous]] or [[Tawny (color)|tawny]] ({{lang|pt|{{linktext|fulva}}}}), though dressed in white<!--branco see quote-->, as according to {{interlanguage link|Francisco Augusto Pereira da Costa|pt}} (d. 1923).{{Refn|Costa ''Foclore'' (1908) apud Proença<ref name="proenca1969"/>}}{{Refn|Legend in verse, titled:"A Alamôa", narratated by a mother: "{{lang|pt|Não saias, meu filho.. Que podes topar, de noite a «Alamóa» /E' fulva donzella,―é a fada da ilha;... De noute passeia, vestida de branco}}"<ref name="costa1887"/>}} According to one telling, on Friday nights, the rock of Pico splits and emits a light beam, followed by Alamoa's appearance, attracting men; but she will then transform into skull<!--caveira--> and skeleton,{{Refn|The skull imprisons her victim according to modern commentary.<ref name="pessoa&sousa2022"/>}} resulting in disappearances, except cries of terror can be occasionally heard.{{Refn|Story according to the story {{interlanguage link|Olavo Dantas|pt}}.<ref name="cascudo1950"/>}} The Alamoa evidently maintains an underwater palace as well.<!--palácio submarino-->{{sfnp|Cascudo|1950|p=292}} These elements (skull, light, palace) are lacking in European (Dutch) lore,{{sfnp|Cascudo|1950|p=292}} though general similarity to Holland's mermaid has been suggested.{{sfnp|Cascudo|1950|p=289}}

== Reported sightings ==

=== Roman Lusitania and Gaul ===
In his ''Natural History'' 9.4.9–11, Pliny the Elder, remarked that a triton (merman) was seen off the coast of Olisipo (present-day [[Place:Lisbon|Lisbon]], Portugal),<ref name="ni_mheallaigh"/> and it bore the physical appearance in accordance with common notion of the triton, according to a deputation from Lisbon who reported it to Emperor Tiberus. One nereid was sighted earlier on the same (Lisbon) coast. Pliny remarks that contrary to popular notion, the true nereids are not smooth-skinned in their human-like portions, but covered with scales all over the body.{{Refn|Reads "the portion of the body that resembles the human figure is still rough all over with scales" ub Bisticj and Riley's translation.<ref name="pliny-hn-9.4.9-tr-bostock&riley"/> This is given as "bristling with hair", in Rackham's (Loeb Classical Library translation, but ''{{linktext|squama}}'' here is probably 'scales' and the emendation is given in Hansen's rendering.<ref name="hansen"/>}} Their mournful songs at death have also been heard by the coastal inhabitants. Also, multiple nereids had washed up on the shore according to the legatus/governor of Gaul, who informed the late Emperor Augustus about it in a letter.<ref name="ni_mheallaigh"/>{{Refn|{{Verse translation
 | lang       =
 | italicsoff =
 | rtl1       =
 | <!--original text-->IV.<br />9 Tiberio principi nuntiavit Olisiponensium legatio ob id missa visum auditumque in quodam specu concha canentem Tritonem qua noscitur forma. et Nereidum falsa non est, squamis modo hispido corpore etiam qua humanam effigiem habent; namque haec in eodem spectata litore est, cuius morientis etiam cantum tristem accolae audivere longe; et divo Augusto legatus Galliae complures in litore apparere examines Nereidas scripsit.
 | <!--translation-->IV. Tritons, Nereid and aquatic monsters. <br />9 An embassy from Lisbon sent for the purpose reported to the Emperor Tiberius that a Triton had been seen and heard playing on a shell in a certain cave, and that he had the well-known shape. The description of the Nereids also is not incorrect, except that their body is bristling with hair {{sic}} even in the parts where they have human shape; for a Nereid has been seen on the same coast, whose mournful song moreover when dying has been heard a long way off by the coast-dwellers; also the Governor of Gaul wrote to the late lamented Augustus that a large number of dead Nereids were to be seen on the shore.
 | attr1      = Pliny, ''Historia Naturalis'' IX.iv.9<ref name="pliny-hn-9.4.9-tr-rackham"/>
 | attr2      = translated by Harris Rackham (1958)<ref name="pliny-hn-9.4.9-tr-rackham"/>}}}}<ref name="hansen"/>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Pliny follows with an account of a "sea-man" witnessed on the Gulf of Gades (Gulf of Cádiz).<ref name="pliny-hn-9.4.9-tr-rackham"/>}}

Sixteenth-century Swedish writer Olaus Magnus quotes the same passage from Pliny, and further notes that the nereid are said to utter "dismal moans (wailings) at the hour of her death<!--(cuius morientis etiam gannitum tristem acclae audiuere longe)-->", thus observing a connection to the legend of sea-nymphs<ref name="nigg"/> and the [[Philosophy:Moirai|sister Fates]] whose clashing cymbals and flute tunes could be heard on shore.<ref name="olaus"/><ref name="olaus-eng"/><ref name="nigg"/> Olaus in a later passage states that the nereids (tr. "mermaids") are known to "sing plaintively",<ref name="olaus2"/><ref name="olaus2-eng"/> in general.{{efn|i.e., not qualifying they do so at the hour of death.}}

It has been conjectured that these carcasses of nereids washed up on shore were "presumably seals".<ref name="ni_mheallaigh"/>{{Refn|Cf. the conjecture in the index to the Loeb Classics Library translation that Pliny's ''homo marinus'' (merman) may refer to "African manatee (?)".<ref name="pliny-hn-idx"/>}}

=== Age of Exploration Americas and polar frontiers ===

In 1493, sailing off the coast of Hispaniola, Christopher Columbus spotted three mermaids ({{langx|es|link=no|sirenas}}) which he said were not as beautiful as they are represented due to masculine features in their faces. He is widely believed to have seen manatees, not mermaids.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sánchez  |first=Jean-Pierre |chapter=Myths and Legends in the Old World and European Expansionism on the American Continent |title=The Classical Tradition and the Americas: European images of the Americas and the classical tradition (2 pts.) |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |year=1994 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I1LEmKPgJ8MC&pg=PA203 |page=203 |isbn=3-110-11572-7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=National Science Research Council (Guyana) |title=An International Centre for Manatee Research: Report of a Workshop Held 7-13 February 1974 |publisher=National Academies |year=1974 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qz4rAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA5 |page=5}}</ref> During Henry Hudson's second voyage on 15 June 1608, members of his crew reported sighting a mermaid in the [[Earth:Arctic Ocean|Arctic Ocean]], either in the Norwegian or Barents Seas.<ref name="hawks"/> Dutch explorer David Danell during his expeditions to [[Place:Greenland|Greenland]] in 1652–54 claimed to have spotted a mermaid with "flowing hair and very beautiful", though the crew failed to capture it.<ref name="etting"/>

==== Colonial Brazil ====

[[File:Bartholin(Copenhagen1854)-Hist anat-p164a-siren-top.jpg|thumb|Bartholin's siren (1654). The bones of the "hand" in the drawings on the right correspond to the flipper of a manatee.]]

Danish physician and natural historian [[Biography:Thomas Bartholin|Thomas Bartholin]] wrote about a mermaid specimen caught in Brazil (probably a manatee<ref name="senter&snow"/>) and subsequently dissected at Leiden.<ref name="broedel"/>{{Refn|name="bartholin-brazil"|Bartholin: "prope Brasiliam.. captus suit homo marinus..",<ref name="bartholin(copenhagen)1654"/> but Webster: "a Sea-Man taken by the Merchants of the West-India Company..", the latter omits mention of Brazil.}} Though referred to in the text as a "sea-man" (''homo marinus'') from Brazil, the account was accompanied by an engraved drawing captioned "Sirene", whose appearance was that of a humanoid female with bared breasts (a mermaid).<ref name="scribner2020-bartholin-pic">{{harvp|Scribner|2020}}: "{{URL|1=https://books.google.com/books?id=fgrtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT101|2='Sirene'.. with certain popular features of a mermaid (exposed breasts and a humanoid face.. odd, webbed hands, buttocks at the front)}}"</ref><ref name="bartholin(copenhagen)1654"/> The specimen's body was deformed and "without the sign of a tail",<ref name="bartholin-tr-webster"/> matching the drawing. And "a membrane [that] join [the fingers] together"<ref name="bartholin-tr-webster"/> is also reflected in the drawing as well (as her webbed pair of hands/forepaws).<ref name="scribner2020-bartholin-pic"/>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Bartholin subsequently provides a textual description of a neckless siren with lactating breasts,<ref name="broedel"/> however, that is the description from an entirely different specimen caught in the River Cuama off the Cape of Good Hope, quoted from Bernardinus Ginnarus.<ref name="bartholin-tr-webster"/>}}

The specimen's account and illustration was later reproduced by Linnaeus, who captioned the beast "Siren Bartholini".<ref name="linnaeus-1769"/><ref name="scribner2021"/> Bartholin was actually not the sole proprietor of the specimen, but he came into possession of its hand and ribs, which he illustrated in his book.{{sfnp|Scribner|2020}}{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Bartholin describes in detail that it was caught off of Brazil by merchants of the (Dutch) West India Company, the GWC, and the dissection conducted in Leiden by Petrus Pavius (Pieter Pauw), attended by Johannes de Laet (who was director of the GWC); Bartholin was given a hand and few ribs from de Laet, as a token of friendship.<ref name="bartholin-tr-webster"/>}} Based on the illustration, the "hand" has been determined to be the front flipper belonging to a manatee by a team of researchers.<ref name="senter&snow"/> Bartholin himself had argued that it was a sea mammal closely related to seals (''phocae'').<ref name="bartholin-tr-webster"/><ref name="broedel"/>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Bartholin writes [[Biology:Phoca|Phoca]]e,<ref name="bartholin-tr-webster"/> which is the genus, but perhaps he intended pinnipeds<ref name="broedel"/> more broadly.}} His rationale was that since there are several marine counterparts to land mammals e.g. "sea-horses",{{efn|A "sea-horse" in reality was either [[Biology:Walrus|walrus]] or sea-unicorns/[[Biology:Narwhal|narwhal]]s, both sources for marine ivory. For water-horse as sea-unicorn, see {{harvp|Francisci|1668}}, opposite p. 1406, {{URL|1=https://books.google.com/books?id=i-RTAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1407 |2=Plate XLVII}}.}} the possibility of a marine creature with striking likeness to humans could not be ruled out,<ref name="bartholin(copenhagen)1654"/> though they should all be classified among seal-kind.<ref name="bartholin-tr-webster"/> Erasmus Francisci (Erasmus Finx, 1668) associated this Brazilian specimen with the local native lore of the "Yupiapra" (Ipupiara. cf. {{section link||Iara and Ipupiara}}, supra.).<ref name="francisci"/><ref name="jcb-library"/>

=== Dutch Formosa ===
According to Frederick Coyett, the last Dutch governor of Formosa (aka Taiwan), many people saw mermaids appearing in the waters near the Fort Zeelandia during Koxinga's 17th-century attack on the Dutch. The Dutch came to the waterways to search carefully, but they were gone. It was regarded as a sign of imminent disaster.<ref>{{cite web|title=人魚出沒台灣 不幸災厄跟著來 |url=https://www.nownews.com/news/5623154 |website=NOWnews|access-date=2023-10-11 |language=zh-tw |date=2018-07-04 |archive-date= }}</ref>

=== Colonial Southeast Asia ===

==== Seventeenth-century Visayas ====
[[File:Jonston1657-Tab-XL-piscis-anthropomorphos.jpg|thumb|300px|'''Anthropomorphos'''{{right|{{small|―Johannes Jonston ''Historia naturalis'' in Latin, 1657<ref name="jonston1657-latin"/>}}}}]]
A type of mermaid referred to as "'''anthropomorphus'''"<ref name="jonston1660-nl"/> or "woman-fish" ({{langx|es|'''peche mujer'''}}<ref name="ojeda"/>) allegedly inhabited the Spanish-ruled Philippines, particularly in the waters around the Visayan Islands, according to contemporary writings from the seventeenth century.{{Refn|The incidents of capture and localities are as follows (the actual sources/authors will be elaborated in the citation footnotes to follow.):
* In Kircher and Jonston's writings, the place of capture is given as the Insulas Pictorum near the Visayas,<ref name="kircher-magnes"/><ref name="jonston1657-latin"/> namely, the "Island[s] of the Artist[s]".<ref name="jacob"/> A group of islands within the Visayas (including e.g. (Mindoro) was known as the ''Islas de los Pintados'' ('Islands of the Painted People').<ref name="prichard"/> Therefore referring to the locality as somewher within the present-day Visayas<ref name="ojeda"/> The Dutch translation rendered the islands, not as "the Islands of the Painted/Painters", but as "the Picten Islands", in turn understood to mean "the Islands of the Picts".<ref name="jongh"/>
* Colin identified the habitat as the Philippine waters and Malacca (Strait of Malacca).<ref name="colin"/>
* Nvarette while visiting Mindro (aforementioned island),<ref name="braeunlein&lauser"/> writes of the abundance of fish and the presence of "woman-fish" under the heading o NanboanNanboan<ref name="navarrete-tr-churchill"/> (namely Nauján).<ref name="navarrete-tr-cummins"/>).}}

The accounts are found in several books, on various topics from magnetism, to natural history, to ecclesiastical history.{{Refn|[[Biography:Athanasius Kircher|Athanasius Kircher]]  ''Magnes sive De arte magnetica'' (1641),<ref name="kircher-magnes"/> whose account is reiterated in Johannes Jonston ''Historiae naturalis de piscibus et cetis libri 5'' (in Latin, 1657; Dutch translation ''Beschryvingh van de Natuur der Vissen en bloedloze Water-dieren'', 1660).<ref name="jonston1660-nl"/> Also {{interlanguage link|Francisco Colín|es}} (1663) ''Labor evangelica'',<ref name="colin"/> Domingo Fernández Navarrete ''Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China'' (1676).<ref name="navarrete-tr-churchill"/><ref name="navarrete-tr-cummins"/>}}

These books refer to the mermaid/merman as "''piscis anthropomorphos''" ({{langx|nl|Anthropomorphus}}),{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Kircher's Latin text actually resorts to writing out "piscis ανθρωπόμορφος" partly in Greek (Greek ligature is used for the final omicron-sigma).<ref name="kircher-magnes"/> Jonston's Latin version uses "anthropomorphos"; the Dutch translator changed this to "-morphus" in the text, though the caption remained "-phos" in the engraving.<ref name="jonston1660-nl"/>}} and emphasize how human-like they appear in their upper bodies, as well as providing woodcut or etchings illustrating the male and female of the part-human part-fish creature.<ref name="kircher-magnes"/><ref name="jonston1660-nl"/>

The "woman-fish" (or {{lang|es|peche mujer}} in modern Spanish<ref name="ojeda"/>){{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|In the primary sources, variously spelt in
Middle Spanish as {{lang|es|peche muger}},<ref name="kircher-magnes"/> {{lang|es|pez muller, pexe muller}},<ref name="colin"/> etc.}}) was the name given to the creature among the Spaniards, but the sources also state it was called "duyon" by the indigenous people.<ref name="kircher-magnes"/><ref name="jonston1657-latin"/>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|The word is "duyong" in the Ilongo ([[Social:Hiligaynon language|Hiligaynon]]) or Palawano language of the Bisayans.<ref name="polistico"/>}} and it is assumed the actual creature was a dugong (according to modern translators' notes).<ref name="navarrete-tr-cummins"/><ref name="navarrete-tr-blair&robertson"/>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|According to Navarrete, an indigenous man had confessed to having nightly sexual intercourse with a ''piscis mulier'' or ''pexemulier '' "said to resemble a woman from the breasts down" .<ref name="navarrete-tr-churchill"/><ref name="navarrete-tr-blair&robertson"/>}}

