Did mermaids really exist?
In all world cultures there is the figure of a fish-woman, powerful and enchanting. But what is the symbolic meaning of this archetype?
The mermaids
So I told her everything in order, and then Circe, the sovereign, spoke to me with these words: "Thus all this is accomplished; but now listen to how I speak to you: the God will remind you of it again. First, you will come to the Sirens, who enchant all men, whoever approaches them. Anyone who unknowingly comes ashore and listens to the voice of the Sirens will never again be surrounded, upon returning home, by a joyous wife and small children, but the Sirens enchant them with their harmonious song, sitting on the meadow: the shore around them is full of decaying human skeletons; flesh disintegrates on the bones. But flee and plug the ears of your companions, melting wax with the scent of honey, so that none of them hears it: you, however, if you would like to listen, have yourself tied in the agile ship, your feet and hands bound upright on the mast, with ropes attached to it, so that you can enjoy listening to the voice of the Sirens."...(from the "Odyssey" by Homer)
Daughters of Achelous, rival of Hercules, and the muse Calliope, the Sirens in Greek mythology are nymphs, marine deities with a seductive song. Gradually associated with nereids and undines, they received their definitive form only in later times. Yet, rarely has a myth had such a hold on the human imagination, and the recent success of TV series like H2O reveals how the Siren remains a beloved and fascinating figure, still enchanting millions of people more with her essence than with her voice. However, it is an ancient myth, much older than Greek classicism, with almost science fiction-like implications: the discovery of various aspects of Sirens unveils interesting (or unsettling, depending on the perspective) details and similarities.
The first note regarding Sirens concerns their most peculiar characteristic, that is, the body half-female and half-fish. This is a late syncretism, as in the original Greek myth, Sirens were bird-like creatures similar to Harpies. Originally normal nymphs, they were companions of Persephone. When Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the Underworld, Demeter became furious and transformed them into birds, tasking them with searching for her beloved daughter.
In reality, the Siren is an ancient symbol associated with the feminine deity. A generating and generative deity, but also dark, instinctive, and at times dangerous. In the Greek myth, what distinguishes the Siren, whether fish or bird, is the song. Audible from about two hundred meters away, this song has the peculiarity of enchanting human males. Not women, but only men: when they hear it, they crash against rocks, drown, or let themselves die of hunger just to hear it! Analyzing the story from a symbolic perspective, it becomes clear that the song, the voice, the melody are elements of divine harmony, metaphors for the laws governing the cosmos.
The female voice, a true archetype of the Mother Generator, emits an irresistible call because it is the primordial sound of natural creative instinct. The Rational Man (typically Greek), while fleeing from instinctuality, is attracted to it, in an altogether understandable manner. The Siren is Nature, the wild force of the sea (or the wind), and man wants to merge with it because his origin is nonetheless feral: but in doing so, he loses all his intelligence as an evolved and conscious being, risking his life in the process.
Ultimately, it's not much different from the situation of a mountaineer who risks falling, a diver, or an extreme sports enthusiast: nowadays, no one would criticize these modern heroes, even though "rationally" putting one's life at risk in actions that often have no meaning or sense would horrify the mentality of our ancestors. Thus, the Siren as a metaphor for Mother Earth could be said, and in a first sense, it is so. But, as usual, symbols from the most remote past hide multiple interpretations.
This is the case with that particular type of Siren that shows two tails, often displayed open with the sexual organ in view. Clearly, they are symbols of sacred femininity and fertility and somewhat surprisingly are present in various churches, such as the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan (Italy). Indeed, bifurcated Sirens are somewhat the most characteristic mark of Romanesque sculpture, with striking examples even on the oldest buildings of medieval towns, such as in Como and several other places in Europe. The oldest relief, however, is the one found carved in tuff in the Tomb of the Siren, in Sovana, in the province of Grosseto. It is an Etruscan tomb from the 6th-7th century BCE and features this exceptional symbol carved above the entrance. The Sovana Siren, similar to another found in Chiusi, has the peculiarity of having, in addition to the two tails, also wings, and this characteristic gives it affinities both with angelic creatures of the Middle Eastern tradition and with the winged female deities so typical of the religions of the Indo-European peoples and Ancient Egypt.
