3rd Entry: Mermaid

Hi. For my third entry I would like to talk about another myth that likely happens to be true. Have you ever heard about Mermaid? Even when we were a child we use to watch a fairytale story about beautiful mermaid. Some said that they are existed while some don’t. A mermaid is a legendary aquatic creature with the upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including the Near East, Europe, Africa and Asia. Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as floods, storms, shipwrecks and drownings. Mermaids are associated with the mythological Greek sirens as well as with sirenia, a biological order comprising dugongs and manatees. Some of the historical sightings by sailors may have been misunderstood encounters with these aquatic mammals.

Mermaids have been a popular subject of art and literature in recent centuries, such as in Hans Christian Andersen's well-known fairy tale "The Little Mermaid" (1836). They have subsequently been depicted in operas, paintings, books, films and comics.

Real mermaid found in Lolo Island(Abu Dhabi)

One of the earliest scientific accounts of the mermaid was documented by the great historian Pliny The Elder in 586 A.D. Pliny the Elder was convinced of the existence of Mermaids and described them as “rough and scaled all over.” Since that time, and well before, thousands of sailors across the globe have reported seeing the Mermaid swimming off the bows of their ships. Even the famous Christopher Columbus reported an encounter with a Mermaid; in January of 1493 Columbus reported that he saw three Mermaids frolicking in the ocean just off Haiti.

Mermaid found in Africa

In Columbus’s account he stated that the creatures “came quite high out of the water” but were “not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow the face looked more like a mans.” In the antiquated historical text known as the “Speculum Regale” also known as the King’s Mirror, which was written in Norway around 1250, the Mermaid is described not as a beautiful women, but more as a semi aquatic Neanderthal like creature