Several of these sources mention the medical use of the woman-fish to control the flow of blood (or the four humours). It was effective for staunching the bleeding, i.e., effective against hemorrhages, according to Jonston.{{Refn|Appropriating "remedy for hemorrhages" which is Castiglioni's paraphrase{{sfnp|Castiglioni|2021|p=22}} of {{interlanguage link|Ōtsuki Gentaku|ja|大槻玄沢}} writing {{nihongo|shiketsu|止血/血を止む|extra='stop the bleeding'}} in his Japanese translation of Johnston.<ref>Otsuki Gentaku (1786) ''Rokumotsu shinshi'', fols. 24–[https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/2555433/28 25]</ref>}} Other sources mention the ability to stop bleeding, e.g. Colín,<ref>{{harvp|Cummins|2017|p=82}}, footnote.</ref> who also thought that the Philippine woman-fish tasted like fatty pork.{{Refn|Colín, on the "Pez Muller" (marginalia) or "Pexe Muller/Duyon" (text): "me pareciò su carne como de torcino gordo"}} The bones were made into beads (i.e., strung together), as it was believed effective against {{linktext|defluxion}}s (of the humours).{{Refn|Navarrete, Cummins tr.: "{{URL|1=https://books.google.com/books?id=-gckDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT129 |2=singular virtue against Defluxions}}".<ref name="navarrete-tr-cummins"/><ref name="navarrete-tr-churchill"/>}}

==== Eighteenth-century Moluccas ====
{{multiple image
 | align     = right
 | direction = vertical
 | header    = Renard's illustrated book of marine life
 | width     = 300
 | image1    = Renard-2nd-ed-1754(Mich U)-Pl057-n240-monstre-ou-sirenne.jpg
 | alt1      = Mermaid in Renard's marine animal book
 | caption1  = "Monster or Siren (mermaid)"{{sfnp|Pietsch|1991|p=7–9}}{{right|{{small|―Louis Renard ''Poissons, ecrevisses et crabes.. autour des isles Moluques et sur les côtes des terres Australes'', 2nd edition, 1754}}<ref name="renard-2nd-ed-1754"/>}}
 | image2    = Renard-2nd-ed-1754(Mich U)-Fol034-n180-dugong.jpg
 | caption2  = A dugong (ditto book)
 | alt2      = Mermaid in Renard's marine animal book
}}

Allegedly captured in the Moluccas in the seventeenth century was the so-called "Amboina mermaid" (after the then Dutch Province of Ambon),<ref>e.g. {{harvp|Carrington|1957|pp=xi, 11}}</ref>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Later it was no longer a Dutch Province. Bassett (1892) renamed her the "Molucca siren",{{sfnp|Bassett|1892|p=191}} but that name does not seem to have wide circulation.}} which its leading researcher has referred to as Samuel Fallours's "Sirenne", after the man who came into possession of it and made an original painting of it in full color.{{sfnp|Pietsch|1991|pp=12–13}}

The painting was reproduced by Louis Renard on the "Fish" of the region, first published in 1719,{{Refn|Louis Renard(1678/79–1746).<ref name="burr"/>''Poissons, ecrevisses et crabes, de diverses couleurs et figures extraordinaires: que l'on trouve autour des isles Moluques et sur les côtes des terres Australes'' ('Fish, [<!--Crayfish-->Lobsters], Crabs, in Various Colors and Extraordinary Shapes, as Found in the Moluccas and on the Coasts of Australia', first edition 1719, second edition 1754.{{sfnp|Pietsch|1991|pp=5, 7}}{{Refn|name="hayward-fallours"|Hayward (2018), pp. 93–94,<ref name="hayward2018-ch05"/> citing {{harvp|Pietsch|1991}}}}{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|color illustrations engraved copper plates, hand-painted in color.}} of various marine organisms of the Moluccas region, including this mermaid.{{sfnp|Pietsch|1991|pp=5, 7}}}}

It was supposedly caught by Boeren in Ambon Province (Buru, in present-day Maluku Province),{{sfnp|Pietsch|1991|pp=7, 13}} presumably around the years 1706–1712,{{Refn|name="hayward-fallours"}} or perhaps the year 1712 precisely.{{Refn|name="valentijn-apud-pietsch"|According to Valentijn/Valentyn (1726), ''Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën'', '''3''', Part 1, pp. 331–332<ref name="valentyn-deel3-1726"/> quoted in English translation in {{harvp|Pietsch|1991|p=7}}.}} During this period, Fallours served briefly as soldier for the VOC (Dutch East India Company) starting June 1706, but turned associate curate (Krankbezoeker) for the Dutch Reformed Church (September 1706 to June 1712).{{sfnp|Pietsch|1991|pp=1, 15}}

Fallour's mermaid with additional details were described by François Valentijn in a 1726 book.{{Refn|François Valentyn, ''Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën'', vol. 3.<ref name="valentyn-deel3-1726"/>}}{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Valentijn was also a minister of the church, mostly in the employ of the VOC; he was minister in Ambon at age 19 from 1685 for a decade, and was stationed again in Java 1705–1714.<ref name="suarez_t."/> but was minister in Dorchrecht, Netherlands by 1916 when Renard corresponded with him seeking help for his book,{{sfnp|Pietsch|1991|p=7}} and he compiled his own book while in the Netherlands.<ref name="suarez_t."/>}}

The mermaid was 59 Dutch inches ({{lang|nl|duimen}}) long, or 5 feet in Rhineland measures. She reportedly survived 4 days 7 hours in a water tank, and died after refusing food it was given, having uttered no intelligible sound,{{Refn|name="valentijn-apud-pietsch"}}<ref name="burr"/> or issuing sounds like screechings of a mouse.<ref name="renard-2nd-ed-1754"/> Something like a straw cape (Japanese ''mino'') appears wrapped around her waist in the painting according to one commentator,<ref name="yoshioka1993-p38"/> but Fallours revealed in his notes that he lifted the front and back fins and "[found] it was shaped like a woman".<ref>{{harvp|Hayward|2018a|p=93}}; {{harvp|Pietsch|1991|p=5}}: "I had the curiosity to lift its fins in front and in back and [found] it was shaped like a woman. Mr. Van der Stel asked me for it and I gave it to him . I think he sent it to Holland". (English tr.)</ref>

The mermaid was suspected to be a dugong in reality, even by contemporary scholars such as Georg Rumphius, although Valentijn was unable to believe they were the one and the same.{{sfnp|Pietsch|1991|p=12}} Leading researcher Theodore W. Pietsch{{efn|And editor of the English edition of Renard's work.}} concurs with the dugong identification, but an ichthyologist has opined that "I could more easily accept a small oar-fish, or another eel-like fish, rather than a dugong as a partial basis for the drawing", noting that Renard's book carries an illustration of a plausibly realistic dugong as well.<ref name="burr"/>

=== Qing dynasty China ===
The ''Yuezhong jianwen'' ({{lang-zh|t=粵中見聞|w=Yueh-chung-chieh-wen}}; "Seens and Heards", or "Jottings on the South of China", 1730) contains two accounts concerning mermaids. In the first, a man captures a mermaid ({{lang-zh|海女|labels=no}} "sea woman") on the shore of <!--Namtao-->Lantau Island ({{lang-zh|大嶼山|w=Taiyü-shan}}).<!--Styled as 大魚山 "Big fish mount" in orig. text--> She looks human in every respect except that her body is covered with fine hair of many colors. She cannot talk, but he takes her home and marries her. After his death, the mermaid returns to the sea where she was found. In the second story, a man sees a woman lying on the beach while his ship was anchored offshore. On closer inspection, her feet and hands appear to be webbed. She is carried to the water, and expresses her gratitude toward the sailors before swimming away.<ref>{{cite book|last=Dennys |first=Nicholas Belfield |title=The Folk-Lore of China, and Its Affinities with That of the Aryan and Semitic Races |publisher=Trübner and Co |year=1876 |url=https://archive.org/details/folklorechinaan00denngoog |pages=[https://archive.org/details/folklorechinaan00denngoog/page/n131 114]–115}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Fan |editor-first=Duan'ang 范端昂 |title=Yuezhong jianwen |script-title=zh:粤中见闻 |place=Guangdong |publisher=Guangdonggaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe |year=1988 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aT8yAAAAMAAJ |page=134|isbn=9787536100862 }}</ref>

=== U.S. and Canada ===
Two sightings were reported in Canada near Vancouver and Victoria, one from sometime between 1870 and 1890, the other from 1967.<ref>{{Citation|url=http://www.tourismvictoria.com/Content/EN/747.asp |title=Myths & Legends |publisher=Tourism Victoria |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081016154451/http://www.tourismvictoria.com/Content/EN/747.asp |archive-date=16 October 2008 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://folklore.bc.ca/british-columbia-mermaids/ |title = Folklore Examples in British Columbia |publisher=Folklore |date=11 January 2009 |access-date=24 April 2012}}</ref> A Pennsylvania fisherman reported five sightings of a mermaid in the Susquehanna River near Marietta in June 1881.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.yorkblog.com/yorkspast/2014/05/27/a-mermaid-in-the-susquehanna/ |title=A Mermaid in the Susquehanna |date=8 June 1881 |newspaper=York Daily |access-date=2 January 2016 |department=YorksPast |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919101147/http://www.yorkblog.com/yorkspast/2014/05/27/a-mermaid-in-the-susquehanna/ |archive-date=19 September 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

=== Twenty-first century ===
[[File:Mermaid skeleton.jpg|thumb|Reconstructed mermaid skeleton in [[Zoologisk Museum]]]]
In August 2009, after dozens of people reported seeing a mermaid leaping out of Haifa Bay waters and doing aerial tricks, the Israeli coastal town of Kiryat Yam offered a $1&nbsp;million award for proof of its existence.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1107034.html |title=Is a Mermaid Living Under the Sea in Kiryat Yam? |newspaper=[[Social:Haaretz|Haaretz]] |date=12 August 2009 |access-date=22 September 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100107203643/http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1107034.html |archive-date=7 January 2010 }}</ref>

In February 2012, work on two reservoirs near Gokwe and Mutare in Zimbabwe stopped when workers refused to continue, stating that mermaids had hounded them away from the sites. It was reported by Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, the water resources minister.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.voazimbabwe.com/a/zimbabwe-mermaids-problem-for-water-minister-138664059/1467126.html|title='Mermaid' Sightings in Zimbabwe Spark Debate Over Traditional Beliefs|date=3 February 2012|website=VOA |access-date=17 May 2020}}</ref>

== Hoaxes and show exhibitions ==

=== Manufactured merfolk specimens ===
[[File:Feejee mermaid.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.5|[[P.T. Barnum]]'s Fiji mermaid (1842)]]
A celebrated example of mermaid hoax was the Fiji mermaid exhibited in London in 1822{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|This specimen had been on display inside a jar at the Turf Coffee-house, St. James's Street as illustrated in an etching of it was made by artist George Cruikshank.}} and later in America by P. T. Barnum in 1842;{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Although the exhibitors called it "mermaid", the gender (as to the monkey port or fish part used) is probably unclear, and one newspaper renames it "Barnum's merman".<ref name="altick"/><ref name="webster-EB1891"/><ref>{{cite news |last=Babin |first=Tom |title=Up close and personal with the Banff Merman at the Banff Indian Trading Post |date=28 September 2012 |newspaper=Calgary Herald |url=http://www.calgaryherald.com/close+personal+with+Banff+Merman+Banff+Indian+Trading+Post/7316708/story.html |access-date=23 August 2019 |archive-date=8 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190908061002/http://www.calgaryherald.com/close+personal+with+Banff+Merman+Banff+Indian+Trading+Post/7316708/story.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}<ref>{{cite book|last=Bondeson |first=Jan |author-link=Jan Bondeson |chapter=The Feejee mermaid |title=The Feejee mermaid and other essays in natural and unnatural history |publisher=Cornell University Press |location=Ithaca, NY |year=1999 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A4dXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA36 |pages=x, 38–40 <!--36–63--> |isbn=0-801-43609-5}}</ref> in this case an investigator claims to have traced the mermaid's manufacture to a Japanese fisherman.{{sfnp|Bondeson|1999|pp=61–62}}

[[File:Baien-gyofu-033-ningyo-crop.jpg|thumb|An alleged ''ningyo'' or merman/mermaid specimen (side view) {{small|―Baien's sketch (1825)}}]]
Fake mermaids made in China and the [[Place:Malay Archipelago|Malay Archipelago]] out of monkey and fish parts were imported into Europe by Dutch traders since the mid-sixteenth century, and their manufactures are thought to go back earlier, according to ichthyologist E. W. Gudger.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Gudger |first=E. W. |title=Jenny Hanivers, Dragons and Basilisks in the Old Natural History Books and in Modern Times |journal=The Scientific Monthly |volume=38 |issue=6 |year=<!--Jun.-->1934 |page=512<!--511–523-->}} {{JSTOR|15490}}</ref> The manufacture of mermaids from monkey and fish parts also occurred in Japan, especially in the Kyūshū region,<ref name="aramata-map"/> as a souvenir industry targeting foreigners.<ref name="honma"/>{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|Marine biologist Hondo comments that the Japanese souvenirs tended to use a group of fish shaped like the ''suzuki'' ([[Biology:Japanese sea bass|Japanese sea bass]]), and asserts that in Canton, China, the type of fish used were [[Biology:Cyprinidae|Cyprinids]] (carp family), ''[[Biology:Nibea|Nibea]] mitsukurii'', and the [[Biology:Giant mottled eel|giant mottled eel]].<ref name="honma"/> The mermaid drawn by Cruikshank (i.e., the Fiji mermaid) is speculated to be "concocted from a blue-faced monkey and a salmon".<ref name="patten"/>}} Japanese naturalist Mōri Baien painted full color illustrations of such a compositely manufactured ''[[Unsolved:Ningyo|ningyo]]'' specimen in his ichthyological tract (1825).<ref name="honma"/><ref name="mori_baien"/> For much of the Edo Period, Nagasaki (in Kyūshū) was the only trade port open to foreign countries, and the only place where non-Japanese aliens could reside. Jan Cock Blomhoff, the Dutch East India Company director stationed in Dejima (the artificial island outpost off Nagasaki) is known to have acquired merfolk mummies; these and other specimens are now held in the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, Netherlands.{{sfnp|Viscardi|Hollinshead|MacFarlane|Moffat|2014|p=102}}{{sfnp|Yamaguchi|2010|p=98}}<ref name="miyazaki"/>

[[File:Mashhad museum PARI DARYAEI.jpg|thumb|upright=0.5|A mummified "[[Sea devil (disambiguation)|Sea Devil]]" ({{langx|fa|شیطان دریا}}) fish, [[Place:Mashhad|Mashhad]] Museum, Iran.]]
The equivalent industry in Europe was the [[Biology:Jenny Haniver|Jenny Haniver]] made from dried rays.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Ley |first=Willy |title=Basilisk and Jenny Haniver |journal=4H-Horizons |volume=3 |year=1939 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rSNGAAAAYAAJ&q="Jenny+Haniver" |page=22}}; reprinted in ''The Lungfish, the Dodo, and the Unicorn'' (New York: Viking, 1948), pp. 57–66: "And then there existed a European equivalent to the Eastern Mermaid, the 'Jenny Haniver' &nbsp;..."</ref>

In the middle of the seventeenth century, John Tradescant the elder created a wunderkammer (called Tradescant's Ark) in which he displayed, among other things, a "mermaid's hand".<ref>{{cite book|last=Yanni|first= Carla |title =Nature's Museums: Victorian Science and the Architecture of Display|year=2005|publisher= Princeton Architectural Press|location=New York|isbn=1-56898-472-3|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=nT3hJxTKoeEC&pg=PA20 |edition=1st pbk. | page=20}}</ref>

=== Mermaid shows ===
Scantily clad women placed in watertanks and impersonating mermaids performed at the 1939 New York World's Fair. It was part of the "Dream of Venus" installation by [[Philosophy:Surrealism|Surrealist]] artist Salvador Dalí. The mermaid interacted with Oscar the Obscene Octopus, and the ongoings were portrayed in E. L. Doctorow's novel ''World's Fair''.<ref name="kokai"/>

