The Sun God Oann (or Oannes, or U-An) - according to the legend of the Sumerians, a hero with the head and body of a fish, but with human legs (and with a human face), emerged from the Persian Gulf), and a mantle of fish scales.
Gradually, Oannes was supplanted by the god Ea, already a half-fish-half-man, and it can be assumed that the emergence in Greek mythology of myths about newts, causing calms and storms, is associated with him. And the goddess Atargatis (Atargatida, Derketo), half-woman, half-fish, was the predecessor of mermaids.
Women with fish tails sometimes depicted sirens, characters of ancient Greek mythology, owners of beautiful voices. (True, starting from a fairly late period). In languages such as Spanish, French, Italian or Polish, the mermaid is still denoted by words derived from ancient Greek: "Siren, Sirene, Sirena, Syrena" or "Sereia".
Sea nymph on a sea lion. Frescoes of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Promotional video:
Jacopo de Barbari.
CORFU. Odyssey”says that Poseidon fell in love with the nymph Kerkyra. After their honeymoon on the island of Kerkyra, the couple had a son, Navsita (NAVSIFOY), the leader of the Feak. Now ancient Kerkyra has a distorted Latin name - Corfu. And the inhabitants of Corfu consider themselves the descendants of Poseidon and the nymph of Kerkyra.
Men with fish tails are newts, Nereus. The daughters of Nereus - Nereids, often tailed, entered the procession of Poseidon and Amphitrite. Nymphs (humanoid, without tails) lived in lakes and rivers. Ancient Greek and Roman canons obviously influenced the traditions of depiction in European art.
Giovanni Andrea Maglioli 1580-1610.
"Mermaid" with two tails among the Scythians, and later among the Greeks, was revered as the serpentine goddess Api. In ancient Greek myths, there is a story about how Hercules spent some time with her, as a result of which three sons appeared, the younger Scythian became the progenitor of the royal Scythians, who considered everyone else to be their slaves.
Melusine (Melusine, Melisande) - a fairy from Celtic and medieval legends, the spirit of fresh water in holy springs and rivers. Often depicted as a snake woman or fish woman from the waist down, sometimes with wings, two tails. She marries a mortal, making him a condition that he never see her in animal form. When he finds her like this, he leaves him. It is considered the ancestor of the Lusignan house.
The discovery of Melusine's secret. Hillebert de Metz, c. 1410.
French National Library.
It was widely believed that mermaids did not have a soul and that they supposedly wanted to find it, but could not find the strength to leave the sea. There is a legend dating back to the 5th century, according to which a mermaid, wanting to find a soul, visited a monk daily on a small island near Scotland, who prayed with her. The mermaid could not leave the sea and, with tears, still went to sea forever.
Also in Scottish mythology there are creatures called silks - humanoid seals that have some similarities with mermaids. Silks are presented as peaceful and kind creatures, but can avenge grievances by causing storms or overturning fishing boats. Silk can be summoned by sitting on a stone by the water at night and dropping seven tears into the water. If a boy or girl finds a skin shed by silk, he can force the silk to marry. Children from such marriages are born with membranes between the toes and have healing powers. But such a marriage, as in the case of mermaids, is often very short-lived.
Greece. Sirens are beautiful maidens with fish tail instead of legs and bird's claws. They enchant seafarers with beautiful voices.
Baltics and Germany. Undine and Nare. The root "unda" ("water") is found in many Germanic and Baltic languages. In the mythology of these peoples, the undines have been known since ancient times - the spirits of water. These are beauties with luxurious hair, beautifully built, long-legged.
Sleeping young lady and mermaids.
Another thing is the undines that exist in popular beliefs. They are typical mermaids with fish tails. In addition to the undines, the nare also lived in Lithuanian waters in the old days. Outwardly, they are exactly the same: to the waist - women, below - fish. And beauties themselves. However, they differ in character from their water sisters.
The character of German folklore and literature Loreley is a beautiful mermaid who sits on the rock of the same name above the Rhine, combing her hair and luring fishermen with singing. The plot was processed by Heine, there is a ballet and an opera.
