Mermaid hoaxes

In the study of mermaids, sometimes the most surprising thing is not that people have believed in other species that are now believed to never have existed, but the lengths to which some people have gone to convince others of the truth of the elusive sea creatures. Think of Santa Claus and all that some parents do to keep alive the tradition and convince younger children that he is the one who leaves presents and eats the cookies and milk.

Mermaid mummy from 1682, Zuiryugi Temple in Osaka, Japan

Throughout history, and in virtually all cultures, there has been widespread belief in mermaids/mermen, sirens, nixies, or other creatures that haunt the waters. Yet we should avoid the oversimplified belief that people in the past were all gullible and believed anything they were told. There were early doubters, such as the ancient Pliny, who stated "I do not believe in sirens." Yet stories still persisted throughout the centuries-and not just in folklore and legends, but history holds numerous accounts of eyewitnesses who claim to have seen such creatures. Many of the claims even had "great scientific merit." Many highly respected people were among those who reported mermaid sightings, including Christopher Columbus, who met with three sirens "dancing on the water." A fisherman in India joined the body of an ape with that of a fish in the early 1800s, and attracted many "experienced men" who dedicated much time to research what they thought was newly discovered scientific evidence, and it was sold for a high price.

The agreed upon scientific explanation for these scores of accounts now attribute the sightings to sea creatures such as manatees and seals, and it's likely that many of the witnesses were drunk at the time. There is a story of a drunk sailor who was grabbed by a seal in the port of Constantinople and dragged into the water-it's easy to see how, in an inebriated state, the soldier might have attributed the strange circumstance to a siren who had fallen madly in love with him.

The t.v. show "How I Met Your Mother" has an episode entitled "Mermaid Theory" in which the character Barney explains the existence of mermaids as the result of sailors, who, after months and months at sea and with women in sight, eventually began to go a little crazy and see manatees as beautiful women. Unlike many of Barney's theories on the show, this one isn't entirely wrong. I'm sure strange things can happen to men trapped on a boat with no land in sight for months at a time.

Maximilian Schele de Vere describes the many humanlike characteristics of several sea creatures, who might cry when mistreated, have big emotive eyes, and some can even be taught to say "Papa." Yet I still think you'd have to be extremely drunk to mistake a seal or manatee for a beautiful woman combing her long golden locks...many descriptions of mermaids are quite detailed, down to eye color. I think in addition to drunkenness and the loneliness of sailors at sea, there must have been some other explanations, either intentional deception or simply seeing what you want to see/have always believed.

Creating mermaid remains was at a peak during Victorian times, when live mermaids or "mermaid mummies" were common carnival attractions. According to Timothy Schaffert, such mermaids were created from a variety of sources, from the remains of other animals to papier-mache, and some would even rob human graves in an attempt to make their mermaids more realistic. Not all live mermaids were willing-De Vere cites an instance when some Quakers started an investigation and rescued a woman who had been forced to wear a fish tail and comb her hair in front of spectators. Some mermaid hoaxes became quite famous, such as P.T. Barnum's Feejee Mermaid.

Replica of P.T. Barnum's Feejee Mermaid

Schaffert claims that many in the audience who flocked to see such exhibits were not themselves believers (although some staunchly believed), but were almost more interested in discovering for themselves how the mermaid had been created-there is a certain appeal to being the one to figure out how it was done, much like watching a magic show and trying to see the strings, or the appeal of mystery and detective stories.

Victorian mermaid mummy

 

The desire to delude people with hoaxes exists today in tabloids and internet claims. Some people delight in attempting to pull one over on the masses; and we masses tend to eat up sensational stories, if for nothing else to prove that we are too sophisticated to believe what the gullible do. Yet I strongly agree with this quote by De Vere: "There is, however, quite enough that is truly marvelous in some of the greater denizens of the deep, to engage our interest, and to find in them the originals of the fabled beings of whom we have spoken, without resorting to such gross and cruel deception." As with the search for fairies, if we were to discover that such things existed as diminuitive flying creatures that resemble humans, or some creature has evolved that is a combination of fish and mammal, what would that prove? Does the world need these specific combinations of beauty and wonder to be considered marvelous? I hope that the excitement that fairies and mermaids brings us can help us not to be disappointed if they don't exist, but to realize how incredible each part of creation already is.

 

 Sources:

Maximilian Schele de Vere, Wonders of the Deep: A Companion to Stray Leaves from the Book of Nature, 1869. Found in Surlalune's Mermaid and Other Water Spirit Tales From Around the World

 

Timothy Schaffert, Mermaid Hoaxes, from the Mermaids issue of Faerie Magazine: Number 25

 

Mermaid mummy images from Bayberrygallery.com

 

Historical Mermaids

In his essay "Melusina" from Curious Myths of the Middle Ages by Sabine Baring-Gould (which can be found in Surlalune's Mermaid Collection), Baring-Gould describes some of the history of mermaids before the more well-known Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen.