Professional female divers have performed as mermaids at Florida's Weeki Wachee Springs since 1947. The state park calls itself "The Only City of Live Mermaids"<ref>{{cite news | last = Connolly | first = Kevin P. | url = https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2012/07/05/weeki-wachee-mermaids-other-aquatic-humanoids-are-unreal-feds-say/ | title = Florida mermaids not real: Weeki Wachee mermaids, other 'aquatic humanoids' are unreal, feds say | newspaper = Orlando Sentinel | date = 5 July 2012 | access-date = 26 July 2012 | archive-date = 18 May 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130518142942/http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-07-05/news/os-florida-mermaids-weeki-wachee-20120705_1_mermaids-website-atmospheric-administration | url-status = live }}</ref> and was extremely popular in the 1960s, drawing almost one million tourists per year.<ref name = "wired1">{{cite magazine|last=Schiller |first= Jakob |url = https://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/04/professional-mermaids-are-lost-treasure-of-florida-park/ |title=Professional Mermaids Are Lost Treasure of Florida Park | magazine = Wired |date=20 April 2012 |access-date=26 July 2012}}</ref> Most of the current performers work part-time while attending college, and all are certified Scuba divers. They wear fabric tails and perform aquatic ballet (while holding their breath) for an audience in an underwater stage with glass walls. Children often ask if the "mermaids" are real. The park's PR director says, "Just like with Santa Claus or any other mythical character, we always say yes. We're not going to tell them they're not real".<ref>{{cite web|last=Abbey |first=Melissa |url=http://articles.cnn.com/2012-07-05/us/us_mermaids-noaa_1_weeki-wachee-springs-noaa-atmospheric-administration?_s=PM:US |title=Mermaids don't exist... or do they? |publisher=CNN|date=5 July 2012 |access-date=26 July 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120725164446/http://articles.cnn.com/2012-07-05/us/us_mermaids-noaa_1_weeki-wachee-springs-noaa-atmospheric-administration?_s=PM%3AUS |archive-date=25 July 2012 }}</ref>

The Ama are Japanese skin divers, predominantly women, who traditionally dive for shellfish and [[Biology:Seaweed|seaweed]] wearing only a loincloth and who have been in action for at least 2,000 years.<ref name="nukada"/> Starting in the twentieth century, they have increasingly been regarded as a tourist attraction. They operate off [[Earth:Reef|reef]]s near the shore, and some perform for sightseers instead of diving to collect a harvest. They have been romanticized as mermaids.<ref>{{cite book|last= Stott|first= Rebecca|title= Oyster|year= 2004 | publisher = Reaktion Books|location=London|isbn=978-1-86189-221-8|page=194|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=3qx2ELi_roMC&pg=PA194}}</ref>

== Scientific inquiry ==

The topic of mermaids in earnest has arisen in several instances of scientific scrutiny, including a biological assessment of the unlikelihood of the supposed evolutionary biology of the mermaid on the popular marine science website ''DeepSeaNews''. Five of the primary reasons listed as to why mermaids do not fit current evolutionary understanding are [[Physics:Thermoregulation|thermoregulation]] (adaptations for regulating body heat); evolutionary mismatch; reproductive challenges; digestive differences between mammals and fish; and lack of physical evidence.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.deepseanews.com/2013/10/fishful-thinking-five-reasons-why-mermaids-cant-physically-exist/ |title=Five Reasons Why Mermaids Can't Physically Exist |first=Sheanna |last=Steingass |website=DeepSeaNews |date=30 October 2013 |access-date=17 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190307201459/http://www.deepseanews.com/2013/10/fishful-thinking-five-reasons-why-mermaids-cant-physically-exist/ |archive-date=7 March 2019 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Mermaids were discussed {{linktext|tongue-in-cheek}} in a scientific article by [[Organization:University of Washington|University of Washington]] emeritus oceanographer Karl Banse,<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://web.uvic.ca/~starzom/Banse1990_MermaidBiology.pdf |title=Mermaids – Their Biology, Culture, and Demise |first=Karl |last=Banse |journal= Limnology and Oceanography|date=January 1990 |volume=35 |number=1 |access-date=17 March 2019 |pages=148–153 |doi=10.4319/lo.1990.35.1.0148 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120916235532/http://web.uvic.ca/~starzom/Banse1990_MermaidBiology.pdf |archive-date=16 September 2012|bibcode=1990LimOc..35..148B }}</ref> written as a parody.<ref name=dundes/>

== Arts, entertainment, and media ==


[[File:Rhinegold and the Valkyries p 072.jpg|thumb|left|[[Arthur Rackham]], Rhinemaidens, from ''The Rhinegold & The Valkyrie'' (1910).]]

[[File:Vanity Fair D467.png|thumb|upright=0.6|An illustration of ''[[Vanity Fair (novel)|Vanity Fair]]''{{'s}} Becky Sharp as a man-killing mermaid, by the work's author William Thackeray.]]

=== Literature ===

The best-known example of mermaids in literature is probably Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, "The Little Mermaid", first published in 1837.<ref name="jarvis"/> The title character, youngest of the Merman-king's daughters, falls in love with a human prince{{Efn|The prince remains unacquainted with her, despite being saved by her from a shipwreck. The mermaid had brought him ashore unconscious and then hid behind rocks and covered herself in foam to hide.}} and also longs for an eternal [[Philosophy:Soul|soul]] like humans, despite the shorter lifespan. The two cravings are intertwined: only by achieving true love will her soul bind with a human's and become everlasting. But the mermaid's fish-tail poses an insurmountable obstacle for enticing humans, and a sea-witch offers a potion to transform into human form, at a price (the mermaid's tongue and beautiful voice). The mermaid endures the excruciating pain of having human legs, and despite her inability to speak, almost succeeds in wedding the prince, but for a twist of fate.{{Efn|The prince is betrothed to a princess, who turns out to be the girl he mistakenly believed to be his rescuer (due to the mermaid's concealment).}} The mermaid is doomed unless she stabs the prince with a magic knife on his wedding night. She refuses to harm him and dies the mermaid way, dissolving into foam. However, her selflessness has earned her a second chance at salvation, and she is resurrected as an air spirit.<ref>{{cite book|first=Hans Christian |last=Andersen |author-link=Hans Christian Andersen
 |translator=Robert Nisbet Bain |translator-link=Robert Nisbet Bain |others=Illustrated by John Reinhard Weguelin |chapter=The Little Mermaid |title=The Little Mermaid and Other Stories |publisher=Lawrence and Bullen |location=London |date=1893 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ezZDAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1 |pages=1–36}}</ref>

Andersen's works has been translated into over 100 languages.<ref>{{cite book|title=Biographical dictionary of literary influences: the nineteenth century, 1800–1914|year=2001|publisher=Greenwood Press | location =Westport, CT| isbn= 978-0-313-30422-4|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=3N3uj_wo-_kC&pg=PA20| editor-first =John | editor-last = Powell |page= 20}}</ref> One of the main literary influences for Andersen's mermaid was ''Undine'', an earlier German novella about a water nymph who could only obtain an immortal soul by marrying a human.<ref>{{cite book| last= Brandes|first= George Morris Cohen|title= The Romantic School in Germany (1873) | year =1902|publisher=The Macmillan Co |location=New York|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=UUbZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA301|page=301}}</ref> Andersen's heroine inspired a bronze sculpture in [[Place:Copenhagen|Copenhagen]] harbour and influenced Western literary works such as [[Biography:Oscar Wilde|Oscar Wilde]]'s ''The Fisherman and His Soul'' and [[Biography:H. G. Wells|H. G. Wells]]' ''The Sea Lady''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wullschläger |first=Jackie |url=https://archive.org/details/hanschristianand0000wull |title=Hans Christian Andersen: the life of a storyteller |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-226-91747-4 |location=Chicago, IL |page=[https://archive.org/details/hanschristianand0000wull/page/176 176] |url-access=registration}}</ref>

=== Art and music ===

Sculptures and statues of mermaids can be found in many countries and cultures, with over 130 public art mermaid statues across the world. Countries with public art mermaid sculptures include Russia, Finland, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Denmark, Norway, England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, India, China, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Guam, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, the Cayman Islands, Mexico, Saudi Arabia (Jeddah), the United States (including Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands) and Canada.<ref>{{Citation | type = map | title = Mermaids of Earth | url = http://www.mermaidsofearth.com/}}.</ref>

An influential image was created by the Pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse, from 1895 to 1905, entitled ''A Mermaid'' (Cf. figure, top of page). 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 did not resurface until the 1970s. It is currently once again in the Royal Academy's collection.<ref>{{Citation |  last = Prettejohn | first = Elizabeth | display-authors = etal | year = 2008 | title = J. W. Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite | page = 144 | publisher = Thames & Hudson | place = London | isbn = 978-90-8586-490-5}}.</ref> Waterhouse's mermaid grooms her hair with comb and mirror, the stereotypical implements of the mermaid, likely designed to portray her as temptress,<ref name="rhodes" /> and her red hair ([[Auburn hair|auburn hair]]<ref name="rhodes" />) is a match for the hair colour of Venus.<ref name="fraser-prehistory-west" />{{efn|And the comb and mirror were originally associated with Aphrodite/Venus, as Fraser points out here.}} Waterhouses's ''The Siren'' (1900) also depicts the siren as a mermaid of sorts, representing the ''[[Social:Femme fatale|femme fatale]]''<ref>{{harvp|Kestner|1989|p=300}}, the exact language is "jeune fille fatale".</ref> drawing men to destruction. In the modern age of course, the word "siren" is used as a synonym of ''femme fatale''.<ref name="fraser-prehistory-west" />
<!--
Mermaids were a favorite subject of John Reinhard Weguelin, a contemporary of Waterhouse. He painted an image of the mermaid of Zennor as well as several other depictions of mermaids in watercolour.--><!--true but need a non-commercial source-->

Musical depictions of mermaids include those by Felix Mendelssohn in his ''Fair Melusina'' overture and the three "Rhine daughters" in Richard Wagner's opera ''Der Ring des Nibelungen''.<!--opera has libretto so more than just music--> Lorelei, the name of a Rhine mermaid immortalized in the [[Biography:Heinrich Heine|Heinrich Heine]] poem of that name, has become a synonym for a siren. ''The Weeping Mermaid'' is an orchestral piece by Taiwanese composer Fan-Long Ko.<ref>{{cite web |last=Chiu |first=Felicity Fei-Hsien |date=16 July 2010 |title=Taiwan New Sound Concert–Requiem for the 228 Incident |url=http://www.wretch.cc/blog/phesha0822/13941275 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121027123219/http://www.wretch.cc/blog/phesha0822/13941275 |archive-date=27 October 2012 |access-date=24 July 2012 |publisher=Wretch}}</ref>

=== Motion pictures ===

Film depictions include ''Miranda'' (1948),<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47226671 |title=Glynis Johns has a mermaid tail in "Miranda" |newspaper=The Australian Women's Weekly |volume=15 |issue=6  |date=19 July 1947 |access-date=31 August 2017 |page=36 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> 
''Night Tide'' (1961),<ref>{{cite web |title=Night Tide. 1961. Written and directed by Curtis Harrington |url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/5059 |publisher=MoMA |access-date=7 September 2025}}</ref> 
the romantic comedy ''Splash'' (1984),<ref>{{cite web |last1=Tarr |first1=Judith |title=Just a Frothy Little Bubble: Splash Tackles the Mermaid Genre |url=https://reactormag.com/just-a-frothy-little-bubble-splash-tackles-the-mermaid-genre/ |website=Reactor |date=10 October 2023 |access-date=7 September 2025}}</ref> 
and ''Aquamarine'' (2006).<ref>{{cite web |first=Patrick |last=Ryan |date=4 June 2021 |title=The 5 best mermaid movies to watch this summer (including 'Undine' and Tom Hanks' 'Splash') |website=[[Software:USA Today|USA Today]] |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2021/06/04/best-mermaid-movies-list-undine-splash-aquamarine/7517564002/ |access-date=22 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |archive-date=11 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210611002551/https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2021/06/04/best-mermaid-movies-list-undine-splash-aquamarine/7517564002/ |url-status=live}}</ref>
In ''She Creature'' (2001), two carnival workers abduct a mermaid in Ireland {{Circa|1900}} and attempt to transport her to America.<ref>{{cite web|title=She Creature (2002) - A Review by David Nusair |url=http://www.reelfilm.com/shecreat.htm|website=ReelFilm.com|publisher=David Nusair |access-date=August 15, 2021}}</ref> 
The film ''Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides'' makes many uses of the mermaid theme.<ref name=making2>{{cite news|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/making-pirates-caribbean-186743?page=2 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110919233711/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/making-pirates-caribbean-186743?page=2 |archive-date=September 19, 2011 |page=2 |title=The Making of 'Pirates of the Caribbean' |first=Stephen |last=Galloway |work=The Hollywood Reporter |date=May 10, 2011 |access-date=July 29, 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Disney's musical animated version of Andersen's tale, ''The Little Mermaid'', was released in 1989.<ref name="WDFAtimeline">{{Citation| last = Moore| first = Roger| title = After the Magic; Scores of Former Disney Animators and Their Colleagues Have Dispersed to Launch Their Own Studios, Seek New Careers and Discover New Identities{{Snd}} Determined to Land on Their Feet | newspaper = Orlando Sentinel| pages = F1| date = 20 June 2004| url = https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/orlandosentinel/access/653286501.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Jun+20%2C+2004&author=Roger+Moore%2C+Sentinel+Movie+Critic&pub=Orlando+Sentinel&edition=&startpage=F.1&desc=AFTER+THE+MAGIC+%3B+SCORES+OF+FORMER+DISNEY+ANIMATORS+AND+THEIR+COLLEAGUES+HAVE+DISPERSED+TO+LAUNCH+THEIR+OWN+STUDIOS%2C+SEEK+NEW+CAREERS+AND+DISCOVER+NEW+IDENTITIES+--+DETERMINED+TO+LAND+ON+THEIR+FEET.| access-date = 8 May 2010| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121107224831/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/orlandosentinel/access/653286501.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Jun+20%2C+2004&author=Roger+Moore%2C+Sentinel+Movie+Critic&pub=Orlando+Sentinel&edition=&startpage=F.1&desc=AFTER+THE+MAGIC+%3B+SCORES+OF+FORMER+DISNEY+ANIMATORS+AND+THEIR+COLLEAGUES+HAVE+DISPERSED+TO+LAUNCH+THEIR+OWN+STUDIOS%2C+SEEK+NEW+CAREERS+AND+DISCOVER+NEW+IDENTITIES+--+DETERMINED+TO+LAND+ON+THEIR+FEET.| archive-date = 7 November 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| website=IGN| date=3 October 2006| title=Double Dip Digest: ''The Little Mermaid''| url=http://dvd.ign.com/articles/737/737058p1.html| access-date=23 December 2009| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090402194119/http://dvd.ign.com/articles/737/737058p1.html |archive-date=2 April 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Notable changes to Andersen's story include removing the religious aspects of the fairy tale, including the mermaid's quest to obtain an immortal soul. The sea-witch herself replaces the princess to whom the prince becomes engaged, using the mermaid's voice to prevent her from obtaining the prince's love. However, on their wedding day the plot is revealed and the sea-witch is vanquished. The knife motif is not used in the film, which ends with the mermaid and the prince marrying.<ref>Walt Disney Studios, ''The Little Mermaid'' (film, 1989).</ref>

=== Heraldry ===

[[File:POL Warszawa COA 1.svg|thumb|upright=0.65|Arms of [[Warsaw]] ]]

In heraldry, the charge of a mermaid is commonly represented with a comb and a mirror,<ref>{{cite book | title = Fourteenth Century England | volume = 2|year= 2002| publisher= The Boydell Press| location= Woodbridge, UK | isbn = 0-85115-891-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7-qRZK9YXDgC&pg=PA121| editor-first =Chris | editor-last = Given-Wilson|page=121}}</ref><ref name="Davies">{{cite book |last=Fox-Davies |first=Arthur |title=A Complete Guide to Heraldry |publisher=T.C. and E.C. Jack |location=London |date=1909 |page=227 |url=https://archive.org/details/completeguidetoh00foxduoft |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> and blazoned as a "mermaid in her vanity".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://history.westkingdom.org/RoyaltyArms/WestPart5.htm |title=The History of the Kingdom of The West: Royalty |publisher=West kingdom |access-date=24 July 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130225112758/http://history.westkingdom.org/RoyaltyArms/WestPart5.htm |archive-date=25 February 2013 }}</ref> In addition to vanity, mermaids are also a symbol of eloquence.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sloan Evans |first=William |author-link=<!--William Sloan Evans--> |title=A Grammar of British Heraldry |publisher=J. R. Smith |year= 1854 |location= London |url= https://archive.org/details/agrammarbritish00evagoog| page = [https://archive.org/details/agrammarbritish00evagoog/page/n191 145]}}</ref>

