Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1908-11-11
MERMA|DS OF LEGEND
Sea Women That Were vouched
For by Ancient Writers.
ORIGIN OF THE DELUsI0N.

These Traditional Creatures We-s
Probably Dugongs and Manatees.
Seal Maidens of Fable-Mermaids Of
Fiction and the Seal Of Fact.
There is a decided fascination about
the nermaids of legend. Considering
their traditional form, it does not seem
quite certain whether they can be in
cluded among the fair 'humanitieS" Of
old religion. but it would be extremely
interesting to see one In all serious
ness the truths and poetry underlying
and inherent in the old myths are well
worth attention, but apart from these
there is something distinctly entertain
ing in the quasi-historical accounts
that we fa~e of mermaids and the he
role attempts at rationalistic explana-
ton. The fancy has taken firmer hold
on popular Imagination than many Of
the old legends. OF course they are
recognized as nonexistent; but, unlike
the majority Of NEUROLOGICAL beings,
they are invested colloquially with a
sort of humorous reality.
A History of the Netherlands" gives
a circumstantial account of a great
tempest which washed ashore near
HARLEM "Sea woman" as she was
swimming about. She was captured
and cleansed from the 'sea moss that
had grown about her. and became q
humanized creature, except that she
was always trying to escape into the
water. And it is added, MANY persons
worthy of credit have justified in their
writings that they had scene her in the
said towne of Harlem" In the six.
teenth century off Ceylon some sailors
captured 'seven mermen and mer-
maids several priests and physicians
testifying to the fact and the latter
leaving it on record that after eXami-
nation and dissection they found the
external and internal structures resem-
bled those of human beings. Hudson,
the famous navigator, declared that
bis ships company had seen a mer-
maid. the upper part of her body Ike
a woman, skin very white and long
black hair An old Iceland history
tells of one near Greenland, "the neck
and head in all respects like human
, being" The Norwegian Bishop Pontip-
pidan, who wrote in the eighteenth cen.
fury, records the appearance Of a
{ mermaid which was deposed to On oath
by the Observers And not to multi
2 ply quotations proving the belief even
of the learned in the actual existence
of the mermaids, Pliny asserts author
itativeIy that "as for the meremaidenS
it is no fabulous tale that goeth of
them, for locke how painters draw
4 them, so thay are indeed"
1t seems hard after all these weighty
t testimonies that we should be assured
that the "historical'' mermaids were
: only dugongs or manatees, seals OF
n sea lions. especially as some of these
t Interesting creatures measure some
eighteen feet in length and are by nc
: means attractive in appearance. Some
t thing in the shape of the head and the
: breast is relied on by the rationalistit
scientists as explaining the delusion
but one is at loss to understand how
this can account for the circumstan
: tial descriptions that have come dowr
to US. Coevals of those old writer.
have proved to US by their painting
that they held very much the sam.
views as to what constitutes feminine
beauty as we have, and we shoult
J certainly not discover in the dugong o
? manatee anything whatever to sugges
. In the very faintest degree the idea o
| OF ic ri
" the implication of comelinesS in TIN
verbal pictures the old writer's Civ
a of their mermaids, though Columbus
n who reported that he had seen two o
e three. admitted that he saw no beaut.
III them. The seal explanation perhaps
e does the least violence to ones tradi
n tonal ideas. as. whatever may b
< thought Of its resemblance to a wo
a man. il is in Itself graceful and its fac
e and eyes are pleasing
There is. at any rate, rather sug
e gestive coincidence in the view tina
the mermaid OF fiction is the seal o.
;, fact, for closely a.l;e,i if not identica
with merinaidS were the seal maid
ems" of a thousand fables. The &C
cepted tradition was that these maid
!, y ems assumed the form of seals, which
q they could reiinquish at any momen
d by divesting themselves Of the sea.
v skins. Only if while they were dis
y porting themselves In quasi human
u guise their seal integuments were stol
en- or hidden they would have to ne
main as ''maidens'' and could not re
sumo the form of seals. We know OF
r the authority of many song and
0 legend that willingly or unwillingiy &
( man has been
married TO a mermaid
At the bottom Of the deep blue sea-"
Ie but in the case of the fortunate pur
If loiner of seal maiden's troublesome
+ disguise" there was no need for a sub
marine descent. She could quite com
fortably live on land and, indeed, had
to unless she found her sealskin again
u though always longing, like the mer