38 Facts About Mermaids

Here are some fun facts about mermaids.

1. Only girls are called mermaids. The males are called mermen.

2. In the Arabian Nights (a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales) mermaids are described as having moon faces, women’s hair, and hands/feet in their bellies. They also had tails like a fish.

3. The skeletal remains of a mermaid that washed ashore in 1222 are on display in a temple in Fukuoka, Japan.

4. Japanese priests believed that water soaked in the bones of a mermaid would prevent disease.

5. English sailors told tales of encountering mermen in the ocean who challenged their captain to a rhyming contest. If the captain lost, the mermen would sink his ship.

6. Animal Planet once made a fake documentary called Mermaids: The Body Found. It was so realistic that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had to release a statement denying the existence of mermaids. Which is exactly what they want you to think…

7. The tourism board in the Israeli town of town of Kiryat Yam will pay you one million dollars for a photograph of a real mermaid.

8. Scientists believe that human-sized ocean animals (like manatees) may be the foundation of the mermaid myth.

9. P.T. Barnum had a mermaid corpse on display at his circus. (It was an elaborate fake, using monkey bones and a fish tail.)

10. The Greek god Triton (son of Poseidon) was called the Messenger of the Sea. From the waist down he was a fish.

11. In 1614 a sea captain off the coast of Newfoundland saw what he described as a mermaid, “Swimming about with all possible grace.” She had green hair which he fell in love with at first sight.

12. In the Middle Ages, people in believed in mermaids as much as they believed in whales. (Most peasants had never seen either.)

13. Japanese folklore speaks of a child-sized merfolk spirit race called the Kappa. They lived in caves and coastal areas and loved to eat cucumber.

14. The Scottish believed that mermen had the power to summon storms and sink ships.

15. The mermaids in most folklore and myths were not nice creatures. They would lure ships into the coast and crash them on the rocks and then eat the sailors and steal their goods. Disney’s The Little Mermaid obviously took a slightly different direction there.

16. Myths about half-human half-fish creatures have existed for thousands of years, dating all the way back to the Babylonian era.

17. Christopher Columbus said he saw a mermaid on his voyage to America.

18. Almost every culture/civilization has myths and legends about mermaids.

19. Disney’s The Little Mermaid was based on a Hans Christian Andersen story written in 1836. Before this, mermaids were usually shown as nasty and wicked creatures.

20. Sirens (from Greek mythology) are like mermaids except they can fly and they’re super evil.

21. The African god Mami Wata (Mother of Water) was believed to be a mermaid.

22. Mermen are even rarer than mermaids. Most tales and alleged sightings were of mermaids.

23. For weapons, mermaids were said to prefer tridents (a big fork-looking thing) made from whale bones and coral.

24. In the famous Persian folktales, One Thousand and One Nights, mermaids could assume human shape whenever they wanted. This allowed them to live on land for long periods of time. (Maybe they’re still out there…)

25. The majority of mermaid sightings around Central America were made by pirates.

26. The Syrian Goddess of Fertility, Atargatis, was a mermaid.

27. Unlike unicorns and faeries, if you spotted a mermaid, it usually meant you were about to have some terribly bad luck. Sailors would sometimes even turn their ships around if someone spotted a mermaid. Which is an interesting way of skipping work.

“Hey boss I just saw a fish-woman so I’m staying home today.”

“Okay, Frank, no problem. Better safe than sorry.”

28. The mermaid in the Starbucks logo has two tails.

29. Sailors once believed that aquamarine gemstones came from the tears of mermaids. They also thought it would protect them from drowning. (It did not.)

30. It was once a popular belief on many Pacific islands that humans are descended from mermaids.

31. Oannes, the Babylonian God of Water is the earliest recorded instance of a half-human half-fish. Interestingly enough he was a merman. Mermaids didn’t appear until thousands of years later.

32. Mermaids marry for life since divorce is forbidden under the sea.

33. Mermaids were supposedly extremely gifted at singing and playing musical instruments, like the lyre. A lyre is a plucked string instrument which was popular in Ancient Greece.

34. Sir Richard Whitbourne, the famous English author, colonist, sailor, and discoverer of Newfoundland, claimed to have seen several mermaids.

35. Henry Hudson (the explorer who discovered Hudson’s Bay) also claimed to have seen several mermaids.

36. Mermaids were rumored to be both immortal and telepathic. Some sailors also thought they could see the future, which is why they were never captured.

37. European sailors believed if you kissed a mermaid, you would grow gills. This would allow you to breathe underwater and makes great party trick.

38. A mermaid’s tail is said to change color depending on her mood.