Mermaids appear with greater frequency as heraldic devices than mermen do. A merman and a mermaid are depicted on the coat of arms of Schouwen-Duiveland. A mermaid appears on the arms of the [[Organization:University of Birmingham|University of Birmingham]], in addition to those of several British families.<ref name="Davies"/>
A mermaid with two tails is called a [[Unsolved:Melusine|melusine]]. Melusines appear in German heraldry, and less frequently in the British version.<ref name="Davies"/> A shield and sword-wielding mermaid (''Syrenka'') is on the official coat of arms of Warsaw.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.ucl.ac.uk/atlas/polish/mywarsaw/warsaw10.html | publisher = UCL | location = UK | title = The Mermaid | access-date = 11 February 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080310204657/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/atlas/polish/mywarsaw/warsaw10.html | archive-date = 10 March 2008 | url-status = dead }}</ref> Images of a mermaid have symbolized Warsaw on its arms since the middle of the fourteenth century.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.um.warszawa.pl/v_syrenka/perelki/index_en.php?mi_id=47&dz_id=2 | title = Warsaw Mermaid's Statue | access-date = 10 July 2008 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081207092210/http://www.um.warszawa.pl/v_syrenka/perelki/index_en.php?mi_id=47&dz_id=2 | archive-date = 7 December 2008 }}</ref> Several legends associate [[Religion:Triton (mythology)|Triton]] of Greek mythology with the city, which may have been the origin of the mermaid's association.<ref name="legend">{{cite web | url = http://www.e-warsaw.pl/miasto/herb-1.htm | title = History of Warsaw's Coat of Arms | work = e-Warsaw | access-date = 10 July 2008 | archive-date = 29 May 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080529212011/http://www.e-warsaw.pl/miasto/herb-1.htm | url-status = dead }}</ref>

The Cusack family crest includes a mermaid wielding a sword, as depicted on a memorial stone for Sir Thomas Cusack (1490–1571).<ref>{{cite journal  | last = Hickey | first = Elizabeth |  title = Monument to Sir Thomas Cusack | journal = Records of Meath Archaeological & Historical Society | year = 1971 | volume = IV | issue = 5 | pages = 76, 84 | publisher = Meath Archaeological & Historical Society | location = Meath, Ireland }}</ref>

Mermaids appear on the coat of arms of Ustka, Białobrzegi and Białobrzegi County (Poland), Seeboden am Millstätter See (Austria), Bray (Ireland), Santa Colomba de Curueño, Ruente, Bertizarana, Villanueva de la Serena (Spain), Päijät-Häme (Finland), Åsgårdstrand (Norway), Royat, Xammes, Lancieux, Erquy, Chens-sur-Léman, Didenheim, Wimereux (France), Eemsmond, Makkum, Uithuizermeeden (Netherlands), Waasmunster (Belgium), and Westerdeichstrich (Germany). The city of Norfolk, Virginia also uses a mermaid as a symbol.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mermaid History {{!}} City of Norfolk, Virginia - Official Website |url=https://www.norfolk.gov/3865/History |access-date=2024-09-07 |website=www.norfolk.gov}}</ref> The personal coat of arms of Michaëlle Jean, former Governor General of Canada, features two mermaids as supporters.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gg.ca/en/heraldry/public-register/project/929 |website=Canadian Heraldic Authority |title=The Public Register of Arms, Flags, and Badges of Canada |first=Michaëlle |last=Jean |publisher=Queen's Printer for Canada |date=20 September 2005 |access-date=10 January 2024 }}</ref>

== Fandom ==
Interest in mermaid costuming has grown with the popularity of fantasy cosplay, as well as the availability of inexpensive monofins used in the construction of these costumes. The costumes are typically designed to be used while swimming, in an activity known as mermaiding. Mermaid fandom conventions have also been held.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/aug/14/photos-mermaid-convention-and-awards-silverton-cas/ |title=Photos: Mermaid convention breaks record(s), returns to L.V. next year |first1=Don |last1=Chareuncy |first2=Robin |last2=Leach |date=14 August 2011 |newspaper=Las Vegas Sun |access-date=1 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120911080517/http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/aug/14/photos-mermaid-convention-and-awards-silverton-cas/ |archive-date=11 September 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.orlandosentinel.com/travel/os-merpalooza-convention-pictures-20120811,0,6329605.photogallery |newspaper=Orlando Sentinel |title=Photos: Mer-Palooza Mermaid Convention in Orlando |last=Cruey |first=Joshua C. |date=11 August 2012 |access-date=1 October 2012}}</ref>

== Gallery ==
===Illustrations and paintings===
<!--Images in chronological order-->
{{gallery|mode=packed
|File:A most strange and true report of a monsterous fish. 1604 rotated.jpg|'A most strange and true report of a monstrous fish' Illustration from an early printed report of a Mermaid sighting, 1604
|File:MermenLubok.jpg|Mermaid and merman, 1866. Unknown Russian [[Social:Folk art|folk art]]ist
|File:Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann havfruen.jpg|''Havfrue'', by Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann (1873)
|File:Play of the Nereides by Arnold Böcklin.jpg|''The Play of the Naiads'', by Arnold Böcklin (1886)
|File:The Little Mermaid by E.S. Hardy.jpg|Illustration of ''The Little Mermaid'' by E. S. Hardy ({{circa|1890}})
|File:John Collier - The Land Baby.jpg|''The Land Baby'', by John Collier (1899)
|File:The Mermaid of Zennor.jpg|''The Mermaid of Zennor'' by John Reinhard Weguelin (1900)
|File:The-Mermaid.jpg|''The Mermaid'', by Howard Pyle (1910)
|File:The Little Mermaid's Sisters - Anne Anderson.jpg|''The Little Mermaid's Sisters'' by Anne Anderson ({{Circa|1910}})
|File:The Mermaid and the Satyr.jpg|''The Mermaid and the Satyr'', by Ferdinand Leeke (1917)
|File:Auburtin - Mermaids.JPG|''Mermaids'', by {{ill|Jean Francis Auburtin|fr}} ({{circa|1920}})
}}

===Sculptures===
<!--Images in chronological order-->
{{gallery|mode=packed
|File:Copenhagen - the little mermaid statue - 2013.jpg|''The Little Mermaid'' statue in Copenhagen (1913)
|File:Songkhla mermaid - panoramio.jpg|The mermaid of the Phra Aphai Mani legend in Songkhla, Thailand (2006)
|File:Mermaid statue Nuuk Greenland.jpg|Mermaid statue in [[Place:Nuuk|Nuuk]], Greenland
}}

===Carvings===
<!--Images in chronological order-->
{{gallery|mode=packed
|File:Rio mau sereia.jpg|Mermaid carved on a capital of the Rio Mau Monastic church, Portugal (1151).
|File:Mermaid in Santo Domingo church (Pontevedra, Galicia).jpg|A stone coat of arms in Santo Domingo church (Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain), sixteenth century.
|File:Mermaid in Fefiñans Manor house (Cambados, Galicia).jpg|Mermaid in Fefiñans Manor house (Cambados, Galicia, Spain), sixteenth century.
|File:MermaidGuitarDF.JPG|Fountain depicting a mermaid playing a guitar, located in the Museum of the City of Mexico (seventeenth century)
|File:Mariño's coat of arms with mermaid (Mugardos, Galicia).jpg|A stone coat of arms in (Mugardos, Galicia, Spain), eighteenth century
|File:Golden Mermaid on Prince Frederick's Barge 1732.JPG|English carved decoration by James Richards on Prince Frederick's Barge, 1731–1732
|FIle:Igreja Matriz Povoa Varzim Sereia.JPG|Portuguese Baroque stonework in Póvoa de Varzim Matriz Church (1743–1757)
}}

===Other uses===
{{gallery|mode=packed
|File:Päijät-Häme.vaakuna.svg|A mermaid in the coat of arms of the Päijät-Häme region, Finland (1997)<ref>Iltanen, Jussi: ''Suomen kuntavaakunat'' (2013), Karttakeskus, {{ISBN|951-593-915-1}}</ref>
|File:John Vinycomb - Mermaid and Triton, 1906.jpg|A mermaid and a merman as heraldic supporters.
}}

== See also ==
{{columns-list|colwidth=35em|
* [[Medicine:Ichthyosis|Ichthyosis]]
* [[Religion:Kelpie|Kelpie]]
* List of piscine and amphibian humanoids
* Little Mermaids Bridge
* [[Unsolved:Melusine|Melusine]]
* [[Unsolved:Merlion|Merlion]]
* The Mermaid of Warsaw
* [[Unsolved:Merman|Merman]]
* Mythological hybrid
* [[Unsolved:Nereid|Nereid]]
* Sea monster
* [[Social:Witchcraft|Sea witch]]
* [[Unsolved:Selkie|Selkie]]
* [[Biology:Sirenia|Sirenia]]{{Snd}} an order of aquatic [[Biology:Mammal|mammal]]s that include [[Biology:Manatee|manatee]]s and [[Biology:Dugong|dugong]]s.
* [[Medicine:Sirenomelia|Sirenomelia]]{{Snd}} or "mermaid syndrome", a [[Disease|disorder]] in which a child is born with legs fused together.<ref name="Kallen">{{cite journal | last1 = Kallen | first1 = B | last2 = Castilla | first2 = EE | last3 = Lancaster | first3 = PA | last4 = Mutchinick | first4 = O | last5 = Knudsen | first5 = LB | last6 = Martinez-Frias | first6 = ML | last7 = Mastroiacovo | first7 = P | last8 = Robert | first8 = E |title=The cyclops and the mermaid: an epidemiological study of two types of rare malformation |journal=Journal of Medical Genetics |year=1992 |pages=30–5 |volume= 29 |issue= 1 |pmid = 1552541 | doi =10.1136/jmg.29.1.30 |pmc=1015818}}</ref>
* [[Religion:Susulu (mythology)|Susulu (mythology)]]
* Thessalonike of Macedon#The legend of Thessalonike
* [[Religion:Undine|Undine]]
}}

== Explanatory notes ==
{{Notelist}}

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{reflist||refs=
<ref name="alburo1977">{{citation|last=Alburo |first=Erlinda K. |author-mask=Alburo, Erlinda K. ed. tr.|others=Ramon L. Cerilles; Marian P. Diosay; and Lawrence M. Liao, researchers, Illustrated by Fred C. Dimaya |chapter=Ang Kataw |trans-chapter=The Mermaid |title=Cebuano Folktales |volume=2 |location=Cebu |publisher=San Carlos Publications, University of San Carlos |date=1977 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zz-BAAAAMAAJ&q=milkfish |pages= 16–18; 19–21 }}</ref>

<ref name="altdeutsche-physiologus-TITUS">{{cite web|url=http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/germ/ahd/physiold/physi.htm?physi005.htm |title=5. [De sirenis et onocentauris.] |website=Physiologus (OHG) |publisher=TITUS Project |access-date=2022-09-12}}, with the apparatus to load image (Cod. 223, fol. 32r)</ref>

<ref name="althochdeutschen-glossen">{{cite book|editor1-last=Steinmeyer |editor1-first=Elias von |editor1-link=Elias von Steinmeyer |editor2-last=Sievers |editor2-first=Eduard |editor2-link=Eduard Sievers |title=Die althochdeutschen Glossen |volume=1 |location=Berlin |publisher=Weidmann |year=1879 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PM04AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA602 |page=602}}</ref>

<ref name="altick">{{citation|last=Altick |first=Richard Daniel |chapter=Chapter 22. Life and Death in the Animal Kingdom |title=The Shows of London |publisher=Harvard University Press |date=1978 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5d3BJvgwNykC&pg=PA302 |pages=302–303 |isbn=<!--0674807316, -->9780674807310}}</ref>

<ref name="aramata-map">{{Cite book|ref={{SfnRef|荒俣|應矢|2021}}|last1=Aramata |first1=Hiroshi |last2=Ōya |first2=Yasunori |chapter=Ningyo |script-chapter=ja:人魚 |title=Aramata Hiroshi no Nihon zenkoku yōkai mappu |script-title=ja:アラマタヒロシの日本全国妖怪マップ |publisher=Shūwa system<!--秀和システム--> |year=2021 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZtRMEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA53 |page=53 |isbn=<!--4798065072, -->9784798065076 |language=ja}}</ref>

<ref name="arinos1917">{{cite book|editor-last=Arinos |editor-first=Afonso |chapter=A Yara |title=Lendas e tradiçiões brsilieras |location=Saõ Paulo |publisher=Typographia Levi |year=1917 |chapter-url=https://digital.bbm.usp.br/bitstream/bbm/6834/1/45000008586_Output.o.pdf |page=58<!--55–59-->}}</ref>

<ref name="arundel-catalogue">{{cite web |url=https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=7736 |title=Detailed record for Arundel 292 |website=British Library |access-date=2022-09-19 |archive-date=22 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220922023553/https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=7736 |url-status=dead }}, [https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=7569 fol. 8v "Natura Sirene"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220920171246/https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=7569 |date=20 September 2022 }}</ref>

<ref name="arwidsson">{{cite book|editor-last=Arwidsson |editor-first=Adolf Ivar |chapter=150. Hafsfrun |title=Svenska fornsånger |volume=2|location=Stockholm |publisher=P. A. Norstedt & söner |year=1837|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MW4CAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA320 |pages=320–323}}</ref>

<ref name="bain">{{cite book|last=Bain |first=Frederika |chapter=The Tail of Melusine: Hybridity, Mutability, and the Accessible Other |title=Melusine's Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth |publisher=[[Company:Brill Publishers|BRILL]] |year=2017 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xSk_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA25 |pages=25–26 |isbn=9789004355958 }}</ref>

<ref name="bartholin(copenhagen)1654">{{cite book|last=Bartholin |first=Thomas |chapter=Historia XI. Sirenis se Marini Hominis Anatome |title=Thomae Bartholini historiarum anatomicarum rariorum centuria (I et )II |location=Copenhagen |publisher=typis academicis Martzani, sumptibus Petri Hauboldt bibl. |year=1654 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2dxyQqZGEh4C&pg=PA186 |pages=186–191 |language=la}}, and [https://books.google.com/books?id=2dxyQqZGEh4C&pg=PA188-IA1 Plate].</ref>

<ref name="bartholin-tr-webster">Bartholin (1654), ''loc. cit.'': this passage translated in {{cite book|last=Webster |first=John |chapter=Chap. XV. Of divers Creatures that have a real existence in Nature, and yet by reason of their wonderous properties, or seldom being seen, have been taken for Spirits, and Devils |title=The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft |location=London |publisher=J. M. |year=1677 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gL9lAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA285 |pages=285–286}}</ref>

<ref name="bashe">{{cite journal|last=Bashe |first=E. J. |title=Some Notes on the Wade Legend |journal=Philological Quarterly |volume=2 |publisher=<!--University of Iowa,--> |date=1923 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oQc5AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA283 |page=283<!--282–288-->}}</ref>

<ref name="belden1940">{{cite journal|last=Belden |first=Henry M. |title=Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society |journal=The University of Missouri Studies |volume=15 |issue=1 |date=1 January 1940|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5HUcAAAAMAAJ&q=shipwreck |page=101}}</ref>

<ref name="Berne-Cod.318">{{cite web|url=https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/description/bbb/0318/ |title=Bern, Burgerbibliothek / Cod. 318 – Physiologus Bernensis |website=e-codices |access-date=2022-09-11}}, [https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/bbb/0318/ facsimile], [https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/doubleview/bbb/0318/13r/ fol. 13v]</ref>

<ref name="BL-Add11283">{{cite web |url=http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100055965341.0x000001 |title=British Library Add MS 11283 |website=British Library |access-date=2022-09-06 |archive-date=30 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230130170811/https://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100055965341.0x000001 |url-status=dead }}, fol. 20v.</ref>

<ref name="BL-Roy2.B.vii-catalogue">{{cite web |url=https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=6467&CollID=16&NStart=20207 |title=Detailed record for Royal 2 B VII (Queen Mary Psalter) |website=British Library |access-date=2022-09-06 |archive-date=17 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221017104335/https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=6467&CollID=16&NStart=20207 |url-status=dead }}, [https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=52724 fol. 96v] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220911143924/https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=52724 |date=11 September 2022 }}</ref>

<ref name="BlackGreen1992">{{cite book|last1=Black |first1=Jeremy |first2=Anthony |last2=Green |title=Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary |publisher=The British Museum Press|year=1992 |isbn= 0-7141-1705-6|pages=131–132}}</ref>