The wings are also a characteristic of the Sea Goddess, worshipped in Lemnos, an island in the Aegean Sea with a genetic and cultural heritage extremely akin to that of the Etruscans. Lemnos was the seat of the workshops of the Greek God of Fire, Hephaestus (the Roman Vulcan): this deity, banished from Olympus, took refuge on the island, where he married Demeter and had the Cabiri as children, benevolent spirits skilled in metallurgy who also had an important role in assisting sailors. This is because one aspect of Demeter, queen of crops and harvests, Nature and fertility, was also that of the deity of fishing and navigation: hence the name Marina. Therefore, the Sirens could be a distortion of the cult of Demeter-Marina and her children, the benevolent Cabiri.
At first glance, this reference to the sexual and reproductive nature of the woman-siren in the midst of Christian dominion may seem contradictory. In reality, in a Middle Ages much less puritanical than one might think, the siren was a reference to the ultimate Ichthyos, Jesus: ruler of the astrological Age of Pisces, the fish-woman becomes, in an absolute sense, his bride. Before venturing into bold comparisons with Mary Magdalene, let's explain that the Christ's bride is the Soul, and the two tails signify the ambiguity of human nature. The fact that the tails are open and joined to the hands exposes the sexual organ as a symbol of fertility and infinite re-generation, but their position also aligns them with the omega letter of the Greek alphabet. The bifurcated siren is thus an omega, the last letter, the end of all things in the Apocalypse: but she is also an Alpha, a beginning, a mother. This brings back the concept of the Ouroboros, the cyclicity of the Celtic cross and the Egyptian Ankh, indicating that these symbols truly encapsulate a philosophical universe rooted in the origins of Humanity.
But this generative instinctuality has not been moved from air to water by chance. The siren, from a winged and divine being in a strict sense, becomes an even more feminine element, connected with water and the primordial womb. Although there is a suspicion that this process may have been facilitated by strange sightings that have crowded the seas of the world since time immemorial. All coastal peoples have in their traditions the story of a siren, sometimes a benevolent creature, other times malevolent, interacting with fishermen during their long navigations. The figure of the siren appears in many medieval bestiaries, and the first reference is in the Chronicle of St. Brendan from the 11th century: in this Irish tale, it is said that the saint, in his wanderings, encountered a group of sirens on the rocks off the island of Guernsey, in the Channel, and baptized them.
Apart from this group of converted sirens, fish-women are present in all Nordic folklore. In Iceland, they are called Masguguer, a chronicle from 1215 describes them as women up to the waist, with ample breasts and loose hair. They feed on raw fish, and their appearance always precedes a terrifying storm. In the seas of Scotland lives Ceasg, a half-woman, half-salmon siren who, if caught, grants three wishes if released. In the seas off Wales, the Morforwyn can be sighted, decidedly horrible sirens with wide mouths, no noses, no ears, short arms, and webbed feet; their presence announces rough seas and storms. Meanwhile, on the Isle of Man, live the Ben Varrey, particularly skilled in singing and swimming, able to dart like dolphins.
In 1962, a local newspaper offered a prize for capturing one of these creatures. The prize was never claimed, but some details of the Ben Varrey were glimpsed: red hair, capable of speeds of about 12 knots, about a meter tall, and very beautiful. Speaking of red-haired sirens, the Vikings had in their myths the memory of Havfrue and Havmand, respectively the siren and the merman of Scandinavia. Havfrue is a malevolent creature, mischievous and dangerous for those who fall into the sea, and her appearance indicates storms or scarcity of fish.
Even in Germany, sirens are harbingers of danger: there seems to be one on the Rhine River, near Sankt Goar, in a perilous spot for navigation. Perched on a cliff above the river, the siren sings melodiously, attempting to lure sailors. The Arctic seas also boast sirens, and one was even sighted by a renowned navigator: in 1608, Henry Hudson, the discoverer of the eponymous bay in Canada, encountered off the coast of Novaya Zemlya a woman of normal size with a human chest and back, extremely white skin, long hair, and a tail similar to that of a mottled porpoise. In the Netherlands, sirens are called Merminne and are seen without a tail but with legs.
