M is for Mermaids

Welcome to Day 13 of the Blogging A-Z April Challenge, 2013!  Each day in April (except Sundays) I will be posting here, and the posts will be in alphabetical order!  This blog is all about my love of Halloween.    I'm not into gore, so don't expect to see a lot of that.  I love exploring cemeteries, so several of those will be featured, as well as props I have made and other ideas I've admired on the Halloween Forum and Haunt Forum and Pinterest.

For some shameless self-promotion, I have 2 other blogs in the challenge, too.
Check them out!

Random Ramblings - lives up to its name.  Totally random.
The Life of Lisa - health & weight loss related

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Mermaids

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Mermaids — those half-human, half-fish sirens of the sea — are legendary sea creatures chronicled in maritime cultures since time immemorial. The ancient Greek epic poet Homer wrote of them in The Odyssey. In the ancient Far East, mermaids were the wives of powerful sea-dragons, and served as trusted messengers between their spouses and the emperors on land. The aboriginal people of Australia call mermaids yawkyawks – a name that may refer to their mesmerizing songs.

The belief in mermaids may have arisen at the very dawn of our species. Magical female figures first appear in cave paintings in the late Paleolithic (Stone Age) period some 30,000 years ago, when modern humans gained dominion over the land and, presumably, began to sail the seas. Half-human creatures, called chimeras, also abound in mythology — in addition to mermaids, there were wise centaurs, wild satyrs, and frightful minotaurs, to name but a few.

But are mermaids real? No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found. Why, then, do they occupy the collective unconscious of nearly all seafaring peoples? That’s a question best left to historians, philosophers, and anthropologists.

No matter your beliefs, they are mesmerizing and beautiful creatures!