<ref name="Bodl764">{{cite web|url=https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/ecf96804-a514-4adc-8779-2dbc4e4b2f1e/surfaces/ee2bf789-7152-449b-9760-fa864718e2d0/ |title=Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 764 |website=Oxford University, the Bodleian Libraries |access-date=2022-09-09 }}, fol. 074v.</ref>

<ref name="bodley764-tr-barber">{{cite book|ref={{SfnRef|Barber tr.|1993}}|editor-last=Barber |editor-first=Richard |chapter=Sirens |title=Bestiary: Being an English Version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford M.S. Bodley 764 : with All the Original Miniatures Reproduced in Facsimile |publisher=Boydell Press |year=1993|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=94opjX2vfjQC&pg=PA150 |page=1150 |isbn=<!--085115753X,--> 9780851157535}}</ref>

<ref name="borovsky">{{cite book|last=Borovsky|first=Zoe Patrice |title=Rocking the Boat: Women in Old Norse Literature |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |date=1994 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CGFMAQAAMAAJ&q=furry |page=171 |quote=..further compared to a seal: 'Hon er loðin (hairy or furry) sem selr ok grá at lit'}}</ref>

<ref name="braeunlein&lauser">{{cite book|last1=Bräunlein|first1=Peter |last2=Lauser |first2=Andrea |title=Leben in Malula: ein Beitrag zur Ethnographie der Alangan-Mangyan auf Mindoro (Philippinen) |publisher=Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft |date=1993 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IPtvAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Navarrete%22+%22piscis+mulier%22+ |page=438, n29|isbn=<!--3890857914, -->9783890857916}}</ref>

<ref name="breucker">{{cite book|last=Breucker |first=Geert de |chapter=Berossos and the Construction off a Near Eastern Cultural History in Response to the Greeks |editor-last=Hokwerda |editor-first=Hero |title=Constructions of Greek Past: Identity and Historical Consciousness from Antiquity to the Present |publisher=BRILL |date=2021 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1hlREAAAQBAJ&pg=PA29 |pages=28–29<!--25–34--> |isbn=<!--9004495460, -->9789004495463}}</ref>

<ref name="broedel">{{citation|last=Broedel |first=Hans Peter |chapter=2. The Mermaid of Edam Meets Medical Science: Empiricism and the Marvelous in Seventeenth-Century Zoological Thought |editor1-last=Byars |editor1-first=Jana  |editor1-link=<!--Jana Byars--> |editor2-last=Broedel |editor2-first=Hans Peter |editor2-link=<!--Hans Peter Broedel--> |title=Monsters and Borders in the Early Modern Imagination |publisher=Routledge |date=2018 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AWJgDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT66 |isbn=<!--0429878850,  -->9780429878855}}</ref>

<ref name="brynildsen-norsk-engelsk-hav-frue&mand">{{cite book|editor-last=Brynildsen |editor-first=John |chapter=Hav (-frue 'mermaid, maiden'; -mand 'merman') |title=Norsk-engelsk ordbog |edition=2 |location=Kristiania |publisher=H. Aschehoug & Company |date=1917 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CKIYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA325 |page=325 |language=no}}</ref>

<ref name="buchholz">{{cite book|last=Buchholz |first=Peter |title=Vorzeitkunde: mündliches Erzählen u. Überliefern im mittelalterlichen Skandinavien nach d. Zeugnis von Fornaldarsaga u. eddischer Dichtung |publisher=Wachholtz |date=1980 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rQHXAAAAMAAJ&q=%22si%C3%B3kona |page=85 |language=de |isbn=<!--3529033138, -->9783529033131 |quote=Nach der ''Þiðreks saga'' 36 ( 46 ) ist der Riese Vaði der Sohn einer ''siókona'' (Meerfrau)}}</ref>

<ref name="bugge-tr-schoefield">{{cite book|last=Bugge |first=Sophus |translator-last=Schofield |translator-first=William Henry |translator-link=William Henry Schofield |title=The Home of the Eddic Poems: With Especial Reference to the Helgi-lays |edition=revised |location=London |publisher=David Nutt |date=1899 |series=Grimm library 11 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q5qKW4fpN-4C&pg=PA238 |pages=237–238}}</ref>

<ref name="burr">{{cite journal|last=Burr |first=Brooks M. |title=Reviewed Work(s): Fishes, Crayfishes, and Crabs. Louis Renard's Natural History of the Rarest Curiosities of the Seas of the Indies by Theodore W. Pietsch |journal=Copeia |volume=1997 |number=1 |publisher=<!--American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH)--> |date=18 February 1997 |pages=241–243|doi=10.2307/1447871 |jstor=1447871}}</ref>

<ref name="cascudo1950">{{cite journal|last=Cascudo |first=Luís da Câmara |title=Geografia do Brasil holandês |editor=Brazilian Historic and Geographic Institute (IHGB) |journal=Anais do IV Congresso de História Nacional |volume=4 |issue=4 |date=1950 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oJFnAAAAMAAJ&q=Alamoa |page=290<!--245–450-->|language=pt}}</ref>

<ref name="child_ballad042">{{cite book|editor-last=Child |editor-first=Francis James |chapter=42. Clerk Colvill |title=The English and Scottish Popular Ballads |volume=1, Part2 |location=Boston |publisher=Houghton, Mifflin and Company |date=1884   |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m9IVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA371 |pages=372–374<!--371–389--> |archive-url=https://archive.org/stream/englishandscopt201chiluoft#page/374/mode/2up |archive-date=2006-11-01 }}<!--https://books.google.com/books?id=zDjXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA371--></ref>
<ref name="child_ballad289">{{cite book|editor-last=Child |editor-first=Francis James |chapter=289. The Mermaid |title=The English and Scottish Popular Ballads |volume=Part IX |location=Boston |publisher=Houghton, Mifflin and Company |date=1884 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xNMVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA148 |pages=148–152}}</ref>

<ref name="chunko-dominguez">{{cite book|last=Chunko-Dominguez |first=Betsy |title=English Gothic Misericord Carvings: History from the Bottom Up |publisher=BRILL |date=2017 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jo1ZDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA82 |pages=82–84 |isbn=<!--900434120X, --> 9789004341203}}</ref>

<ref name="clark">{{cite book|last=Clark |first=Willene B.  |title=A Medieval Book of Beasts: The Second-family Bestiary: Commentary, Art, Text and Translation  |publisher=Boydell Press |date=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0olPRmCoE8MC&pg=PA57 |page=57 and n50 |isbn=<!--0851156827, -->9780851156828}}</ref>

<ref name="colin">{{cite book|last=Colín |first=Francisco |chapter=Lib. I. Cap. XVII. Algunas cosas naturales, proprias, y otras notables destas Islas. § II. Peces, y animales [marginalia: ''Pez Muller'' et seqq.]  |title=Labor Evangelica, Ministerios Apostolicos de los Obreros de la Compañia de Jesus, Fundacion, y Progressos de su Provincia en las Islas Filipinas |volume=Parte I<!--primera--> |location=Madrid |publisher=Por Joseph Fernandez de Buendia |date=1663 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-0BSAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA80 |pages=80–}}</ref>

<ref name="costa1887">{{cite book|last=Costa |first=Francisco Augusto Pereira da |section=A Alamôa |title=A ilhe de Fernando de Noronha |location=Pernambuco |publisher=Typ. de Manoel Figueiroa de Faria & Filhos |date=1887 |section-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bpAtAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA113 |pages=113–114}}</ref>

<ref name="davidson1958">{{cite journal|last=Davidson |first= H. R. Ellis |title=Weland the Smith |journal=Folklore  |volume=63 |number=3 |date=September 1958 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TXUNAQAAMAAJ&q=%22+Wittich%27s+father%27s+father%27s+mother%22 |pages=149–150<!--145–159--> |jstor=1258855}}</ref>

<ref name="diana@todamateria">{{cite web|url=https://www.todamateria.com.br/lenda-da-iara/ |last=Diana |first=Daniela |title=Lenda da Iara: Folclore |trans-title=Legend of the Iara: folkklore|language=pt|access-date=2025-01-29}}</ref>

<ref name=dundes>{{citation|last=Dundes |first=Alan |others=Lauren Dundes |chapter=The Trident and the Fork: Disney's 'The Little Mermaid' as a male construct |title=Bloody Mary in the Mirror: Essays in Psychoanalytic Folkloristics |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |year=2002 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MCi_ye_0k2EC&pg=PA56 |page=56 |isbn=1-578-06461-9}}</ref>

<ref name="elswit2015">{{cite book|last=Elswit |first=Sharon Barcan |title=The Latin American Story Finder: A Guide to 470 Tales from Mexico, Central America and South America, Listing Subjects and Sources|location= Jefferson, North Carolina |publisher=McFarland |year=2015|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sUunCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA212 |page=212 |isbn=<!--0786478950, -->9780786478958}}</ref>

<ref name="etting">{{cite journal|last=Etting |first= Vivian |title=The Rediscovery of Greenland during the Reign of Christian IV |journal=Journal of the North Atlantic |volume=2 |issue=Norse Greenland – Selected Papers from the Hvalsey Conference 2008 |year=2009 |page=159<!--151–160-->|quote=Dutch captain David Dannel [sic.].. a mermaid with 'flowing hair..' |jstor=26686946}}</ref>

<ref name="fonseca">{{cite journal|last=Fonseca |first= Pedro Carlos Louzada |title=Tropos da colonizaçao da América: discurso do gênero e simbolismo animal |journal=Romance Notes |volume=2 |issue=Norse Greenland – Selected Papers from the Hvalsey Conference 2008 |date=2009 |pages=3–4<!--3–11-->|doi= 10.1353/rmc.2009.0035 |quote=Se em Gandavo permanece ambíguo o tratamento do tropo da feminização da natureza, referida ao monstruoso, em Fernão Cardim essa figuração deixa-se entrever de form sugestiva, buscada a outro tropo da mentalidade religiosa medieval [If in Gandavo the treatment of the trope of the feminization of nature, referring to the monstrous, remains ambiguous, in Fernão Cardim this figuration lets itself be glimpsed in a suggestive way, sought from another trope of the medieval religious mentality.] |jstor=43801787 |s2cid= 201769444 |language=pt}}</ref>

<ref name="francisci">{{cite book|last=Francisci|first=Erasmus |chapter=Von den Meer-Menschen |title=Erasmi Francisci Ost- und West-Indischer wie auch Sinesischer Lust- und Stats-Garten |location=Nuremberg |publisher=Endter |date=1668 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i-RTAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1416 |page=1412 and [https://books.google.com/books?id=i-RTAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1412-IA1 Plate XLVII**] }}</ref>

<ref name="fraser-prehistory-west">{{harvp|Fraser|2017}}, Chapter 1. [https://books.google.com/books?id=EP-WDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT15 § Prehistory: Mermaids in the West]"[https://books.google.com/books?id=EP-WDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT15 end of section]</ref>

<ref name=garstad>{{cite journal|last=Garstad |first=Benjamin |title=Rome in the 'Alexander Romance'|journal=Harvard Studies in Classical Philology |volume=108 |year=2015 |page=500 <!--467–507-->|quote=<!--shark-people--> |jstor=44157821}}</ref>

<ref name="Getty-MS100-ex-Alnwick">{{cite web|url=https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/109B24 |title=Ms. 100 (2007.16), fol. 14. Sirens. about 1250–1260 |website=Getty Museum |access-date=2022-09-10}}. "serene"  fol. 20v</ref>

<ref name="goedecke">{{cite journal|last=Gödecke |first=P. A. |title=Studier öfver våra folkvisor från medeltiden |journal=Framtiden: Tidskrift för fosterländsk odling |volume=5 |date=1871 |pages=325–326<!--309–353--> |language=sv}}</ref>

<ref name="goodman">{{cite book|last=Goodman |first=Ailene S. |title=The Extraordinary Being: Death and the Mermaid in Baroque Literature |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |date=2021|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N5NOEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA261 |page=261<!--256–--> |isbn=<!--9004487891, -->9789004487895}}</ref>

<ref name="grabbe" >{{cite book|last=Grabbe |first=Lester L. |title=Like a Bird in a Cage: The Invasion of Sennacherib in 701 BCE |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |date=2003 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ln5NwF8L840C&pg=PA122 |pages=122–123 |isbn=<!--056720782X, -->9780567207821}}</ref>

<ref name="grafstroem&forssell">{{cite book|last1=Grafström |first1=Anders |last2=Forssell |first2=Christian |author-mask=Grafström, Anders (text); Forssell, Christian (ed.) |others=Johan Gustaf Sandberg (illustr.) |chapter=Helsingland |title=Ett år i Sverge: Taflor af Svenska almogens Klädedrägt, lefnadssätt och hemseder, samt de för Landets Historia märkvärdigaste Orter |publisher=J. Hörberg |date=1827 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rANdAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA52 |page=52 |language=sv}}; {{cite journal|author=J. Y. |title=Swedish Anitquities: translated and abridged from Forssell's Année en Suede |journal=The Antiquary |volume=IV |issue=95 |date=27 December 1873 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V9A3EaAdVpIC&pg=PA315 |page=315}}</ref>

<ref name="handschriftencensus-11043">{{cite web|url=https://handschriftencensus.de/11043 |title=Handschriftenbeschreibung 11043. Wien, Österr. Nationalbibl., Cod. 223 |website=Handschriftencensus |publisher=Philipps-Universität Marburg; Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz |access-date=2022-09-12}}</ref>

<ref name="hansen">{{cite book|editor-last=Hansen |editor-first=William |title=The Book of Greek & Roman Folktales, Legends & Myths |date=2017 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, New Jersey |isbn=9780691170152 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1ciXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA169 |pages=169–170}}</ref>

<ref name="harrison">{{cite book|last=Harrison |first=Jane Ellen |title=Myths of the Odyssey in Art and Literature |location=London |publisher=Rivingtons |year=1882 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1CkGAAAAQAAJ |pages=169–170; Plate 47a}}</ref>

<ref name="hasan-rokem">{{citation|last=Hasan-Rokem |first=Galit |chapter=Leviticus Rabbah 16, 1 – "Odysseus and the Sirens" in the Beit Leontis Mosaic from Beit She'an |editor1-last=Fine |editor1-first=Steven |editor1-link=Steven Fine |editor2-last=Koller |editor2-first=Aaron |editor2-link=<!--Aaron Koller--> |title=Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |date=2014 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AuYxCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA182 |page=182 |isbn=<!--1614512876, -->9781614512875 |series=Studia Judaica 73}}</ref>

<ref name="gorog1961">{{cite journal|last=Gorog |first=Ralph Paul de |title=A Note on the change of [h-] to [r-] in Normandy |journal=Romance Notes |volume=3 |number=1 |date=Autumn 1961 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lHdfAAAAMAAJ&q=still+aspirated |pages=73–77 |jstor=43800089}}</ref>
<ref name="gorog1964">{{cite journal|last=Gorog |first=Ralph Paul de |title=The Treatment of Norman in Jan de Vries' ''Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch'' |journal=Scandinavian Studies |volume=35 |number=3 |date=August 1964 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xTY8AAAAIAAJ&q=Altnordisches<!--Does not retrieve meaningful snippets beyond title--> |page=212 <!--209–217--> |jstor=40916633}}</ref>

<ref name="groot">{{cite book|last=Groot |first=Jan Jakob Maria |chapter=X. On Zoanthropy. 12. Man-fishes |title=The Religious System of China: book II. On the soul and ancestral worship |publisher=E.J. Brill |date=1901 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J71ZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA241 |page=241<!--237–243-->}}</ref>

<ref name="gujin_tushu_jicheng144">{{cite wikisource|editor=陳夢雷 |chapter=博物彙編/禽蟲典/第144卷 䱱魚釋名 |title=欽定古今圖書集成<!--Qinding Gujin Tushu Jicheng--> |date=1726 |wslink=zh:欽定古今圖書集成/博物彙編/禽蟲典/第144卷#䱱魚釋名 }}</ref>

<ref name="hawks">{{cite book|last=Hawks|first=Francis L. |author-mask=Hawks, Francis L. ("The Author of 'Uncle Philip's Conversations' ") |chapter=2 |title=The Adventures of Henry Hudson |location=New York |publisher=D. Appleton & Company |year=1842 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YyQ9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA37 |page=37|archive-url=https://archive.org/details/adventuresofhenr00philiala/page/n9 |archive-date=2006-11-16}}</ref>