Ireland. Merrow are distant relatives of sea maidens, real beauties, but with fish tails instead of legs and membranes between the fingers. Female merrow are beautiful, and male merrow, on the contrary, are ugly, they have green faces and bodies, red pointed noses and piggy eyes. However, they are usually cheerful and friendly. The appearance of the merrow heralds a storm, but they are much more supportive of other mermaids towards humans and often fall in love with mortals. Sometimes merrow come ashore in the guise of small horses, and red caps with feathers allow them to live under the water. If such a cap is stolen, the merrow will no longer be able to return to the sea.
Russian researcher of the 19th century, Professor V. F. Snegirev believed that all beliefs about mermaids have one, very close origin. The difference in detail is determined solely by differences in climatic conditions, soil and folk traditions.
The oldest legend says that mermaids were born at the moment of Satan's fall from heaven. Some of his associates, who were also expelled from paradise, fell into the water. From it, they began to create all kinds of intrigues against the human race. In pagan times, mermaids were considered not only river goddesses who demanded numerous sacrifices for themselves, but also the owners of treasures and enchantresses. Even in the 17th century in Russia, the belief in the existence of these representatives of the ancient form of life was officially called sorcery and enchantment.
In places remote from the sea, mermaids were known in two forms: in the traditional, with a fish tail, and without a tail - with legs. In the second case, the mermaid differed from an ordinary woman only in that she lived in the river. Such mermaids often went out on land, lurking in the coastal bushes and forest.
But in some countries, mermaids are quite insidious and bloodthirsty creatures. Having caught and put their prey to sleep, they tore it to pieces with sharp green teeth. The less violent took their victims to their underwater kingdom full of treasures. Therefore, for sailors, the mermaid was a bad omen. Whoever saw her was soon to drown in the sea.
In the 12th century Icelandic chronicles "Speculum Regale", there is a mention of a half-female-half fish observed near the island of Grimsey. “There is a monster off the coast of Greenland that people call Margigr. This creature looks like a woman to the waist, she has female breasts, long arms and soft hair. Her neck and head are in all respects the same as those of humans. From the waist down, the monster is like a fish - it has a fish tail, scales and fins. This monster had a completely repulsive face: wide eyebrows, piercing eyes, a huge mouth and a double chin.
Akhti is a water demon among the peoples of the north. Not evil and not kind. Although he loves to joke and with jokes can go too far so that a person will be dying. However, if pissed off, it can kill.
BEREGINI live on the banks of rivers, they protect people from evil spirits, predict the future, and also save small children left unattended and falling into the water. Beregin-wanderers often pointed out to travelers where the ford was located. On Rusalnaya, or Troitskaya, week, at the time of flowering rye, bereginas appeared from the other world: they emerged from the ground, descended from heaven along birch branches, emerged from rivers and lakes. However, people forgot about the Rusalia and stopped monitoring the purity of the waters. And if the lake, or the old riverbed became a swamp - all aquatic inhabitants either moved to living rivers and lakes, or became bogs and swamps.
MADS (Omutnitsa, Lopatnitsa) is a sister to mermaids, also a water lily, only she lives in a swamp, in a snow-white flower of a water lily the size of a cauldron. She is indescribably beautiful, shameless and seductive, and sits in a flower to hide her goose legs from a person, in addition - with black membranes. Seeing a person, the marsh woman begins to cry bitterly, so everyone wants to comfort her, but as soon as the villainous woman pounces on her, strangles her in her arms and drags her into the marsh, into the abyss, as soon as one takes a step towards her. Swamp women, in general, were universally attributed to a special malignancy. According to some beliefs, swamps can sometimes send devastating storms, torrential rains and destructive hail to the fields, as well as steal threads, canvases and canvases from women who have fallen asleep without prayer.
BRODNITS - girls - beauties with long hair, guardians of the fords. They live with beavers in quiet backwaters, fix and guard the fords, paved with brushwood. Before the enemy's offensive, the roaming women imperceptibly destroy the ford, directing the enemy into a swamp or whirlpool.
