Mermaids have not been around since the dawn of recorded time, but were first recorded in Mesopotamia. Actually the first depictions were of mermen who rose from the sea each morning in order to teach the skills of creating a civilisation to the Mesopotamians themselves.
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The Ancient Greeks spoke of creatures called sirenes who were originally birds with the heads of women, much like the harpy. However, some sirenes also had fish tails. Sirens famously sang beguiling songs to draw sailors to their dooms on dangerous rocks. By mediaeval times the modern concept of the fish-tailed women that we are familiar with today had formed.
Axel Müller, Christopher Halls and Ben Williamson have backgrounds in mineralogy and geology. This is certainly a departure from studying folklore or anthropology, as might have been expected. Axel Müller is Professor in Mineralogy and Petrology at the Natural History Museum of the University of Oslo. The late Christopher Halls was awarded a PhD in Geology from University College, London. Ben Williamson is an Associate Professor in Applied Mineralogy at the University of Exeter.
Mermaids, or merpeople, are examined from their first recorded appearance on a cylinder seal from Mesopotamia up until the extremely recent trend of cosplaying mermaids in sophisticated costumes, sometimes involving elaborate tails made of modern materials. They are looked at in their earliest incarnations as gods and powerful influences in the world, then as their place as cultural artefacts, i.e. in literature, film and as children’s toys. This also involves the evolution of the mermaid, covering other myths that fed into and influenced these chimerae, resulting in the child-friendly, (half) conventionally attractive women and harmless creatures that live in contemporary public consciousness.
This is an ambitious work which has some remarkable photographs and visual aids, such as the diagram 'Genealogy of the Sea Gods'. Although, as has been mentioned, the authors are qualified in areas not normally associated with the ancient world, mythology or cultural analysis, these fields are covered well and with a minimum of jargon. There is plentiful reference to art depicting these submarine entities, including the grotesque Feejee Mermaids, strange constructions usually made in Japan and consisting of a type of doll-like creature with the head, torso and arms of a small monkey paired with the tail of a fish. They were part-taxidermy, part sculpture and created a nineteenth-century mermaid craze all on their own.
The authors have written a wonderfully in-depth (pun intended) book about virtually every aspect of merpeople. There is as much information as most people could ever wish for about the subject. Although written in an accessible fashion, this is a scholarly work and, as such, is probably not for children or the casual reader. The price tag reflects this as well. It has an index and a bibliography, as would be expected from a book of this calibre. It is suitable for the serious student of folklore, especially those who prefer to specialise in aspects of the merpeople.
- Trevor Pyne
1 comment:
Looks interesting, probably no coincidence that such a book comes out now: The last two episodes of the Centre for Fortean Zoology's web TV series "On the Track" interviews Ronan Coghlan (whose books have been reviewed on this blog in the past) to discuss modern day mermaid sightings, which continue to happen despite very few cryptozoologists taking an interest in the topic.
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