<ref name="hayward2018-ch03">{{cite book|last=Hayward |first=Philip |chapter=Japan: The 'Mermaidization' of the Ningyo and related folkloric figures |editor-last=Hayward |editor-first=Philip |title=Scaled for Success: The Internationalisation of the Mermaid |date=2018a |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0861967322 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mrFiDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA51 |pages=51–52, 66<!--51–68-->}}</ref>

<ref name="hayward2018-ch05">{{cite book|last=Hayward |first=Philip |chapter=Chapter 5. From Dugongs to Sinetrons: Syncretic Mermaids in Indonesian Culture |editor-last=Hayward |editor-first=Philip |title=Scaled for Success: The Internationalisation of the Mermaid |publisher=Indiana University Press |date=2018b |isbn=978-0861967322 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mrFiDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA91 |pages=89–106}}</ref>

<ref name="herrera-sobek">{{cite book|last=Herrera-Sobek |first=María |chapter=Iara |title=Celebrating Latino Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Cultural Traditions |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2012 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bDIwZ8BieWcC&pg=PA159 |pages=159–160 |isbn=<!--031334339X, -->9780313343391}}</ref>

<ref name="honma">{{citation|last=Honma |first=Yoshiharu |title=Nihon korai no ningyo, ryūgūnotsukai no seibutsugaku |script-title=ja:日本古来の人魚、リュウグウノツカイの生物学<!--(第2分科会:環境・開発・自然・エネルギー,第10回研究大会報告要旨)--> |journal=Japan Sea Rim Studies<!--環日本海研究-->|number=11 |publisher=<!--環日本海学会編集委員会--> |date=2005-10-01 |url=https://dl.ndl.go.jp/view/prepareDownload?itemId=info%3Andljp%2Fpid%2F10943943&contentNo=1 |pages=126–127 |language=ja}}</ref>

<ref name="jacob">{{cite book|editor-last=Jacob |editor-first=Alexander |title=Henry More. The Immortality of the Soul |publisher=Springer/Martinus Nijhoff Publishers |year=1987 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rNTsCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA431 |page=431, n293/7 |isbn=978-94-010-8112-2}}</ref>

<ref name="jakobsen">{{cite book|last=Jakobsen |first=Jakob |chapter=havfrú, havfrúgv |title=Færøsk anthologi: Ordsamling og register udarbejdede af.. |volume=2 |publisher=S.L. Møllers bogtrykkeri |date=1891|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c7njAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA109 |page=109 }}</ref>

<ref name="jcb-library">{{cite web |title=1. Meer Mensch filier So bey Bragefanger Die Riepe Die abgefleischte hand 2. Schwimmende Firer (from Erasmi Francisci Ost-und West-indischer, 1668) |website=JCB Archive of Early American Images |publisher=John Carter Brown Library |url=https://jcb.lunaimaging.com/luna/servlet/detail/JCB~1~1~501084~115901379?qvq=w4s%3A%2Fwhere%2FSouth%2BAmerica%2Fwhen%2F1668%3Bsort%3Anormalized_date%2Cfile_name%2Csource_author%2Csource_title&mi=6&trs=14 |access-date=2022-07-27}}</ref>

<ref name="jon_arnason-eng-vol2-intro">{{Cite book|ref={{SfnRef|Jón Árnason|Powell (tr.)|Magnússon (tr.)|1866}}|author=Jón Árnason |translator1=George E. J. Powell |translator1-link=George E. J. Powell |translator2=Eiríkr Magnússon |translator2-link=Eiríkr Magnússon |title=Icelandic Legends |volume=2 |location=London |publisher=Longman, Green, and Co. |year=1866 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bJ_7jDsJPQUC&pg=PR56 |pages=lvi–lvii}}</ref>

<ref name="lionarons">{{cite book|last=Lionarons |first=Joyce Tally |chapter=The Otherworld and its Inhabitants in the ''Nibelungenlied'' |editor-last=McConnell |editor-first=Winder |title=A Companion to the Nibelungenlied |publisher=Camden House |year=1998 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wu0B6_XO3boC&pg=PA168 |pages=168–169<!--153–171--> |isbn=<!--1571131515, -->9781571131515}}</ref>

<ref name="jon_arnason-saebuar">{{harvnb|Jón Árnason|1862}} "Saebúar og vatna", p. 131.</ref>

<ref name="jongh">{{cite book|last=Jongh |first=Eddy de |title=Fish: Still Lifes by Dutch and Flemish Masters 1550-1700 |publisher=Centraal Museum |year=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RszqAAAAMAAJ&q=anthropomorphous |page=167 |isbn=9789059830059 }}</ref>

<ref name="jonston1657-latin">{{cite book|last=Jonston|first=Johannes |chapter=Titulus III. Caput. 1. De pisce ανθρωπόμορφω & Remoranti |title=Historiae naturalis de piscibus et cetis libri 5. |location=Amstelodamum |publisher=Ioannem Iacobi fil. Schipper |year=1657 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QkybpxkCt3gC&pg=PA146 |pages=146–147, Tab. XL}}</ref>

<ref name="jonston1660-nl">{{cite book|last=Jonston|first=Johannes |chapter=Boek. I. / III. Opschrift./ I. Hooft-St.: Van de visch Anthropomorphus, oft die een menschen-gestalte heeft, en van de Remorant |title=Beschryvingh van de Natuur der Vissen en bloedloze Water-dieren |location=Amsterdam |publisher=I. I. Schipper |year=1660 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JxFQAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA1-PA168 |page=168, Tab. XL}}<!--alt: https://books.google.com/books?id=gWjq9i6nlbAC&pg=RA2-PA168--></ref>

<ref name=keightley1850>{{citation|last=Keightley |first=Thomas |title=The Fairy Mythology: Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of various Countries |edition=new revised |publisher=H. G. Bohn |year=1850|orig-date=1828|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3cByu3_ZtaAC&pg=PA152 |pages=152–153}}</ref>

<ref name="kemmis">{{cite book|last=Kemmis |first=Deva F.  |chapter='Listening Down the Hall': An Epistemological Consideation of the Encounter with Melusine in the Germanic Literary Tradition |title=Melusine's Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth |publisher=BRILL |year=2017 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xSk_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA326 |pages=326–327 n11<!--324–343--> |isbn=9789004355958 }}</ref>

<ref name="kircher-magnes">{{cite book|last=Kircher |first=Athanasius |chapter=Lib. III.<!-- Mundi Sive Catenae Magn.--> Pars VI. Caput II. <!--De varijs animalibus Magneticis-->§VI. <!--De Magnete Aeolio, seu quod idem est, de Physa, seu Orbe pisce aegyptiaco-->: De Pisce Anthropomorpho, seu Syrene sanguinem trahente |title=Magnes sive De arte magnetica opus tripartitum |edition=3 |location=Rome |publisher=Deuersin et Zanobius Masotti |orig-date=1641 |date=1654 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2KdNIXN0SJUC&pg=PA531 |pages=531–532}}</ref>

<ref name="kokai">{{cite book|last=Kokai |first=Jennifer A. |title=Swim Pretty: Aquatic Spectacles and the Performance of Race, Gender, and Nature |location=Carbondale, Illinois |publisher=Southern Illinois University Press |date=2017 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L7I3DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA45 |pages=44–46|isbn=<!--0809336006, -->9780809336005}}</ref>

<ref name="kvideland&sehmsdorf">{{citation|editor1-last=Kvideland |editor1-first=Reimund |editor1-link=:no:Reimund Kvideland |editor2-last=Sehmsdorf |editor2-first=Henning K. |editor2-link=<!--Henning K. Sehmsdorf--> |title=Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend |publisher=U of Minnesota Press |year=1988 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HL8QYyP-DHMC&pg=PA36 |pages=35, 262 |isbn=<!--1452901600, -->9781452901602}}</ref>

<ref name="laity">{{cite journal|last=Laity |first= K. A. |title=Translating Saint as (Vi)king: St. Olaf in the ''Heimskringla'' |journal=Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies |volume=35 |number=1 |date=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ARlKHqHAQ3UC&q=margygr |page=176<!--169–202-->|issn=0083-5897 |doi=10.1484/J.VIATOR.2.300196|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

<ref name="leclercq-marx">{{cite journal|last=Leclercq |first=Jacqueline |title=De l'art antique à l'art médièval. A propos des sources du bestiaire carolingien et de se survivances à l'époque romane  |trans-title=From ancient to mediaeval Art. On the sources of Carolingian bestiaries and their survival in the romance period |journal=Gazette des Beaux-Arts |volume=113 |date=February 1989 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JYBLAAAAYAAJ&q=siren |pages=82, 88 |doi=10.2307/596378 |jstor=596378 |quote=Physiologus de Berne.. En contradiction avec le texte qui dépeint une Sirène-oiseau, c'est une Sirène – poisson qui, dans l'illustration, apparaît face au centaure.|url-access=subscription }} {{in lang|fr}}; {{cite book|last=Leclercq-Marx |first=Jacqueline |author-link=<!--Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx--> |title=La sirène dans la pensée et dans l'art de l'Antiquité et du Moyen Âge: du mythe païen au symbole chrétien |publisher=Classe des beaux-arts, Académie royale de Belgique |date=1997 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N2qix5cCTdgC |page=62ff <!--61–66-->|issn=0775-3276 |quote=The chapter devoted to the Siren and the Centaur is an excellent example of this because the Siren is represented as a woman-fish whereas she is described in the form of a woman-bird.. }}</ref>

<ref name="linnaeus-1769">{{cite book|last=Linné |first=Carl von |title=Caroli Linnæi ... Amoenitates academicæ, seu dissertationes variæ physicæ, medicæ, botanicæ antehac seorsim editæ, nunc collectæ et auctæ cum tabulis æneis |volume=7 |location=Leiden |publisher=Apud Godefredum Kiesewetter |date=1769 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l_b7hBIjGF0C&pg=PA324-IA1 |page=324}}</ref>

<ref name="macalister">{{cite book|last=Macalister |first=R. A. Stewart |title=The Philistines : their history and civilization |location=London |publisher=Pub. for the British Academy by H. Milford |date=1913 |url=https://archive.org/details/philistinestheir00maca/page/94/mode/2up|pages=95–96}}</ref>

<ref name="matsuda">{{cite journal|author=Hiroko Matsuda|title=Footsteps of Yao Bikuni|journal=The Japanese Journal of Ethnology|volume=43|issue=2|date=1979|pages=213–219}} Cited in {{harvnb|Ōbayashi|1979|p=71}}.</ref>

<ref name="matthews">{{cite book|last=Matthews |first=John Hobson |title=A History of the Parishes of St. Ives, Lelant, Towednack and Zennor: In the County of Cornwall |location=London |publisher=Elliott Stock |date=1892 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oZULAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA383 |page=383}}</ref>

<ref name="mcculloch">{{cite book|last=McCulloch |first=Florence |title=Mediaeval Latin and French Bestiaries |location=Chapel Hill |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |year=1962 |orig-year=1960 |edition=revised |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YJzfAAAAMAAJ&q=mermaid |page=167 |quote=Edmond Faral has called attention to what he believes is the first mention of this new type of siren.<sup>151</sup> It is contained in the late seventh or early eighth century ''Liber monstrorum'' }}</ref>

<ref name="ME-bestiary-ed-morris">{{cite book|editor-last=Morris |editor-first=Richard |chapter=Natura Sirene |trans-chapter=The Mermaid |title=An Old English miscellany containing a bestiary, Kentish sermons, Proverbs of Alfred, religious poems of the thirteenth century |publisher=Early English Text Society|date=1872 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sVMJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA18 |pages=18–19 |series=E.E.T.S. Original series 49}} With marginal synopsis.</ref>
{{void|<ref name="minakata">{{citation|last=Minakata |first=Kumagusu|author-mask=2 |chapter=Ningyo no hanashi |script-chapter=ja:人魚の話 |title=Minakata Kumagusu zenshū |script-title=ja:南方熊楠全集 |volume=6 |publisher=平凡社 |date=1973 |orig-date=1901 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ypwLAAAAIAAJ&q=人魚 |pages=305–311}} [http://kiebine2007.amearare.com/minakata6.htm htm edition]</ref>}}

<ref name="millington&spencer1993">{{cite book|last1=Millington |first1=Barry |last2=Spencer |first2= Stewart |author-link2=<!-- Stewart Spencer--> |chapter=Notes on the translation |title=Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung: A Companion |publisher=Thames & Hudson |date=1993 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jwI7CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT590|isbn= 0500771464 }}</ref>

<ref name="miyazaki">{{Cite book|editor1-last=Miyazaki |editor1-first=Katsunori |editor1-link=:ja:宮崎克則 |editor2=Fukuoka Archive Kenkyūkai<!--福岡アーカイブ研究会--> |title=Kaempfer ya Siebold tachi ga mita Kyūshū sosshite Nipon |script-title=ja:ケンペルやシーボルトたちが見た九州、そしてニッポン |publisher=Kaichōsha<!--海鳥社--> |date=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fXNMAQAAIAAJ&q=人魚 |page=149|isbn=9784874157275 }}</ref>

<ref name="morais">The novelist Morais (1926) [https://books.google.com/books?id=qxMsAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA80 ''Na planicie amazonica''], p. 80 "A yára [iara] ,.. Metade mulher, metade peixe, .. cauda de escamas multicores (The iara.. part-woman, part-fish, .. tail with multicolored scales) " is oft-quoted, as in Cascudo (2002) [https://books.google.com/books?id=rXgSAQAAIAAJ&q=iara+peixe ''Antologia do folclore brasileiro''], 9th ed., '''2''': 178.</ref>

<ref name="mori_baien">{{Cite book|last=Mōri |first=Baien<!--毛利大江元寿梅園白石瑛--> |chapter=Ningyo |script-chapter=ja:人魚 |title=Baien gyofu |script-title=ja:梅園魚譜 |date=1825<!--毛利江元寿文政八酉年ノ撰ナリ.--> |url=https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1286914/29 |pages=<!--unpaginated-->}}</ref>

<ref name="mueller2011">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Müller |first=Ullrich [UM] |entry=Rhine Maidens |editor1-last=Gentry |editor1-first=Francis G. |editor1-link=<!--Francis G. Gentry--> |editor2-last=Wunderlich  |editor2-first=Werner |editor2-link=<!--Werner Wunderlich--> |editor3-last=McConnell |editor3-first=Winder |editor3-link=<!--Winder McConnell--> |editor4-last=Mueller |editor4-first=Ulrich |editor4-link=<!--Ulrich Mueller--> |title=The Nibelungen Tradition: An Encyclopedia |publisher=Routledge |year=2011 |orig-year=2002 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HL8QYyP-DHMC&pg=PA167 |pages=167–168 |isbn=0-8153-1785-9<!--, 9780815317852-->}}</ref>

<ref name=nakamaru-citing-kojien>{{cite journal|last=Nakamaru |first=Teiko |title=Hakubutsugaku no ningyo hyōshō: honyūrui, josei, uo |script-title=ja:博物学の人魚表象―哺乳類、女性、魚― |trans-title=How the Naturalists Described Merfolk or Mermaids : Fishes, Women, and Mammalia |journal=Journal of Comparative literature<!--比較文学-->  |volume=58 | publisher=Nihon Hikaku Bungakukai<!--日本比較文学会--> |year=2015 |url=https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/hikaku/58/0/58_7/_pdf |page=8<!--7–23-->}}, comparing the definitions of ''ningyo'' in ''Kojien'' dictionary, 5th edition (1998) and 6th edition (2008). The definition shifts from "half human woman" to "half human (usually woman).</ref>

<ref name="nansen">{{cite book|last=Nansen|first=Fridtjof |translator-last=Chater |translator-first=Arthur G. |translator-link=<!--Arthur G. Chater--> |title=In Northern Mists |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2014|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wb1kAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA244 |page=244 |isbn=<!--1108071694, -->9781108071697}}</ref>

<ref name="navarrete-tr-blair&robertson">{{cite book|editor1-last=Blair |editor1-first=Emma Helen |editor1-link=Emma Helen Blair |editor2-last=Robertson |editor2-first=James Alexander |editor2-link=James Alexander Robertson |others=Edward Gaylord Bourne, notes |chapter=Manila and the Philippines about 1650 (concluded). Domingo Fernandez Navarrete, O. P.; Madrid, 1675 [From his ''Tratados historicos''.] |title=The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803: Explorations |volume=38 |publisher=A. H. Clark Company |year=1906 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QcvTAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA29 |page=29}}</ref>