HARLOTS - (Slovak. Bludičky), in Slovak and Czech mythology, swamp and water spirits that appear near water in the form of wandering lights, sometimes appear in the form of children or half-half-children. Sometimes fornicators help people find their way through the bog, but they can, on the contrary, lead a person into the swamp who bothers them with a loud cry. The souls of drowned children usually become fornicators, but it is also believed that the souls of people who were specially drowned by the Water One, so that they guard a pond, lake or swamp, become fornicators.
The WATERGIRL is a baptized drowned woman, and therefore does not belong to the undead. It is believed that watercreepers prefer forest and mill pools, but most of all they like the falls under the mills, where the swiftness muddies the water and washes out pits. Under the mill wheels, they seem to usually gather for the night with the water ones. Vodyanitsy are mischievous: when they splash in the water and play with running waves or jump on mill wheels and spin with them - they tear the nets, spoil the millstones.
WATERMANTS - SEAFERS. (and they are usually giantesses), rising from the waves in a storm, they shake the ships so that they turn over. Sometimes, on bridges or in mills, waterworms attack people, trying to drag them under the water. You can weaken such an evil maiden by ripping out as much of her hair as possible. Related to antique sirens. They lurk by the coastal cliffs, so their long hair can be mistaken for sea foam, and as soon as the ship comes closer to the dangerous reefs, seafarers protrude from the waves. The frightened helmsman loses his head, the ship goes off course, becomes a toy of stormy waves, and the shipmen find themselves in the water, where the sailors are waiting for them.
VINTAGE. In Ukraine, for mermaids, in addition to rags, there is another name: buckwheat. This is the name of those mermaids who gather in the fields and with an exclamation: "Wow, wow, straw spirit!" they run merrily on the spike rye or roll back and forth on it, which makes the rye agitate, as if from a breath of wind. Where the mermaid skated - there rye has spikelets, but it has grown more beautiful. But most of all they like to hide in buckwheat, for which they got their name.
ZAZOKA (Russian Zazovka) - mermaids of Belarus. - a demonic forest creature that looked like an unusually beautiful girl with light brown thick hair so long that she did not need clothes. When she showed herself to any person, he, despite the warnings, as if spellbound, followed her. She called him by his name in a sweet, euphonic voice, laughed iridescently, then showed up, then disappeared, luring deeper into the forest with the captivating movements of her slender body. Rarely did a man return from a zazovka, some died from her insatiable love. Those who nevertheless returned to their wives and lovers, after a while again went back to the forest, so that they would never return from there again. Not every zazovka received twice, and then they themselves ruined their lives. For the winter, the zazovka disappeared somewhere:fell into hibernation or in cold weather passed into some kind of her personal world, flew away to warm lands like real swans. Zazovka is a kind of mermaids. It was mentioned in Vileyshchina, an area of the city of Vileika.
LOBOSTA - mermaid, joker, vodnikha. The word "albasta", apparently, is borrowed from the Turkic languages. Among the Tatars and Kirghiz, Albasta (Albasty, Albost) is an evil spirit. In the Astrakhan and Vyatka provinces, Albasta was described as a mermaid, but a "terrible" mermaid. This is a repulsive looking naked woman with huge breasts and long braids of hair. Like a mermaid, albasta usually sits on a stone by a river or lake, combing her loose hair. When a person appears, he throws himself into the water and disappears. Lobasta, lobosta, blade - a slightly modified name for the same "terrible" mermaid.
Albasta (Chuvash. Alpast?) Is an evil creature hostile to people in Chuvash mythology. Usually presented as a woman with long, flowing hair and four breasts hanging almost to the ground.
LOSKOTUHA (Tickle, Kazytka), Loskotka is a special kind of mermaids. "To flap" means both "chatter", "pop", and "tickle". In the opinion of DK Zelenin, shredding “actually means: shimmering, that is. tickling, tickling. In our sources (referring mainly to the regions of Ukraine and Belarus), one cannot fail to notice the desire to single out the rag in a special category of mermaids who torture the people they meet with tickling. " Patchwork - mermaids, souls of girls who died in winter, spring or summer. In the fields, they "tickle" (tickle) boys and girls to death.
