The mermaids
‘Twas a Friday morn when we set sail, And we were not far from the
land, When the captain spied a lovely mermaid With a comb and a glass in
her hand.
Probably the oldest of all the legends of the sea are those about
mermaids. For thousands of years, people in almost every country in the
world have told stories of these creatures—women from the waist up,
but fish from the waist down!
Mermaids were said to live in gleaming, pearly caves at the bottom of
the sea. But they often swam up to the top of the water to sit on a rock
in the sunlight. There they would comb their long, lovely golden hair
with a comb made of fishbone and admire themselves in a glass, or
mirror. Mermaids were supposed to be marvelously beautiful, and able to
charm young sailors into leaping into the sea to join them.
Up to about a hundred years ago, many people believed in mermaids. A
great many sailors, as well as people walking along seashores, claimed
to have seen these beautiful fish-women. Even some honest and
intelligent people reported seeing them.
But there couldn’t be such a creature as a mermaid. It simply isn’t
possible to have a creature that is half human and half fish.
Scientists think they know how mermaid legends first started. Long, long
ago, many people, especially fishermen and sailors, worshipped gods that
were supposed to be half fish and half human. So the idea of such
creatures became common. And there are certain kinds of white-furred
seals that often sun themselves on rocks. From a distance, these animals
do look a little like humans with fishlike tails. Most of the
\”mermaids” that people thought they saw were probably just seals
sunning themselves.