<ref name="navarrete-tr-churchill">{{cite book|editor1-last=Churchill |editor1-first=Awnsham |editor1-link=Awnsham Churchill |editor2-last=Churchill |editor2-first=John |editor2-link=<!--John Churchill--> |chapter=Chapter V. His Stay in Manila |title=An Account of the Empire of China, Historical, Political, Moral and Religious.. (in: A Collection of Voyages and Travels, Some Now First Printed from Original Manuscripts. Others Translated Out of Foreign Languages and Now First Publish'd in English) |volume=1 |publisher=Black Swan in Pater-Noster-Row |year=1704 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7rabk_wcv4IC&pg=PA249 |page=249}}</ref>

<ref name="navarrete-tr-cummins">{{cite book|editor-last=Cummins |editor-first=J. S. |chapter=Book VI:The Author's Travels [1646–1674]. Chapter IV. The Author's Stay at Manila |title=The Travels and Controversies of Friar Domingo Navarrete, 1616-1686: Volume I |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2017 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-gckDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT129 |page=<!--unpaginated-->|isbn=<!--317013417, -->9781317013419}}</ref>

<ref name="nibelungenlied">Bartsch ed. (1905), 5th ed.,  ''Das Nibelungenlied'', XXV. Âventiure,  [https://books.google.com/books?id=DAguAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA175 Str. 1533–1544]; Edwards, Cyril tr. (2020). ''The Nibelungenlied: The Lay of the Nibelungs''. "Twenty-fifth Adventure" [https://books.google.com/books?id=Wy5s0rbW2tMC&pg=PA141 Str. 1532–1543], Oxford University Press</ref>

<ref name="nigg">{{cite book|last=Nigg |first=Joseph |others=David Matthews, Anke Bernau, James Paz |chapter=A Sea Creature |title=Sea Monsters: A Voyage around the World's Most Beguiling Map |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2014 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BT2NAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA132 |pages=130–132 |isbn=<!--0226925188, -->9780226925189}}</ref>

<ref name="ni_mheallaigh">{{citation|last=ní Mheallaigh |first=Karen |chapter=7. Conclusion: fiction and the wonder-culture of the Roman empire |title=Reading Fiction with Lucian: Fakes, Freaks and Hyperreality: Greek Culture in the Roman World |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2014 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cru1BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA262 |page=262|isbn=<!--1316123987, -->9781316123980}}</ref>

<ref name="noguera">{{cite book|last=Noguera |first=Renato |others=Carla Silva |chapter=Alguns mitos Guaranis: § Iara: ciúme, sedução e projeção |title=Mulheres e deusas: Como as divindades e os mitos femininos formaram a mulher atual |publisher=HarperCollins Brasil |year=2018|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GMNNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT126 |pages=130–132 |isbn=<!--8595083053, -->9788595083059|quote=Iara renasce como mulher-peixe, uma imagem similar à sereia dos europeus.}}</ref>

<ref name="nukada">{{cite book|last=Nukada |first=Minoru |title=Physiology of Breath-Hold Diving and the Ama of Japan |editor1-last=Rahn |editor1-first=Herrman |editor1-link=<!--Herrman Rahn -->|editor2-last=Yokoyama |editor2-first=Tetsuro |editor2-link=<!--Tetsuro Yokoyama 横山哲朗--> |year=1965 |url=https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/18843/chapter/4 |pages=25–41 |doi=10.17226/18843|isbn=978-0-309-30765-9 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

<ref name="ojeda">{{cite book|last=Ojeda |first=Alfonso  |title=Cinco historias de la conexión española con la India, Birmania y China: Desde la imprenta a la igualdad de género |publisher=Los Libros De La Catarata |date=2020 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1h__DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT55 |page=<!--unpaginated--> |isbn=<!--8413520649, -->9788413520643}}</ref>

<ref name="olafs_saga_helga-flateyjar">{{citation|editor1-last=Vigfússon |editor1-first=Guðbrandur |editor1-link=Guðbrandur Vigfússon |editor2-last=Unger |editor2-first=Carl Richard |editor2-link=Carl Richard Unger |chapter=Chapter 23. Olafr konungr vann margyghe |title=Flatejarbók |volume=2 |location=Christiania |publisher=P.T. Malling |date=1862 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e6MNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA25 |pages=25–26}}</ref>

<ref name="olaus">{{cite book|author=Olaus Magnus |chapter=Libri XX. Capitulum XX |title=Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus |location=Rome |publisher=Giovanni M. Viotto |year=1555 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O9lEAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA716 |page=716 |language=la}}</ref>
<ref name="olaus2">{{cite book|author=Olaus Magnus |chapter=Libri XXI. Praefatio |title=Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus |location=Rome |publisher=Giovanni M. Viotto |year=1555 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O9lEAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA729 |page=729 |quote=Sunt & beluae in mari quasi hominis figuram imitantes, lugubres in cantu, vt nereides; etiam marini homines, toto corpore absoluta similitudine.. |language=la}}</ref>

<ref name="olaus-eng">{{cite book|author=Olaus Magnus |editor-last=Foote |editor-first=Peter |title=Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus: Romæ 1555 |others=<!--Peter Fisher (translator) (born 1934)-->Fisher, Peter;, Higgens, Humphrey (trr.) |trans-title=Description of the Northern Peoples : Rome 1555 |publisher=Hakluyt Society |date=1996 |page=1052 |isbn=<!--090418059X, 9780904180596--> |quote=There can be heard melodious flutes and.. cymbals.. as I recounted.. on the sister Fates and the nymphs, as Pliny.. reads..'An embassy was dispatched from Olysippo.. to the Emperor Tiberius that Triton had been seen.. And.. the Nereids... the people.. listened from afar to her dismal moans at the hour of her death', etc.}}; [https://books.google.com/books?id=CvhKDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT411&pg=PT411 e-book] (unpaginated)</ref>
<ref name="olaus2-eng">{{cite book|author=Olaus Magnus |editor-last=Foote |editor-first=Peter |title=Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus: Romæ 1555 |others=<!--Peter Fisher (translator) (born 1934)-->Fisher, Peter;, Higgens, Humphrey (trr.) |trans-title=Description of the Northern Peoples : Rome 1555|publisher=Hakluyt Society |date=1998 |page=1081 |isbn=9780904180435 |quote=There are also sea-creatures, like mermaids, which sing plaintively and are similar in shape to human beings; and there are mermen}}; [https://books.google.com/books?id=CvhKDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT411&pg=PT411 e-book] (unpaginated)</ref>

<ref name="olina_thorvardardottir">{{cite book|author=Ólína Þorvarðardóttir |chapter=Sæbúar, vatnaverur og dísir |title=Íslenskar þjóðsögur: álfar og tröll |publisher=Bóka- og blaðaútgáfan |date=1987 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ffjZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22haffr%C3%BA%22 |page=17 |isbn=<!--9979921005, -->9789979921004|language=is}}</ref>

<ref name="olsen-dansk-engelsk-havfrue&havmand">{{cite book|last=L. B. |first=Olsen|author-mask=Olsen, L. B. (ps.; {{=}}Salomon Soldin) |chapter=Havfrue 'mermaid, sea-maid, siren'; Havmand 'seaman, merman') |title=Dansk og engelsk Lexicon: udarbeidet efter de bedste Forfattere i begge Sprog |location=Kjøbenhavn |publisher=A. & S. Soldin |date=1806 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XjhVAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA820 |pages=155, 820 |language=no}}</ref>

<ref name="ornan">{{citation|last=Ornan |first=Tallay |collaboration=Israel Exploration Society |title=The Triumph of the Symbol: Pictorial Representation of Deities in Mesopotamia and the Biblical Image Ban |location=Göttingen |publisher=<!--Imprint: Academic Press Fribourg--> [[Company:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht|Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht]] |year=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cpei4BrPlSwC&pg=PA127 |page=127|isbn=<!--3525530072, -->9783525530078 |series=Orbis biblicus et orientalis 213}}</ref>

<ref name="orchard">{{cite book|editor-last=Orchard |editor-first=Andy (tr.)|title=Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript |publisher=University of Toronto Press |date=2003a |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hU8DdkwXbDEC&pg=PA263 |pages=262–263|isbn=9780802085832}}</ref>

<ref name="patten">{{citation|last=Patten |first=Robert L. |chapter=Chapter 15. Thorough-bred Artist |title=George Cruikshank's Life, Times and Art: Volume 1, 1792-1835 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |date=1992 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lHF4j4YPaSsC&pg=PA237 |page=237|isbn=<!--081351813X, -->9780813518138 }}</ref>

<ref name="paul">{{cite book|last=Paul |first=Hermann  |title=Grundriss der germanischen Philologie |volume=2 |number=2 |publisher=Trübner |date=1893 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NMfjAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA55 |page=55}}</ref>

<ref name="peacock">{{cite book|last=Peacock |first=Martha Moffitt |chapter=The Mermaid of Edam and the Emergence of Dutch National Identity |editor-last=Classen |editor-first=Albrecht |title=Imagination and Fantasy in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time: Projections, Dreams, Monsters, and Illusions |publisher=Walter de Gruyter  |date=2020 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h773DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT571 |page=684  |isbn=<!--311069378X, -->9783110693782}}</ref>

<ref name="pessoa&sousa2022">{{cite book|last1=Pessoa |first1=Roberto Soares |last2=Sousa |first2=Raimundo Erivelto de |chapter=03.2 A Cultura Popular |title=Ditados Populares: a verdade que o povo consagrou |location=<!--s.l.--> |publisher=Editora Dialética |date=2022 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aFGGEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT26 |page=|isbn=<!--6525247519,  -->9786525247519}}</ref>

<ref name="pliny-hn-9.4.9-tr-bostock&riley">{{cite book|author=Pliny the Elder |translator1-last=Bostock |translator1-first=John |translator1-link=John Bostock (physician) |translator2-last=Riley |translator2-first=Henry Thomas  |translator2-link=Henry Thomas Riley |chapter=IX.Chap. 4. (5.) -- The forms of the tritions and nereids. The forms of sea elephants |title=The Natural History of Pliny, Vol. 2 |publisher=H. G. Bohn |date=1855 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sDwZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA362 |pages=362–363}}</ref>

<ref name="pliny-hn-9.4.9-tr-rackham">{{cite book|author=Pliny the Elder |translator=Rackham, H[arris] |translator-link=<!--Harris Rackham--> |chapter=IX.10.iv Tritons, Nereid and aquatic monsters |title=Natural History, Vol. 3 |publisher=W. Heinemann |date=1940 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/plinynaturalhist005560mbp/page/168/ |pages=168–169 |series=Loeb classical library.}}; [https://books.google.com/books?id=v5OEAAAAIAAJ&q=nereids 1958 ed. ]</ref>

<ref name="pliny-hn-idx">{{cite book|author=Pliny the Elder |title=Natural History, Vol. 8 |publisher=W. Heinemann |year=1963 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2pWEAAAAIAAJ&q=%22homo+marinus%22 |page=589 (index) |series=Loeb classical library.}}</ref>

<ref name="pontoppidan">{{cite book|last=Pontoppidan |first=Erich |chapter=Kap. 8. §2. Havmand –§4. Meer-minne – §5. Marmæte |title=Det første Forsøg paa Norges naturlige Historie |volume=2<!--Anden Deel--> |location=Copenhagen |publisher=Berlingske Arvingers Bogtrykkerie |date=1753a |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZVuF_HQlnYcC&pg=PA302 |pages=302–317|language=da}} [https://www.nb.no/nbsok/nb/34de0f4d96b2dd8914eeb75b5b49d484#393 digital copy]@National Library Norway</ref>
<ref name="pontoppidan-eng">{{cite book|last=Pontoppidan |first=Erich |chapter=Ch. 8. Sect. 3. Hav-Mand, Mer-man – Sect. 4. Meerminne – Sect. 5. Marmæte |title=The Natural History of Norway...: Translated from the Danish Original |volume=2 |location=London |publisher=A. Linde |date=1755 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3OglUqRf_soC&pg=RA1-PA186 |pages=186–195}}</ref>

<ref name="polistico">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Polistico |first=Edgie |editor-last=Haase |editor-first=Donald |title=dugong |encyclopedia=Philippine Food, Cooking, & Dining Dictionary |location=Mandaluyong |publisher=Anvil Publishing, Inc. |year=2017 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=STSWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT225 |page=<!--unpaginated-->|isbn=<!--6214200871, -->9786214200870}}</ref>

<ref name="prichard">{{cite book|last=Prichard |first=James Cowles |title=Researches into the History of Mankind: History of the Oceanic and American nations|publisher=Sherwood, Gilbert & Piper |date=1847 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wfwWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA58 |page=58}}</ref>

<ref name="proenca1969">{{cite book|last=Proença |first=Manuel Cavalcanti |title=Roteiro de Macunaíma |location=Rio de Janeiro |publisher=Civilização Brasileira |date=1969|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g69TAAAAMAAJ&q=Alamoa |page=210}}; {{URL|1=https://books.google.com/books?id=lLIJAQAAIAAJ&q=Alamoa  |2=5th ed.}} (1978), p. 170; {{URL|1=https://books.google.com/books?id=EtsdAQAAIAAJ&q=%22A Alamoa%22  |2=6th ed.}} (1987), p. 170</ref>

<ref name="rabenschlacht-ed-martin">Martin, Ernst ed. (1866 ). [https://books.google.com/books?id=epk6AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA309 Str.964]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=epk6AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA310 Str. 969]</ref>

<ref name="renard-2nd-ed-1754">{{cite book|last=Renard |first=Louis |others=Baltazar Coyett, Adrien van der Stell |chapter=monstre ou sirenne |title=Poissons, ecrevisses et crabes, de diverses couleurs et figures extraordinaires: que l'on trouve autour des isles Moluques et sur les côtes des terres Australes: peints d'après nature ... Ouvrage ... quit contient un trr̀e grand nombre de poissons les plus beaux & les plus rares de la Mer des Indes |edition=2 |location=Amsterdam |publisher=Chez Reinier & Josué Ottens |date=1754 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=10s8hXP9Ej0C&pg=PT6 |at=Planche LVII, Nº 240}}(ミシガン大学蔵本)</ref>

<ref name="rhodes">{{cite book|last=Rhodes |first=Kimberly |title=Ophelia and Victorian Visual Culture: Representing Body Politics in the Nineteenth Century |publisher=Routledge |date=2016 |orig-date=2008 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AkQrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA118  |page=118 |isbn=<!--1351555677, -->9781351555678}}</ref>

<ref name="rietz">{{cite book|last=Rietz|first=Johan Ernst |chapter=kona: sjö-kuna |title=Svenskt dialekt-lexikon eller ordbog öfver svenska allmogespraket |volume=1 |location=Lund |publisher=Cronholm |year=1877 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WxOiBBNO0vcC&pg=PA345 |page=345 |language=sv}}</ref>

<ref name="ringgren">{{cite book|last=Ringgren |first=Helmer |chapter=The Religion of Ancient Syria |editor1-last=Bleeker |editor1-first=C. Jouco |editor1-link=<!--Claas Jouco Bleeker--> |editor2-last=Widengren |editor2-first=Geo |editor2-link=Geo Widengren |title=Historia Religionorum I: Religions of the Past |publisher=E. J. Brill |date=1969 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0sgUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA208 |page=208<!--195–222-->}}</ref>

<ref name="rotroff">{{cite book|last=Rotroff |first=Susan I. |title=Hellenistic Painted Potter: Athenian and Imported Moldmade Bowls, The Athenian Agora 22 |publisher=American School of Classical Studies at Athens |year=1982 |page=67, #190; Plates 35, 80 |isbn=<!--0876612222,-->978-0876612224}}</ref>

<ref name="sayers">{{cite journal|last=Sayers |first=William |title=Deployment of an Irish Loan: ON ''verða at gjalti'' 'to Go Mad with Terror' |journal=The Journal of English and Germanic Philology |volume=93 |number=2 |date=April 1994 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oHpXAAAAYAAJ&q=%22mermaid |page=176<!--157–182-->|quote=<!--a ''margýgr'', mermaid or female sea monster:..--> |jstor=27710979}}</ref>

