All over the world and through history, there have been myths and legends associated with beings who live in the ocean, rivers, or lakes. These magical people are depicted with varying levels of power, and also vary as to whether they are friendly or otherwise. They can hypnotise, tell the future, sink ships, and so on. They have been popular in fiction, though I intend to focus on the mythology (with one or two exceptions.)
Why do so many cultures around the world have these stories? There seem to be two reasons. The first is the habit of our ancestors to explain the world around them in terms of supernatural power. So they would imbue everything with gods or spirits, including bodies of water, whether oceans, rivers, or lakes. The second, it has been suggested, is that there are many towns and communities that have ended up drowned beneath water. The idea of people continuing to live under the sea is possibly a handed down memory of when particular areas were not under water, and people lived there.
Fiction
While I do not intend to go into merfolk in literature, I will mention two appearances where the literature is old and therefore could be said to be closer to the mythology than modern works.
Mermaids appear in the ‘Nibelungenlied’, two water-dwelling females called ‘merwip’ in the text, who give one of the characters advice, and predict the future. While people may be more familiar with the ‘Rhine maidens’, these are inventions of Richard Wagner for his Ring Cycle operas and are only loosely based on the text.
“The Book of the Thousand nights and one night” tells a story of Abdullah the fisherman and Abdullah the merman, two men with the same name who became friends, indicating myths of sea-dwelling people in the middle East at the time of writing.
Iara is from Brazil, and is a water nymph, siren or mermaid. She lives in rivers or the sea. According to Brazilian folklore she comes out to seduce men and take them down to the bottom of the river or sea to drown them.
Africa and Diaspora
Legends from Africa and the areas of the African diaspora also include mermaids and water spirits. Aycayia is a Caribbean mermaid with a beautiful singing voice. She seduced men and gave them pleasure but robs them of their will.
Yemaya is a water goddess with origins in Yoruba mythology. She is revered in Cuba and Brazil and is part of the Santeria religion. She is seen as a symbol of motherhood and life. Symbols of the sea such as conch shells and nets are often used to decorate altars.
Mami Wata is a water spirit of west, central and southern Africa, as well as in places where Africans were taken as slaves. She could be represented as fully human or in the traditional mermaid form. The name is a pidgin one often used to describe this spirit or deity to foreigners, and can be used to indicate a number of beliefs in water spirits, that were thought to grant either good fortune or bad depending on the relationship the worshipper had with them. Practices vary in different areas, such as Nigeria, Burkina Faso. Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago. She often carries a mirror, which represents movement through time. Her worship has been somewhat homogenized in the last century or so, due to improvement in communication between areas.
South East Asia
South east Asian countries have a number of water beings, spirits and deities. From the Philippines, a siyokoy is an aquatic creature with scales, webbing, and fins. They are usually depicted as hostile to humans and will drown people. The name has a Chinese basis and is similar to the shu gui, spirits of drowned people in Chinese folklore. They have more animal traits than many of the beings mentioned here and are among the ‘guardians of the sea.’
In Java, Nyai Rorol Kidul is a supernatural being who is queen of the Southern sea. She is thought to be older than the Moslem or even Hindu and Buddhist traditions of the island and is a goddess in charge of the wild Indian Ocean. She can be depicted in typical mermaid form, or as completely human in appearance. She would sometimes be at war with the spirit kings of the Merapi volcano, a legend that explains volcanic activity in the area.
Suvannamaccha, meaning ‘golden fish’ is a mermaid who appears in south-east Asian versions of the ‘Ramayana’, such as Thailand and Cambodia. She falls in love with Hanuman and has a child (a mer-monkey.)
East Asia
A ningyo is a creature in Japanese mythology (a spirit or ‘yokai’) with both human and fish characteristics. The literal translation of the word is ‘human fish’. It is possible that the legends were referring to oarfish or salamanders, and the Japanese ate them for longevity! There is a legend that a young girl ate the ningyo and ended up living for 800 years. Catching one was considered a bad omen, heralding a typhoon or tsunami, and fishermen would release them immediately. Other traditions held them to be very good fortune, and seeing one will ensure the viewer a long and happy life. Early depictions had just a human head on a fish body, and it was not til the seventeenth century that the depictions were closer to the European idea of the mermaid.
On the Korean island of Geomundo, Sinjike was a local mermaid acting as a guardian of the island, who would warn fishermen of approaching typhoons.
The Chinese hairen (‘Sea human’) was thought to be entirely humanoid, but with webbed hands and feet. The author of one source stated that whatever existed on land must have a counterpart in water, so sea-humans would have to exist.
