Mermaids

In Practice

The Greek Sirens were part bird and part woman, and the Greek sea beings were nymphs and gods in human form. The fish-tailed Siren appears only in late antique and medieval writing.

Homer's Odyssey gives the oldest surviving Siren episode. Circe warns Odysseus of a meadow of singers heaped with the bones of men, and Odysseus passes them bound to the mast (Odyssey 12.39-54; 12.165-200). Homer does not describe their bodies. The first source checked here that does is Apollonius of Rhodes, who says the Sirens of Anthemoessa were fashioned in part like birds and in part like maidens (Argonautica). No passage checked here gives a Siren a fish's tail.

The Greek sea had its own population. Hesiod makes the fifty Nereids daughters of Nereus and Doris, and he lists Thetis and Amphitrite among them (Theogony 240-264). Homer shows Thetis rising from the sea with her sisters, to grieve with Achilles (Iliad 18.35-51). Hesiod makes Triton the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite (Theogony 930-933). Pausanias describes Tritons with frog-coloured hair, fine scales, gills below the ears and a tail like a dolphin's, so a Greek writer could picture a human upper body joined to a fish-like lower body (Description of Greece 9.21.1). That is a male sea being, not a seductive singer, and it is not called a mermaid.

The fish-tailed woman does exist in the wider ancient world. Diodorus Siculus says the Syrian goddess Derceto of Ascalon has the head of a woman and a body that is entirely a fish (Bibliotheca Historica). He presents her as a Syrian goddess, not as a Greek creature or a Siren.

The change in the Siren is documented in medieval Latin. The Liber Monstrorum, an Anglo-Latin catalogue of marvels dated by modern scholars to the late seventh or early eighth century, is described by modern summaries as giving the sirens a maiden's body and fish tails. The sources checked here did not include the Latin text itself, so that wording is not quoted.

This cluster of creatures is surveyed on the monsters of Greek myth page, where the bird-bodied Siren sits beside the other sea-adjacent figures.

Where Accounts Differ

• no mermaid in Greek myth
• date and wording of the Liber Monstrorum siren

• Greek mermaid: no Greek or Roman source checked here describes a Siren, Nereid or other woman with a fish's tail. The Tritons of Pausanias (9.21.1) have a fish-like lower body but are sea gods, and Diodorus Siculus reports a fish-bodied goddess for Syria, not for Greece. Whether other fish-tailed figures existed in Greek art is not settled by the sources checked here.
• Liber Monstrorum: the claim that this medieval catalogue gives sirens fish tails rests on modern summaries and a partial Latin quotation in a secondary page. The Latin text and Andy Orchard's English translation (Pride and Prodigies, 1995) were not read, so no line is cited and the passage is not quoted. The date, late seventh or early eighth century, is the modern scholarly estimate.
• Verification: Odyssey 12, Iliad 18, Theogony and Pausanias references are checked by the citation validator against Perseus. The Argonautica passage on the Sirens of Anthemoessa was read in the local registry text and is cited by work name. The Diodorus passage on Derceto (Book 2, chapter 4) was read in the Loeb text hosted by Penelope and is cited by work name. The etymology of the word mermaid was not checked and is not stated.

Where This Appears

• Term Sirens
• Term Nereids
• Character Triton
• Character Thetis
• Character Amphitrite
• Character Odysseus
• Topic Monsters and Creatures of Greek Myth
• Mythology Greek Mythology

Sources