Evidence of this is a remarkable event that occurred in 1403: in the Edam canal, some girls encountered a strange creature on the swampy shores of the water. A young woman covered in hair, moss, and algae, who did not speak but sighed. Rescued, washed, and clothed, the woman seemed to behave outwardly like a human: she ate and drank, but as soon as she was taken outside, she continuously tried to return to the sea. For this reason, she was transported from Edam inland to Haarlem to prevent her from escaping: she was taught human arts and learned to sew, although she never learned to speak. She died in 1420, seventeen years after her discovery. A painting of her remains, kept in the Queen of Holland's court museum, and a statue placed at the entrance of the port of Purmerpoort. Was this mysterious being a siren, a merminne? The chronicle of the time does not tell us, but it suggests that the woman had hands suited for human work. Perhaps she was a poor shipwreck survivor, maybe foreign, considered bizarre due to her inability to understand Dutch; or she was mute, either naturally or from the shock of the shipwreck... We will never know.
But some have analyzed sirens seriously during the Enlightenment, arriving at surprising conclusions. According to the Frenchman Benoît de Maillet, they are a true primordial people, the last survivors of a primitive race adapted to water from which humans descended. Indeed, humans are quite amphibious beings: our hands are partially webbed, our mouths and noses are suited for swimming underwater, and it is even possible to nurse babies underwater, a capability shared only by cetaceans apart from humans. So, is the primordial origin of humanity in the water?
This idea, paradoxically, would find many supporters today, especially among proponents of Gnosticism. They believe in a tradition of priests who, starting from the post-diluvian teachings of the Fish-Man, the God Oannes of the Sumerians, or even Osiris of the Egyptians, have been carrying forward for tens of thousands of years a sacred mission to save humankind. An amphibious race that, in some symbols such as the Catholic Pope's mitre, carries a series of recognition signals. Fantasies? While Gnostic discourse finds both light and shadow, it is true that according to the Spanish historian Garcilaso de la Vega, who lived in the 17th century, the pre-Columbian Goddess Orejona, whose cult was centered in the Tiahuanaco area of Bolivia, is described with amphibious characteristics: she has a woman's legs but webbed hands and gills. The pre-Inca story tells that Orejona landed from the planet Venus aboard a golden ship in Lake Titicaca and from there gave rise to the human race.
Sirens are not a phenomenon limited to Europe. As often happens, this is a global myth that probably has its roots in prehistory due to the distant peoples who narrate its stories. In Japan, for example, there are the Ningyo, shy and harmless. In Thailand, there are the Duyugun with long hair, but they are not attractive. In Guyana, however, sirens are emanations of the Water Goddess Amana who can take any form: she taught magic to the first magicians and witches (similar to the Greek Demeter). In Nigeria, there are sightings of Mami Wata, who grant extrasensory powers to those who treat them well and feed them. In Egypt, there are tales of the Memozine: daughters of Pharaoh Ramses' soldiers who drowned during the flight of the Israelites led by Moses, who parted the Red Sea. These soldiers were saved by sea creatures and had daughters who were sirens. And in Italy? We can recount the story of Murgen, a siren who comes out of the waters in Modica (near Ragusa, in Sicily) on the night between January 24 and 25 and predicts the future. There are also legends that in a stretch of sea off an unspecified area of the province of Lecce, there is the underwater castle of the queen of the sirens, whose immense garden is tended by drowned sailors; not to mention the siren of the Lighthouse of the Port of Messina, benevolent but shy and extremely timid.
As we can see, the list of sirens is extensive, and more could be added to our narrative. But how can we rationally explain this wealth of sightings? Could there be a more rational and scientific interpretation? One hypothesis might be that of the dugong, a marine mammal of the sirenian order related to the manatee. This animal is somewhat similar to a walrus, about three meters long, but it has various anthropomorphic features such as two thoracic front breasts, a sophisticated form of vocalization that allows it to produce actual songs, and a sociable nature that historically led it to interact joyfully with fishermen (before being nearly exterminated by them for its fat). In theory, the dugong, once widespread throughout the Mediterranean, is the ideal candidate to scientifically explain sirens. However, its appearance is not particularly beautiful by human standards. To us, it appears as a wonderful and chubby creature, but descriptions speak of beings with long, flowing hair of irresistible beauty, and the dugong certainly does not possess these features. So, what did medieval sailors actually see?
If today dozens of novels and comics tell tales of sirens, if successful films, cartoons, and TV series gain popularity and acclaim, it is evident that the feminine archetype of the siren is still very much present in the collective imagination.