Eastern Europe
Rusalka in Slavic folklore is usually feminine and is a spirit commonly associated with waters. They were initially linked with fertility and gave water to crops. However in the nineteenth century the stories around them altered, and they were considered to be the spirits of drowned women, who would lure men to their deaths by drowning. However, if the rusalka’s death was avenged her spirit would pass on. Some traditions had them spirits of fields or woods as well as water.
Greek mythology has nereids, sea nymphs who were associated with Poseidon. They are symbolic of everything beautiful about the sea, they sing and dance and are represented as beautiful women. They are mentioned in the Iliad as Thetis, mother of Achilles, is a Nereid, and when she is grieving her sisters come to her. They were often depicted riding on dolphins or seahorses.
Western Europe
Melusine is a French mermaid who is cursed to appear as a serpent from the waist down, later depictions changed to two fish tails. She was associated with certain noble houses and would warn them of impending death or change.
Paracelsus, a Swiss philosopher, wrote ‘a book on nymphs, sylphs, pygmies and salamanders, and on other spirits (1566), suggested water elemental could acquire a soul if they married a human. This is possibly the basis for the story of ‘The Little Mermaid’.
Scandinavia
Swedish tales tell of the Havsfru or Havsra. These mermaids are considered wardens of the sea. If a sailor sees one he can be on good terms by offering a gift of money, food or gloves. She will be able to warn the sailor of bad weather, or tell a fisherman where he can get a good catch. Havsra can shapeshift, transforming into birds or seals. They are said to live in magnificent palaces at the bottom of the sea, and in very fine conditions sailors may even catch sight of one. Sometimes sailors will be enticed into the sea by the Havsra, living with her in her castle and losing memories of any other life. There is also the Havsman, who can be seen walking on the water just before a storm. They too can take women as brides.
The Norwegian version is Sjokona. In the Norse story of Vadi, the character is said to be the son of a Norse King and a Sjokona. He in turn is the father of the mythological character Weyland.
Britain
British folklore is full of mermaids. They don’t just live in the ocean, having swum up rivers and made their homes in lakes and pools. The mermaid of Black Mere Pool was, according to legend, once a woman who was accused of being a witch by a man she had rejected. She was drowned in the lake, but a short while later the man was found dead with terrible wounds. It seems the drowned witch had become a mermaid, and haunts the pool. The tale also says that she is still angry so you should not go looking for her.
There are different varieties of merfolk just within Britain – for example, a Selkie lives in the water as a seal, and takes human form when coming onto land. Selkies are usually friendly, but can be dangerous if provoked.
The singing mermaid of Zennor in Cornwall is another tale of a mermaid luring away a man. Morveren, daughter of Llyr (king of the ocean) came to the church in Zennor and attracted much attention with how beautifully she sang the hymns. All the men put themselves forward as suitors, and she chose one called Matthew, asking him to follow her to the cliffs. Matthew was never seen again, though some years later a ship anchoring in a nearby cove was asked to raise its anchor by a mermaid, as it was lodged in the door of her house and she could not return to Matthew and her children. So it seems Matthew had a happy ending after all. Cornwall also has Mermaid’s Rock, where a resident mermaid sits and combs her hair, and sings. Her presence foretells a storm, and her song foretells a shipwreck. There are many more stories of mermaids in and around Britain.
These are just a few of the many stories of merfolk and other beings who live in water. The stories are varied, ranging from benevolent creatures to malevolent ones. Many stories do use the stories of mermaids as a way to understand and explain storms and bad weather where ships are lost. It seems that whether merfolk are kind or murderous very much depends on how they’ve been treated, which is a good moral to always be kind to everyone. You might be entertaining angels unawares, or mermaids.
A final word from “An old English Miscellany” circa thirteenth century: mermaids live in treacherous waters, they sing and cause sailors to fall asleep. “Thus with treachery she sinks their ships.”
Bibliography
“Nibelungenlied”, 12th century, author unknown.
“The Book of the Thousand nights and one night”, ninth century and on, Author(s) unknown.
https://oldworldgods.com/yoruba/who-is-yemaya-the-water-goddess/
Practice and Agency in Mammy Wata Worship in Southern Nigeria, Charles Gore and Joseph Nevadomsky, African Arts Vol. 30, No. 2 (Spring, 1997), pp. 60-69+95 (11 pages)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gto.12350
“Hinduism in Thai Life”, S N Desa.
https://www.educamaisbrasil.com.br/enem/artes/lenda-da-iara.
“The book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore”, by Michael Dylan Foster
‘Caomuzi’, by Shao Yong.
https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages\R\U\RusalkaIT.htm
‘Nereids, Colonies and the Origins of Isegoria’, by Jeremy McInerney.
https://www.worldhistory.org/Melusine/
https://mermaid.fandom.com/wiki/Havsfru
“An old English miscellany”, thirteenth century, author(s) unknown.
Eclectic Assemblage 