<ref name="schade-altd_woerterbuch">{{cite book|last=Schade |first=Oskar |chapter=meremanni ''ahd. st. M. mhd.'' mereminne / merewîp, merwîp |title=Altdeutsches Wörterbuch |volume=II |location=Halle |publisher=Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses |date=1866 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ATtJAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA394 |page=394|language=de}}</ref>

<ref name="schottenhammer">{{cite book|last=Schottenhammer |first=Angela |chapter=The Sea as Barrier and Contact Zone: Maritime Space and Sea Routes in Traditional Chinese Books and Maps |editor1-last=Schottenhammer |editor1-first=Angela |editor1-link=<!--Angela Schottenhammer--> |editor2-last=Ptak |editor2-first=Roderich |editor2-link=<!--Roderich Ptak--> |title=The Perception of Maritime Space in Traditional Chinese Sources |publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag |date=2006 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U9rWcNu89kgC&pg=PA11 |page=11<!--3–14--> |isbn=<!--3447053402, -->9783447053402}}</ref>

<ref name="shanhaijing-strassberg-chiru-redrufish">{{cite book|editor-last=Strassberg |editor-first=Richard E. |chapter=15. Red Ru-fish (Chiru) |script-chapter=zh:赤鱬 |title=A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the ''Guideways Through Mountains and Seas'' |publisher=University of California Press |year=2018 |chapter-url=https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1911212/21 |page=34}}</ref>
<ref name="shanhaijing-strassberg-diren-dipeople">{{cite book|editor-last=Strassberg |editor-first=Richard E. |chapter=266. The Di people (Diren)  |script-chapter=zh:氐人 |title=A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the ''Guideways Through Mountains and Seas'' |publisher=University of California Press |year=2018 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fnpFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA190 |page=190 |isbn=978-0-52029-851-4}}</ref>
<ref name="shanhaijing-strassberg-renyu-humanfish">{{cite book|editor-last=Strassberg |editor-first=Richard E. |chapter=125. Human-fish (Renyu) |script-chapter=zh:人魚 |title=A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the ''Guideways Through Mountains and Seas'' |publisher=University of California Press |year=2018 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fnpFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA130 |page=130 |isbn=978-0-52029-851-4}}</ref>

<ref name="soares&silva&barbosa">{{cite book|last1=Soares |first1=Cláudia Campos |last2=Silva |first2=Hugo Domínguez |last3=Barbosa |first3=Tereza Virgínia R. |chapter=''Magma'', by João Guimãraes Rosa: Word in Progress |editor1-last=Silva |editor1-first=Maria de Fátima |editor1-link=<!--Maria de Fátima Silva--> |editor2-last=Hardwick |editor2-first=Lorna |editor2-link=Lorna Hardwick |editor3-last=Pereira |editor3-first=Susana Marques |editor3-link=<!--Susana Marques Pereira--> |title=The Classical Tradition in Portuguese and Brazilian Poetry |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |date=2022 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=63VjEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA176 |page=191<!--176–--> |isbn=<!--1527581195, -->9781527581197}}</ref>

<ref name="souza">{{cite book|last=Souza |first=Licia Soares de  |chapter=A Baía de Todos os Santos em Mar Morto |editor1-last=Caroso |editor1-first=Carlos |editor1-link=<!--Carlos Caroso--> |editor2-last=Tavares |editor2-first=Fátima |editor2-link=<!--Fátima Tavares--> |editor3-last=Pereira |editor3-first=Cláudio |editor3-link=<!--Cláudio Pereira--> |title=Baía de todos os santos: aspectos humanos |publisher=SciELO – EDUFBA |date=2011 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cT7_CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA562 |pages=562 <!--561–571-->|doi=10.7476/9788523211622 |isbn=<!--8523211624, -->9788523211622 |jstor=10.7476/9788523211622.24 |language=pt}}</ref>

<ref name="suarez_t.">{{cite book|last=Suarez |first=Thomas |chapter=Chapter 15. The Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. § François Valentijn and Johannes van Keulen |title=Early Mapping of Southeast Asia: The Epic Story of Seafarers, Adventurers, and Cartographers Who First Mapped the Regions Between China and India |publisher=Tuttle Publishing |date=2012 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wQTQAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT608 |pages=232–|isbn=<!--1462906966, -->9781462906963}}</ref>

<ref name=russell>{{cite book|last=Russell |first=Eugenia |title=Literature and Culture in Late Byzantine Thessalonica |publisher=A&C Black<!--Bloomsbury imprint--> |year=2013|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-QBMAQAAQBAJ&pg=PR22 |page=xxii|isbn=978-1-441-16177-2}}</ref>

<ref name="scribner2021">{{cite web|last=Scribner |first=Vaughn |title=Mermaids and Tritons in the Age of Reason |publisher=Public Domains Review |date=29 September 2021 |url=https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/mermaids-and-tritons-in-the-age-of-reason |access-date=2022-07-27}}</ref>

<ref name="senter&snow">{{citation|last1=Senter |first1=Phil |last2=Snow |first2=Venretta B. |author-link2=<!--Venretta B. Snow--> |title=Solution to a 300-year-old zoological mystery |journal=Archives of Natural History |volume=40 |issue=2 |date=September 2015 |pages=257–262 |doi=10.3366/anh.2013.0172 }}. [https://shnh.org.uk/publications/archives-of-natural-history/archives-of-natural-history-volume-40-no-2-2013/ Abstract]</ref>

<ref name=shanhaijing10regions-within-sea-south>{{cite wikisource||script-title=zh:山海經/山海經/海內南經 |title=Shanhaijing /Haineinanjing |wslink=zh:山海經/山海經/海內南經 |quote={{lang|zh|氐人國在建木西, 其為人人面而魚身, 無足.}}}}</ref>

<ref name="taiping_guangji464">{{cite wikisource|和書 |chapter=卷第464 海人魚|title=太平廣記<!--Taiping guangji--> |date=1726 |wslink=zh:太平廣記/卷第464#海人魚 }}</ref>

<ref name="tauchnitz">{{cite book|last=Tauchnitz |first=Karl |chapter=mermaid |title=Nytt engelskt och svenskt handlexikon |trans-title=A New Pocket-dictionary of the English and Swedish Languages |location=Leipzig |publisher=O. Holtze |date=1883 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DFxAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA260 |page=260 }}</ref>

<ref name="tocantins1963">{{cite book|last=Tocantins |first=Leandro |title=Santa Maria de Belém Do Gräo Pará: Instantes E Evocacöes la Cidade |location=Rio de Janeiro |publisher=Editôra Civilizacäo Brasileira |year=1963 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1OxlAAAAMAAJ&q=Arinos |page=322 |language=pt}}</ref>

<ref name=toriyama-eng>{{citation|last=Toriyama |first=Sekien |translator=Hiroko Yoda |translator2=Matt Alt |title=Japandemonium Illustrated: The Yokai Encyclopedias of Toriyama Sekien |publisher=Courier Dover Publications |year=2017 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oeTtDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA168 |pages=168 |isbn=9780486818757 }}</ref>

<ref name="thompson">{{cite journal|last=Thompson |first=Homer A. |title=The Excavation of the Athenian Agora Twelfth Season |journal=Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens |volume=17 |number=3, ''The Thirty-Fifth Report of the American Excavation in the Athenian Agora'' |date=July–September 1948 |url=https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/uploads/media/hesperia/146874.pdf |pages=161–162<!--149–196--> and Fig. 5 |jstor=146874}}</ref>

<ref name="thorpe2-p027-norw">{{Cite book|last=Thorpe |first=Benjamin |chapter=I. Norwegian Traditions: §The Merman (Marmennill) and Mermaid (Margygr) |title=Northern Mythology, Comprising the Principal Popular Traditions and Superstitions of Scandinavia, North Germany and the Netherlands: Compiled from Original and Other Sources |volume=2 |location=London |publisher=Edward Lumley |year=1851|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q-lAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA27 |page=27}}</ref>

<ref name="thorpe2-p076-swedish">{{Cite book|last=Thorpe |first=Benjamin |chapter=II. Swedish Traditions: §The skogsrå―the sjöra–§ Of Water-Elves (1 The Mermaid) |title=Northern Mythology, Comprising the Principal Popular Traditions and Superstitions of Scandinavia, North Germany and the Netherlands: Compiled from Original and Other Sources |volume=2 |location=London |publisher=Edward Lumley |year=1851|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q-lAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA75 |pages=75; 76–77 }}</ref>

<ref name="valentyn-deel3-1726">{{cite book|last=Valentyn |first=François |chapter=Verhandling der Water-Dieren: 3de Hoofdstuck. I. Van de Zee-Menschen |trans-chapter=Treatise on the Aquatic Animals of Ambon |title=Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën |volume=3 |location=Dordrecht/Amsterdam |publisher=Johannes van Braam/Gerard onder de Linden |date=1726 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZHtEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA330 |pages=330–332 |language=nl}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZHtEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA332-IA3 Pl.]; [https://archive.org/details/oudennieuwoostin03vale/page/n389/mode/2up (Internet Archive)]</ref>

<ref name="visdatabas-havfruns_tarna">{{cite web|url=http://www.smalandsmusikarkiv.nu/folkvisa/visor/smbds23-ah/smbds23-ah.html |title=Havfruns tärna |website= Smålands Musikarkiv |publisher=[[Organization:Linnaeus University|Linnaeus University]] |date=<!--s.d.--> |access-date=2022-06-28}}</ref>

<ref name="webster-EB1891">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Webster|first=Hugh Alexander |title=The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature |entry=Mermaids and Mermen |dictionary=Encyclopedia Britannica |edition=9 |volume=16 |date=1891 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Oloj5zFGzgC&pg=PA44 |pages=44–45}}</ref>

<ref name="wood.r">{{cite journal |last=Wood |first=Rita |title=The Norman Chapel in Durham Castle |journal=Northern History |date=March 2010 |volume=XLVII |issue=1 |url=http://www.rwromanesque.co.uk/NHI211731.pdf |access-date=25 July 2012 |page=31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140211081710/http://www.rwromanesque.co.uk/NHI211731.pdf |archive-date=11 February 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

<ref name="woodruff">{{cite journal|last=Woodruff|first=Helen |title=The Physiologus of Bern: A Survival of Alexandrian Style in a Ninth Century |journal=The Art Bulletin |volume=12 |number=3 |date=September 1930 |at=Fig. 22 and p. 249<!--226–253-->|jstor=3050780}}</ref>

<ref name=yoda&alt2013>{{citation|last1=Yoda |first1=Hiroko |last2=Alt |first2=Matt |author-link2=<!--Matt Alt--> |title=Yokai Attack!: The Japanese Monster Survival Guide |publisher=Tuttle Publishing |year=2013 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-ArQAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT265 |pages=265 |isbn=978-1-462-90883-7}}</ref>

<ref name="yoshioka1993-p38">{{Cite journal|last=Yoshioka |first=Ikuo |title=Ningyo no shinka |script-title=ja:人魚の進化 |journal=Comparative folklore studies: for folklore studies of Asia<!--比較民俗研究--> |publisher=Tsukuba University<!--筑波大学比較民俗研究会--> |date=September 1993 |issue=8 |url=https://tsukuba.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/4441/files/5.pdf |page=38<!--35–47--> |issn=0915-7468}} [https://hdl.handle.net/2241/14286 URI]</ref>

<ref name="yoshioka-cit-hino">{{harvp|Yoshioka|1993|p=39<!--35–47-->}}, citing Hino (1926), p. 170</ref>

<ref name="zheng&kirk&buell&unschuld-Cuyiji">{{citation|editor1-last=Zheng |editor1-first=Jinsheng |editor1-link=<!--Zheng Jinsheng--> |editor2-last=Kirk |editor2-first= Nalini  |editor2-link=<!-- Nalini Kirk--> |editor3-last=Buell |editor3-first=Paul D. |editor3-link=<!--Paul D. Buell--> |editor4-last=Unschuld |editor4-first=Paul Ulrich |editor4-link=<!--Paul U. Unschuld--> |title=Dictionary of the Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume 3: Persons and Literary Sources |publisher=University of California Press  |date=2018 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qbxODwAAQBAJ&pg=PA87 |page=87 |isbn=<!--0520291972, -->9780520291973}}</ref>
}}

=== General and cited references ===
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* {{cite thesis|ref={{SfnRef|Armistead tr.|2001}} |type=M.A., English Literature |last=Armistead |first=Mary Allyson |author-mask=Armistead, Mary Allyson ed., tr. |title=The Middle English Physiologus: A Critical Translation and Commentary |publisher=Virginia Polytechnic Institute and University |date=12 April 2001 |pages=85–90|citeseerx=10.1.1.557.6420 }}
* {{Citation|editor1-last=Bacchilega |editor1-first=Cristina |editor1-link=<!--Cristina Bacchilega-->|editor2-last=Brown |editor2-first=Marie Alohalani |editor2-link=<!--Marie Alohalani Brown--> |title=The Penguin Book of Mermaids |volume=1 |publisher=Penguin |date=2019 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d16IDwAAQBAJ&pg=PR1 |pages=i–xxiv |isbn=<!--0525505571, -->9780525505570}}
* {{cite book|last=Bassett |first=Fletcher S. |chapter=Chapter IV. Water-Sprites and Mermaids |title=Sea Phantoms: Or, Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and of Sailors in All Lands and at All Times |edition=Rev.|location=Chicago |publisher=Rinehart & Company, Inc. |date=1892 |orig-date=1885 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UcYsAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA148 |pages=148–201}}
* {{citation |last1=Benwell |first1=Gwen |last2=Waugh |first2=Arthur |author-link2=Arthur Waugh (author) |title=Sea Enchantress: The Tale of the Mermaid and Her Kin |location=Bloomington |publisher=Citadel Press |date=1965 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9SESAQAAIAAJ |isbn=<!--780055516X, -->9787800555169}}
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** [https://web.archive.org/web/20090401003144/http://www.gtj.org.uk/en/small/item/GTJ64526/ Older archived version], with brief synopsis and commentary
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* {{cite book|last=Faye|first=Andreas |chapter=Havmænd og Havfruer |title=Norske Sagn |location=Arendal |publisher=N. C. Halds Bogtrykkerie |date=1833 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RitXAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA63 |pages=58–62 |language=da}}
* {{cite book|last=Fraser |first=Lucy |title=The Pleasures of Metamorphosis: Japanese and English Fairy Tale Transformations of "The Little Mermaid" |publisher=Wayne State University Press |date=2017 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EP-WDgAAQBAJ |isbn=<!--0814342450, -->9780814342459}}
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* {{citation |last=Hayward |first=Philip |title=Making a Splash: Mermaids (and Mermen) in 20th and 21st Century Audiovisual Media |location=Bloomington |publisher=Indiana University Press |date=2017 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MSkBDgAAQBAJ |isbn=<!--0861969251, -->9780861969258}}
* {{citation |last=Holford-Strevens |first=Leofranc |chapter=1. Sirens in Antiquity and the Middle Ages |editor1-last=Austern |editor1-first=Linda Phyllis |editor1-link=<!--Linda Phyllis Austern--> |editor2-last=Naroditskaya |editor2-first=Inna |editor2-link=<!--Inna Naroditskaya--> |title=Music of the Siren |location=Bloomington |publisher=Indiana University Press |date=2006 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5IBSGG9YegwC&pg=PT25 |pages=16–50 |isbn=<!--0253112079, -->9780253112071}}
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* {{cite book |<!--ref={{SfnRef|Jón Árnason|1862}}|-->author=Jón Árnason |chapter=1. Flokkur: Goðfræðissögur. 2. Grein: Saebúar og vatna |title=Íslenzkar Þjóðsögur og Æfintýri |volume=I| location=Leipzig |publisher=J. C. Hinrichs |year=1862 |pages=131–141 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xgxyGmV62ywC&pg=PA131}} ([http://baekur.is/bok/000197672/1/170/Islenzkar_thjodsogur_og#page/n169/mode/2up baekur.is]) {{in lang|is}}
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{{refend}}

== External links ==
{{commons}}
* [https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/mythic-creatures/water/becoming-mermaids Becoming Mermaids]—American Museum of Natural History

{{Fairies}}
{{Heraldic creatures}}

[[Category:Nereids]]
[[Category:Oceanids]]
[[Category:Water spirits]]

{{Sourceattribution|Mermaid}}