Mermania

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2019

Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers

Rachel Federman asserts her moral rights as the author of the text.

Illustrations by Laura Korzon

Cover and interior design by Jacqui Caulton

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN 9780008358013

Ebook ISBN 9780008362799

Version 2019-08-20

Dedication

For Wally & Petra –

shapeshifters who always

seem to know who they are

Contents

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION

HISTORY

MYTHOLOGY

SCIENCE

ART, LITERATURE & POPULAR CULTURE

MERMAID SPELLS

MERMAID-INSPIRED RECIPES

MERMAID CRAFTS & ACTIVITIES

MERMAID INSPIRATION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Always follow your

dreams,

NO MATTER HOW

unrealistic

others think they are.

Introduction

Mermaids belong to an enchanted realm. Their seascape is at once tantalizingly out of reach – even the greatest underwater diver must eventually come up for air – and achingly familiar, water being our first home.

From the Middle English word mere – meaning lake or sea – mermaids are ‘maids of the sea’, the stuff of legends, but at the same time ever-present in our modern world. From TV series to music videos, from children’s illustrated books to feminist magazines, graffiti, stamps, tattoos, young adult lit, and manga comics, to inspirational postcards and cosy fish-tailed blankets, it seems that wherever you turn, our oceanic alter egos are there. Sprung from ancient fish gods, reborn from the tragedy of forbidden love, combined with the seductive power of the half-bird sirens who sang to Odysseus, and a warning against temptation in the Middle Ages, today mermaids exist as everything from birthday party entertainment to a reclaimed site of political and particularly feminist power.

While we humans dream of being able to breathe underwater – and many a young child longs for the shiny scales of a multi-coloured tail of his or her own – throughout art and story, mermaids are seen yearning for life on land. A 2012 special on the Discovery Channel led viewers to believe that mermaids did in fact exist, a NYC parade near Mermaid Avenue celebrates the dazzling creatures on the Coney Island Boardwalk each year, a bronze statue in Copenhagen has been rebuilt after many attacks by vandals, and from as long ago as the Bronze Age these enchanted creatures have served as our muse.

Surely, part of the mermaid’s appeal is how they dramatize our own dilemma – feeling our animal selves to be immortal, something more than the transient beings that we are. Perhaps these magical sea creatures help us to access a place beyond our material existence. And given that most of the world’s oceans remain unexplored, how can we be sure they don’t really have a material existence themselves?

But perhaps their greatest effect on humans is the way mermaids remake our world. Their desire for a life on land helps us reimagine the one we already have. In their eyes, ordinary elements – air, feet, rain – take on a new hue, becoming extraordinary, even miraculous. Mermaids remind us that the realm to which we belong is enchanted too. Those who love the Earth, with its rising oceans, have increasingly embraced mermaids in their duality – as both harbingers of doom and agents of protection – to swim forward in the fight against climate change.

If mermaids have a legacy that lasts for ages to come, one hopes it will be to help humans preserve the water-filled planet that we’re so lucky to have.

Mermaid Names Around the Seven Seas

Throughout history,

mermaids

have been known by many names:

AQUATIC HUMANOID

KELPIE

LIMNIAD

NAIAD

NERIAD

NIX

OCEAN NYMPH

OCEANID

SIREN

SPIRIT

SPRITE

SYLPHE

UNDINE

WATER NYMPH

Mermaids have been known to live for up to

three hundred

years

in their aquatic form.

TRADING FINS FOR LIFE ON LAND TENDS TO SHORTEN THEIR LIFESPAN DRAMATICALLY, PLUS IT OFTEN MEANS

giving up their voices along with their tails.

IN RETURN, THEY’RE GRANTED A TERRESTRIAL ROMANCE, OR

perhaps even a soul.

SADLY, IT’S SAID THAT

mermaids

don’t have souls;

ONCE THEY DIE THEY SIMPLY

turn into

sea foam.

IN BIBLICAL TERMS (TO MISQUOTE GENESIS),

‘For sea foam

thou art, and unto sea foam

SHALT THOU RETURN.’

In the waters off

THE PORT OF HISTORIC NYHAVN, IN

Copenhagen,

LIES A WELL-LOVED BRONZE STATUE OF

The Little Mermaid,

MADE BY EDVARD ERIKSEN, WHOSE WIFE POSED FOR THE SCULPTURE.

IN 1909 A BREWER NAMED CARL JACOBSEN (THE FOUNDER OF CARLSBERG BEER) COMMISSIONED THE WORK AFTER FALLING UNDER THE SPELL OF A BALLET VERSION OF THE FAMOUS FAIRYTALE. ALTHOUGH MOST GAZE ON

the statue with love

FOR THE QUIET SUNBATHER NEAR THE LANGELINIE PROMENADE, SHE HAS SUFFERED VARIOUS ATTACKS. IN 1964 THE BELOVED STATUE LOST ITS ORIGINAL HEAD. AN AMPUTATION, ATTEMPTED BEHEADING, AND EXPLOSION FOLLOWED. SHE HAS BEEN RESTORED EACH TIME, THOUGH, AND

continues her watch.

Mermaids

CAN SYMBOLIZE ETERNITY, FERTILITY,

beauty, desire, freedom,

mystery, and doom.

Tales about mermaids

began to appear

three thousand years ago,

IN THE MESOPOTAMIAN KINGDOM OF ASSYRIA.

MERMAIDS HAVE BEEN ENCHANTING HUMANS FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS.

Stories of merfolk

STRETCH BACK THROUGHOUT HISTORY AND ACROSS CULTURES. IN THE

Babylonian period

(1800–600 BCE), EA, THE GOD OF THE SEA (IN GREEK, OANNES), HAD THE

lower body of a fish and the upper body of a human.

THE CREATOR OF THE

live mermaid show

AT WEEKI WACHEE SPRINGS, FLORIDA, WAS

‘Fish Man’ Newton Perry,

A US NAVY VETERAN WHO HAD ONCE TRAINED NAVY SEALS TO SWIM UNDERWATER IN WORLD WAR 2. ALTHOUGH THE

city of Weeki Wachee

WAS NOT INCORPORATED UNTIL 1966, PERRY OPENED THE THEATRE IN OCTOBER 1947. AS OF 2008, THE LEGENDARY FLORIDA ATTRACTION IS NOW

a state park.

The name

Weeki Wachee

COMES FROM THE SEMINOLE TRIBE OF NATIVE AMERICANS WHO CALLED THE SPRING WEEKIWACHEE

(winding river).

Explorer Christopher Columbus reported seeing

three mermaids

IN THE OCEAN OFF THE COAST OF WHAT IS NOW THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, IN JANUARY 1493. HE SAID THEY ‘CAME QUITE HIGH OUT OF THE WATER’ BUT WERE ‘NOT AS PRETTY AS THEY ARE DEPICTED,

for somehow in the face they look like men’.

Moonlight,

CASTING AN ALLURING GLOW ON AQUATIC MAMMALS, MAY HAVE HELPED DECEIVE TIRED SEA TRAVELLERS EAGER FOR A GLIMPSE OF ENCHANTMENT.

MOST REPORTED SIGHTINGS OF

mermaids

probably mistook manatees, dugongs,

AND THE NOW-EXTINCT SEA COWS FOR THEIR ENCHANTED COUNTERPARTS. AND AT LEAST ONE CREATIVE EXPLORER (WILLIAM SCORESBY IN 1820) SAW

a mermaid figure in a walrus.