Mermaid

or Sea Maiden, a mythical inhabitant of the sea. The traditional mermaid has the form of a woman from the waist upward and the form of a fish from the waist downward. Seamen's tales of mermaids appear to be as old as navigation. The mermaid sits on a rock combing her hair. Sometimes she herds her drove of sea cattle, or else swims with one hand, clasping a child to her breast with the other, and so on. Until of late a sailor who had not seen a mermaid and who was not ready to tell many a marvelous tale of the mermaids, forfeited his title as an old tar. Tales of mermaids are widely distributed from Iceland to India. They seem akin to the myths of sirens and tritons. The German Lorelei is a creation of this kind. It has been suggested that the entire group of tales has its origin in the half human look of many seals, and particularly of the dugong or manatee. Seen at a distance, half erect, holding its young to its breast with one flipper, the dugong might almost pass for a savage woman nursing her child. See Dugong; Manatee