He links mermaids and mermen to solar gods. Sun and moon gods and goddesses were often depicted as having fish tails, because in the view of ancient people, the sun and moon appeared to arise from the sea each day, and then plunge back into the sea. A creature spending half of their time in water and half in the air would have to have a body to accomodate both.

Oannes

Early mermaid history also contains stories such as that of Melusina and Undine. Baring-Gould gives us the skeletal outline of such stories:

1. A man falls in love with a woman of a supernatural race
2. She consents to live with him, subject to one condition
3. He breaks the condition and loses her
4. He seeks her-and at this point the story can go one of two ways, he either finds her and secures a happy ending, or loses her.

This storyline strikes me especially because I'm also in the midst of reading Maria Tatar's Secrets Beyond the Door: The Story of Bluebeard and His Wives, in which Tatar points out that most versions of Bluebeard, as well as older myths and stories such as Cupid and Psyche, Pandora, and the biblical Eve, condemn women who are too curious, and associate knowledge with sin, but only when applied to women.

Yet here we have the opposite storyline-much like a role-reversed Cupid and Psyche or Animal Bridegroom tale, the man is usually forbidden to look at his beautiful wife under certain conditions. Just like Psyche, he is eventually persuaded to break his promise and satisfy his curiosity, and just like Psyche he suffers for it. Although I doubt anyone would conclude from the tale of Melusina that men are condemned who seek knowledge...(largely because tales such as these are the exception and not the rule, although I wonder how widespread this tale type was in earlier centuries compared to those that either imply or outright condemn female curiosity?)

Elenore Abbott

One of the things that always fascinates me about mermaids and faerie stories are how widespread belief in them was at one time. Baring-Gould says that belief in mermaids is universal. In my earlier posts Historical Evidence for Mermaids, I list several supposed "mermaid sightings" that have been recorded in history, with specific times, locations, and people. I won't do that again, but Baring-Gould lists several other similar "sightings", from as early as 1187 and through the eighteenth century. Interesting reading, even for the skeptical...

Historical Evidence for Mermaids?-Part II

Like I said before, Surlalune has really inspired me to learn more about mermaids.

The thing about mermaids that fascinates me is that, more than any other fairy tale creature or story, throughout history people have believed, or tried to make others believe, that mermaids really do exist. Modern scientists would scoff at this idea, and there's no actual evidence to support their existence despite the many hoaxes claiming to prove otherwise, as I referenced in my original post, Historical Evidence for Mermaids. However, Christopher Columbus himself claimed he saw a mermaid. Christopher Columbus! If he claimed he saw anything else, we'd believe him without question.
The book Incredible Mysteries and Legends of the Sea by Edward Rowe Snow includes several accounts of supposed mermaid sightings. Snow himself admits he doesn't believe they exist, but it's fun to entertain the idea. And after reading so many detailed accounts, one begins to wonder...
I included most of the sightings found in chapter 10 of the book. I left out some that had less details or were more confusing to me, and honestly, I got tired after typing out so many...so for your reading or skimming pleasure:


-November 16, 1822-British publication, The Mirror, listed ten different mermaid appearances on the sea
-1531-Merman caught in the Baltic and presented to King Sigismund of Poland
-1610-Captain John Whitbourne reported sighting a mermaid in the harbor of St. John's, Newfoundland.
-1614-John Smith saw a mermaid, swimming "with grace," having large eyes, finely shaped nose that was "somewhat short," and "well-formed ears that were rather too long." Also "long green hair imparted to her an original character by no means unattractive."...had begus to experience "the first effect of love" until he realized that from the waist down, she was a fish.
-1673-John Jocelyn reported that his friend, Mr. Miller, had sighted a merman in Maine's Casco Bay. The merman put a hand over one side of his canoe, threatening to capsize it. Miller chopped off the hand with a hatchet, and the merman disappeared into the water, "dyeing the water purple with its blood."
-1730-A French ship's crew spotten a merman off Newfoundland, for several hours. This account was signed by all in the crew who could write and sent to the Compte de Maurepas.
-Unknown year-Gloucester, Massachusetts-mermaid boarded a fishing craft, clinging to taffrail with one hand, which was amputated much like the story from 1673. The mermaid was supposed to have heaved a "human" sigh before disappearing. The men examined the hand and found it to be exactly like that of a human woman's.

