The mermaid is represented as a being that is half woman - half fish.
A mermaid is a mythological figure that, originally, named a creature with the body of a bird and the torso of a woman . Over time, however, the idea of a mermaid (which comes from the Latin word sirēna ) began to be associated with a half-fish, half-woman creature.
The Church played a fundamental role in this new conception of the mermaid, which replaced the bird part with the fish part. This occurred in the 9th century , and then the siren began to represent voluptuousness and her song was the symbol of what the Church considered "false doctrines." Although in our language we use the same term for both versions of the mermaid, there are some in which each one has its own word.
It should be noted that mermaids are nymphs : female deities of lesser rank who are usually linked to a specific natural site. In the case of mermaids, mythology says that they are found in the ocean and seduce sailors thanks to their song . The siren's voice, in fact, has the ability to bewitch men .
Representation of mermaids
Throughout history , mermaids were represented in different ways. It is common to find figures of mermaids with their breasts exposed or covered by their hair. Usually, the female part of mermaids is depicted with great beauty and harmonious lines.
Numerous literary and traditional stories have mermaids as protagonists. One of its most famous appearances is in the Odyssey , the poem attributed to Homer . In this story, Ulysses decides to cover the ears of his sailors so that, when crossing the sea, they will not be bewitched by the song of the sirens. For his part, he has himself tied to the mast of the boat to listen to the sirens without jumping into the water.
"The Little Mermaid" , for its part, is a famous story by Hans Christian Andersen that was adapted to film with great success by Walt Disney Pictures in 1989 .
Mermaids are mythological creatures.
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Despite being a creature that belongs to folklore, it has transcended all barriers, from cultural to temporal, as it appears in stories from all over the world, even today. The ancient Egyptians used the image of the mermaid, which combined the appearance of a bird with that of a woman, to symbolize the soul force known as ba .
Ba is a masculine term that represents the animated force that remains of each human being after his death, something that can also be interpreted as his spiritual personality or his soul . This concept belongs to Egyptian mythology and, as expressed in the previous paragraph, it is symbolized by the image of a mermaid with the body of a bird and the head of a woman.
The role of the ba was very important for Egyptian culture, since thanks to its mobility it could maintain a link between the Earth and the world of the gods. He was a mediator between both planes, who also assisted the deceased on their journey to meet their ka , the life force of the human spirit that remained in the tomb.
Thanks to the wings that gave it the appearance of a mermaid, the ba had the possibility of constantly moving between one world and another; In fact, he did it daily, since every night he returned from the celestial kingdom and stayed in the body of the deceased. The corpse contained the ka, and both components needed each other, which is why if someone eliminated the remains, the ba would also disappear.