Merman
Overview
Antiquity
Perhaps the first recorded merman was the early Babylonian sea-god Ea, whose Sumerian Enki, and was known to the Greeks as Oannes. Oannes had a fish head and man's head beneath, and both a fish tail and man like legs, according to Berossus. The fish god Dagon of the Philistines, with a fish-tailed body, may derive its origins from these earlier Mesopotamian gods.Greco-Roman mythology
of Greek mythology was depicted as a half-man, half-fish merman in ancient Greek art. Triton was son of the sea-god Poseidon and sea-goddess Amphitrite. Neither Poseidon nor Amphitrite were merfolk, although both were able to live under water as easily as on land.Tritons later became generic mermen, so that multiple numbers of them were depicted in art.
Triton were also associated with using a conch shell in the later Hellenistic period. In the 16th century, the Triton was referred to as "trumpeter of Neptune " in Marius Nizolius's Thesaurus, and this phrase has been use in modern commentary. The Elizabethan period poet Edmund Spenser referred to Triton's "trompet" as well.
Another notable merman from Greek mythology was Glaucus. He was born a human and lived his early life as a fisherman. One day, while fishing, he saw that the fish he caught would jump from the grass and into the sea. He ate some of the grass, believing it to have magical properties, and felt an overwhelming desire to be in the sea. He jumped in the ocean and refused to go back on land. The sea gods nearby heard his prayers and transformed him into a sea god. Ovid describes the transformation of Glaucus in the Metamorphoses, describing him as a blue-green man with a fishy member where his legs had been.
Medieval Period
In Medieval Europe, mermen were sometimes held responsible for causing violent storms and sinking ships.A twin-tailed merman is depicted on the Bianco world map. A merman and a mermaid are shown on the Behaim globe.
Rennaissance Period
Gesner's sea-satyr
in his chapter on Triton in Historia animalium IV gave the name of "sea-Pan" or "sea-satyr" to an artist's image he obtained, which he said was that of an "ichthyocentaur" or "sea-devil".Gesner's sea-devil has been described by a modern commentator as having "the lower body of a fish and the upper body of a man, the head an horns of a buck-goat or the devil, and the breasts of a woman", and lacks the horse-legs of a typical centaur. Gesner made reference to a passage where Aelian writes of satyrs that inhabit Taprobana's seas, counted among the fishes and cete.
This illustration was apparently ultimately based on a skeletal specimen and mummies. Gesner explained that such a creature was placed on exhibit in Rome on 3 November 1523. Elsewhere in Gesner's book it is stated the "sea monster " viewed on this same date was the size of a five-year-old child. It has been remarked in connection to this that mermen created by joining the monkey's upper body with a fish's lower extremity have been manufactured in China for centuries, and such merchandise may have been imported into Europe by the likes of the Dutch East India Company by this time..
The "sea-satyr" appears in Edmund Spenser's poem The Faerie Queene, and glossed by Francis J. Child as a type of "ichthyocentaur", on the authority of Gesner.
Germanic folklore
Icelandic folklore speaks of mermen known as marbendlar."Agnete og Havmanden" is a Scandinavian ballad of late composition that tells of a merman who was mated to a human woman named Agnete, and unsuccessfully pleaded her to come back to him and their children in the sea.
Outward appearance
English folklorist Jacqueline Simpson surmises that as in Nordic countries, the original man-like water-dwellers of England probably lacked fish-like tails. A "wildman" caught in a fishnet, described by Ralph of Coggeshall was entirely man-like though he liked to eat raw fish and eventually returned to the sea. Katharine Mary Briggs opined that the mermen are "often uglier and rougher in the British Isles".Mermen which seldom frequent American folklore are supposedly depicted as less beautiful than mermaids.
Celtic folklore
The Irish narrative about a male merrow named Coomar, described as extremely ugly creatures with green hair, teeth and skin, narrow eyes and a red nose, turned out to be fakelore, the entire "Soul Cages" story being invented by Thomas Keightley by adapting one of Grimm's folklore pieces.In Cornish folklore into early modern times, the Bucca, described as a lonely, mournful character with the skin of a conger eel and hair of seaweed, was still placated with votive offerings of fish left on the beach by fishermen. Similarly vengeful water spirits occur in Breton and Gaelic lore which may relate to pre Christian gods such as Nechtan.
Folklore elsewhere
In Finnish mythology, a vetehinen, a type of Neck, is sometimes portrayed as a magical, powerful, bearded man with the tail of a fish. He can cure illnesses, lift curses and brew potions, but he can also cause unintended harm by becoming too curious about human life.The boto of the Amazon River regions of northern Brazil, is described according to local lore as taking the form of a human or merman, also known as encantado and with the habit of seducing human women and impregnating them.
In the folklore of the Dogon of Mali, ancestral spirits called Nommo had humanoid upper torsos, legs and feet, and a fish-like lower torso and tail.
In heraldry
Mermen or tritons see uncommon use in British heraldry, where they appear with the torso, head and arms of a man upon the tail of a fish. They are typically used as supporters, and are rarely used as charges.Hoaxes and sideshows
The Fiji mermaid was first put on display in 1842 by P.T. Barnum in the Barnum's American Museum, New York. A similar "merman" was supposedly found in Banff, Alberta, and is displayed at the Indian Trading Post. Other such "mermen", which may be composites of wood carvings, parts of monkeys and fish, are found in museums around the world, for example, at the Booth Museum in Brighton.Such fake mermaids handcrafted from half monkey and half fish were being made in China and the Malay archipelago and being imported by the Dutch since the mid-16th century. Several natural history books published around this time carried entries on the mermaid-like monk-fish and the bishopfish, and E. W. Gudger suspected these were misinformation based on the aforementioned hoax mermaids from the East.
Gudger also noted that the mermaid-like bishopfish could well be simulated by a dried specimen of a ray. A dried ray bears a vaguely anthropomorphic shape, and can be further manipulated to enhance its desired monstrous look. Such figures made of sharks and rays eventually came to be known as Jenny Hanivers in Britain.
Literature and popular culture
wrote a poem called "The Forsaken Merman" about a merman whose human wife abandoned him and their children. Mermen may feature in science fiction and fantasy literature, for example, science fiction writer Joe Haldeman wrote two books on Attar the Merman in which genetically enhanced mermen can communicate telepathically with dolphins. Samuel R. Delany wrote the short story Driftglass in which mermen are deliberately created surgically as amphibious human beings with gills, while in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter, a race of merpeople live in a lake outside Hogwarts.Mermen sometimes appear in modern comics, games, television shows and films. Although they were once depicted largely as being unattractive in some traditions as described in previous sections, in some modern works, mermen are portrayed as handsome, strong and brave. In the 1977–1978 television series Man from Atlantis, the merman as played by Patrick Duffy is described as a survivor from Atlantis. In the DC Comics mythology, mermen are a common fixture of the Aquaman mythos, often showing a parochialistic rivalry with humanoid water-breathers. The mermen or merfolk also appear in the Dungeons & Dragons game.
The Australian TV series ', a spin-off of , includes a teenage boy named Zac who turns into a merman. The 2006 CG-animated film ' features a merman character named Prince Nalu.
The monster Gill-man from Creature from the Black Lagoon could be seen as a modern adaptation of the Merman myth.