-Early 18th century-mermaid sighted off Nantucket Island from passing vessal.
-Date not given-fishing boat off the island of Yell got a mermaid entangled in its lines. Mermaid was reported to be three feet long, the face, forehead, and neck short and resembling those of a monkey, the arms small and folded across the breast, the fingers distinct (not webbed), with a few stiff bristles on top of the head and extending down to the shoulders, which could be erected at depressed at pleasure. The lower, fish-like part of the body was smooth and grey. The creature offered no resistance, but uttered a low sound. When released, she dove perpendicularly into the sea. No gills were observed, nor fins on the back or belly. Tail like a dogfish, breasts and mouth and lips resembling human features.
-Eric Pontopildon, in his Natural History of Norway-about a mile from the coast of Denmark, near Landscrone, three sailors came upon what they thought was a dead body, but then moved and came nearer to them. The creature appeared like a strong-limbed old man with broad shoulders, with short curled black hair and a black beard, and from the body downward was pointed like a fish.
-May 1, 1714-Francois Valentyn, captain of a ship, came upon what he believed to be a shipwrecked person, but saw a man with a "monstrous long tail" that dove into the ocean.
-1758-Mermaid featured at a fair in St. Germains, France
-1775-Mermaid exhibited in London with three sets of fins
-1797-Schoolmaster Willian Munro of Thurso, Scotland spotted a mermaid combing its hair. Same mermaid supposedly spotted later in 1809 in the parish of Reay in Caithness, Scotland.
-1822-Captain Dodge announced after he sailed into Boston Harbor that he had captured a mermaid and put her on an island where he intended to educate her in human ways. He claimed he would return with her, but when he returned without her, he claimed she had died. This incident sparked a local interest in historical accounts of mermaids, including those from Pliny and Pausanias, Theodore Gaza, 1403 in Holland (a mermaid supposedly succesfully converted to human culture), 1554 in Poland, the 11th century in Sicily, in 1712 in the Dutch East Indies (a mermaid taken captive, 59 inches tall and with green hair, refused to associate with the natives and died). Captain Dodge returned with the body of the mermaid in a glass coffin (whoa, Snow White reference) and refused to let anyone remove her from the coffin. He later took the body with him and no one knows what happened to the mermaid. (This one I had to look up online. This is a scan of the New York Mirror from 1824 that mentions Captain Dodge and the mermaid on page 375. This newspaper clearly thinks the so-called mermaid body was a construction of other animal and child corpses.)
-Antarctic explorer James Weddell, in a book published in 1825, told of a sailor hearing a musical voice, and finding a human form with long green hair and a tail resembling that of a seal, who disappeared the moment she realized she was being watched.
-1834-writer Hugh Miller tells of John Reid, a "shrewd, sensible, calculating" man who heard singing and then spotted a mermaid with long yellow hair. He caught her and forced her to grant him three wishes-that neither he nor his friends should perish in the sea, that he should be fortunate in his undertakings, and that he should be married to the fair Helen, his beloved.
-1881-Dr. Karl Blind, in the Contemporary Review, tells of the habits of mermen and women of the British Isles, who wear seal skins as disguise, but shed them and act like humans on land. Any human who obtains the skin has power over the creature.

-August 11, 1812-Mr. Toupin of Exmouth, Scotland spotted a singing mermaid a mile from Exmouth bar, whose neck, back and loins were covered with feathers.
-April 15, 1814-merman and mermaid sighted by fishermen near Portgordon, Scotland
-1819-Mermaid spotted off the coast of Ireland, size of a girl about age 10, but with "a bosom as prominent as a girl of sixteen. She had long dark hair, and full dark eyes." Dove into the ocean with a scream when a man tried to shoot her.
-1834-brig Yankee Doodle came across party of merpeople off the Riding Rocks in the West Indies
-Date not given-merman in Epirus, Greece would come ashore and hide in order to catch women. He was caught, but did not eat in captivity and died
-1870-Man conversed with mermaid under a great cliff off the Bullers of Buchan, Scotland

Images #1 and 2 by Warwick Goble, #3 from here

Historical evidence for mermaids?

This article describes an old museum exhibit that took the viewer through a series of mythical creatures and the historical basis for them. But one thing I never knew-Christopher Columbus wrote in his journal that he saw a mermaid, but that it was "not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men." Modern scientists claim what he really saw was a manatee, and at the exhibit they would superimpose a picture of a manatee over a mermaid to explain the confusion. But...really? Here's John William Waterhouse's mermaid:

Here's a manatee. I don't see any resemblance at all. Maybe Columbus needed glasses.

The article goes on to say that John Smith also saw a mermaid, but unlike Columbus, he thought she was "by no means unattractive."

Urban legends describes how the supposed washed-up skeleton of a mermaid that was sent around by email is a hoax. Taxidermists would combine bodies of monkeys with fish. Mermaid.net has interesting reading on the evolutionary possibilities of mermaids existing, though admits that there is no proof.

Supposed "real mermaid"