MEMOSINA - water spirit in the form of a woman. Mentions of memosines, half-fish, half-women, are most often found in the beliefs of the southwestern regions of Russia. Memosins (the head, arms and belly are female, and instead of legs - a fish tail) resemble a pharaoh. “These Memosins are also remarkable in their singing, so beautiful that when they sing, the sea ceases to agitate and a person can be heard forever (Zelenin 1916). Presumably, in this, memosines are similar to sirens, which also had a charming voice.
MAVKI - (glorious myth) kind of mermaids. They especially like to appear with a full month. It is unbelted so that it does not put into anything either protective garlic or wormwood herb. And he will not be afraid to step over the iron chain. Mavki splash in the river, and then crawl out onto the shore to scratch their green curls, and travelers are asked to call them their comb for this. If you give it to the mavkas, they will comb and return to the river in peace, and the comb will have to be thrown away, otherwise you will go bald later. If you do not give, greed, then Mavki torture to death. Mavkas could knock a traveler off the road and lead him into the wilderness; tickle to death; to rip off a person's head or send illness to him. In some Hutsul villages, it was believed that Mavki entered the house at night and sucked the breasts of sleeping people (both men and women), and then they began to hurt, wither and eventually die.
NAVI - South Slavic, Ukrainian-Carpathian and Ukrainian mythological characters - the souls of unbaptized babies, stillborn children (sometimes the souls of women who died in childbirth). In the Ukrainian Carpathians and in Ukraine, the same names can be used to designate female characters approaching both East Slavic and Carpathian mermaids and Bulgarian Rusals. They appear most often during the Trinity week or during the Petrov post; dance and trample the grass; invite a shepherd to play with them, who plays for them on a nozzle; they live in water and can drag a person there who has decided to swim at that time; send drought, whirlwinds, disease. Sometimes Holy and Easter Thursdays, called "Navskie" among the Eastern Slavs, were dedicated directly to the "Mavkas" and "Nyavki".
SAMODIVES - forest nymphs, sisters to the samovils - mountain nymphs. In the popular belief, these are fair-haired, black-eyed beauties, from spring to autumn living in rivers, lakes, springs, among forests, fields, valleys. Their favorite pastime is night games with dances, songs, round dances, to which it is better for a casual traveler not to wander: either he will go crazy or die. Some collectors of medicinal herbs and shepherds are not subject to evil spells: samodiv are captivated by the sounds of copper horns. At the end of the game, samodivs like to swim - with noise, squealing, laughter. At the time of such bathing, the water in the rivers and lakes noticeably rises, and the springs gush with a fountain in human growth. Samodivs never get old.
BELARUS. YADZERKI (or Yaderki) - mythical inhabitants of the sea, three sisters, sea princesses. They presented themselves as tall, thin, golden-haired girls in silver dresses and shoes. From the face of the Yadzerki were extraordinary beauties. Coming out of the sea, the Yadzerki emitted a brilliance that shone in their eyes. If Yadzerka walked, diamond dew rolled in front of her like stars. For all their beauty, the Yadzerks were very wild, and it was impossible to approach them as close as a mile, otherwise they would have made such a cry, and the subjects, having heard, could seize and punish such a person. In addition to subjects, the Yadzeroks have horses and various animals.
SERBIA. Pitchfork - winged beauties, spirits of mountains, lakes and wells. They wear long, magical dresses. Sympathize with men, offended and orphans. Angry, they are able to kill with a glance. The pitchforks had an almost traditional appearance of mermaids, with the only difference that their bodies are transparent. The pitchforks are children of the clouds. They are the mistresses of clean springs. If the pitchforks, when they dance, like the mermaids, manage to drag a young man into their round dance, they will be enchanted. According to the Slovaks' beliefs, the pitchforks are the souls of brides who died during the engagement. In Poland, the pitchforks are recognized as the souls of beautiful girls who are destined to run between heaven and earth forever for sin. In Bulgarian folk poetry, there is a mention of yudas - water pitchforks, characterized by hostile attitudes towards people.