What are mermaids?

Answer 1

The real story is that after a long night off steering the boat the guy fell asleep and ran ihto rocks he saw a manatee and said it was a girl singing to him with a fish like body. He claimed the sone put him in a trance so he would be treated like an idiot.
Later someone else fell asleep whlie at the wheel and remembered the mermaid story and used the same excuse. And so the legend began

Answer 2

the real mermaids.

Manatees are part of an animal group ("order") called "Sirenia". The word "siren" comes from an old story from back in the days of Hercules. The ancient Greeks told a story about beautiful girls that lived in the sea, called "sirens". These girls sang very beautiful songs that would put sailors in a trance. The sailors would be so hypnotized by these songs that they would crash their ships into the rocks and sink, just to find the the girls that sang those songs. Just like the story of Hercules, these stories of the sirens were not true. For a long time people did believe that these beautiful and strange creatures were real.

People who lived near and worked on the sea knew that the sea was a strange and mysterious place. The sea seemed like it went for forever. People knew that the sea was so large there were many strange and interesting creatures hidden in it. Some creatures were dangerous and frightening. Some creatures. like mermaids, were beautiful and enchanting. Many people had actually seen mermaids, too! Mermaids were sea creatures that were half girl and half fish. These creatures were not really mermaids, but manatees (and dugongs). Manatees do not stick their heads out of the water to breathe. Looking down at these strangely shaped creatures swimming under the water, people could only see some strangely shaped creature swimming by. The front half of this creature had a head and arms (flippers) and back half had a tail like a fish. The only thing people knew that was shaped like this creature was a mermaid. After being out at sea, and away from girls, for a long time, sailors actually thought the manatees they were seeing were mermaids. Even Christopher Columbus mentioned the "mermaids" he had seen during his voyages to the New World. Columbus wrote in his log that these "mermaids" were not quite as beautiful as the sailors had told him. (I guess he didn't like bald, fat girls with wrinkly skin and no front teeth!)

Answer 3

Mermaids are mythical creatures, yet throughout history there have been many reported sightings of them. Mermaids are like other mythical creatures in being half human and half animal--in this case half human on top and fishlike on the bottom (i.e., no legs). Some people think that some real creatures, such as the Manatee, may have been mistakenly identified with or as mermaids. Other people think that there are animals still awaiting discovery--Cryptozoologists--and that one day we may come upon a mermaid. Denmark uses the mermaid as a national symbol. Consult the source for more info.

Answer 4

Almost every sailor has a tale to tell about strange beasts he has seen in the waters of the sea, and some have told of mermaids, creatures which are half human and half fish. Fairy stories have grown out of these tales, including the most famous of all, The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen.

But are there really such things as mermaids? Obviously, the sailors saw something which began these stories, but was it really just as they said? Mermaids are supposed to be very beautiful sea creatures. They sit on rocks or float on the surface of the water, singing lovely and haunting songs while they comb their long hair. They have a sinister side to them as well; they are supposed to lure men down to live with them at the bottom of the sea. Of course, these poor men drown.

Nobody has ever caught a mermaid, although rewards have been offered for the first live mermaid to be caught. But the real mermaid may have been something not nearly as beautiful or as mysterious as the stories tell us.

In tropical waters there are strange creatures called manatees or dugongs, animals which look live very fat seals. They suckle their young on the surface of the water, and sightings of them from a distance may have been the origins of the stories about mermaids. They are not beautiful animals, but to sailors who had seen nothing but the sea, perhaps for months at a time, they appeared as something rather different from what they actually were. And the mermaid's songs? Well, have you ever heard recordings of whales 'singing' in the sea, calling to one another? It's a very strange and haunting sound, and may be the original mermaids' music. We cannot know for sure, but it seems a very likely explanation.

Answer 5

A mermaid (from mere in the obsolete sense 'sea' + maid(en)) is a legendary aquatic creature with the head and torso of human female and the tail of a fish. The male version of a mermaid is called a merman. Various cultures throughout the world have similar figures. They were known to sing sailors to their deaths, like the Siren, or squeeze the life out of drowning men, while trying to rescue them.

The Sirens of Greek mythology are sometimes portrayed in later folklore ; in fact in some languages the name sirena is used interchangeably for both creatures. Other related types of mythical or legendary creature are water fairies (e.g. various water nymphs) and selkies.

Answer 6

Well,in old times sailors had spread the news of a sea creature called mermaids,that is part human(Upper)part fish(lower).This rumour featured in many contemporary novels & fairytales.
But in reality there is a creature which resembles mermaids,these are Manaties or Sea-Cows,these are sea-mamals .

Answer 7

Mermaid is underwater girl.

Answer 8

They have the upper part like Human and the lower part like Fish

Answer 9

the women men at see thought they saw in the sea with fish tales

Answer 10

Magical females which are human above waist and fish below.