Mermania: The Little Book of Mermaids

beauty, desire, freedom,

mystery, and doom.

Tales about mermaids

began to appear

three thousand years ago,

IN THE MESOPOTAMIAN KINGDOM OF ASSYRIA.

MERMAIDS HAVE BEEN ENCHANTING HUMANS FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS.

Stories of merfolk

STRETCH BACK THROUGHOUT HISTORY AND ACROSS CULTURES. IN THE

Babylonian period

(1800–600 BCE), EA, THE GOD OF THE SEA (IN GREEK, OANNES), HAD THE

lower body of a fish and the upper body of a human.

THE CREATOR OF THE

live mermaid show

AT WEEKI WACHEE SPRINGS, FLORIDA, WAS

‘Fish Man’ Newton Perry,

A US NAVY VETERAN WHO HAD ONCE TRAINED NAVY SEALS TO SWIM UNDERWATER IN WORLD WAR 2. ALTHOUGH THE

city of Weeki Wachee

WAS NOT INCORPORATED UNTIL 1966, PERRY OPENED THE THEATRE IN OCTOBER 1947. AS OF 2008, THE LEGENDARY FLORIDA ATTRACTION IS NOW

a state park.

The name

Weeki Wachee

COMES FROM THE SEMINOLE TRIBE OF NATIVE AMERICANS WHO CALLED THE SPRING WEEKIWACHEE

(winding river).

Explorer Christopher Columbus reported seeing

three mermaids

IN THE OCEAN OFF THE COAST OF WHAT IS NOW THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, IN JANUARY 1493. HE SAID THEY ‘CAME QUITE HIGH OUT OF THE WATER’ BUT WERE ‘NOT AS PRETTY AS THEY ARE DEPICTED,

for somehow in the face they look like men’.

Moonlight,

CASTING AN ALLURING GLOW ON AQUATIC MAMMALS, MAY HAVE HELPED DECEIVE TIRED SEA TRAVELLERS EAGER FOR A GLIMPSE OF ENCHANTMENT.

MOST REPORTED SIGHTINGS OF

mermaids

probably mistook manatees, dugongs,

AND THE NOW-EXTINCT SEA COWS FOR THEIR ENCHANTED COUNTERPARTS. AND AT LEAST ONE CREATIVE EXPLORER (WILLIAM SCORESBY IN 1820) SAW

a mermaid figure in a walrus.

‘Dugong’

COMES FROM A MALAY WORD THAT MEANS

‘lady of the sea’.

The world’s

biggest mermaid

WAS SAID TO BE 610 METRES (2,000 FEET)

long from head to tail.

Are mermaids good or bad?

IN SOME STORIES, MERMAIDS APPEAR AS GENTLE, ROMANTIC FIGURES, ABLE TO

grant wishes, heal, foretell the future,

AND WARN SAILORS AND FISHERMEN OF IMMINENT DANGER.

IN OTHER TALES, MERMAIDS ARE

dangerous.

THEY LURE SHIPS TO CRASH ON THE ROCKS OR USE THEIR SWEET SINGING VOICES AND RAVISHING LOOKS TO

tempt men into their underwater domain