Merfolk

The Land Baby- John Collier

That is a beautiful, but strange and slightly sinister painting. It might be from the 1863 children's novel called The Water Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, by the Reverend Charles Kingsley. The book is about the adventures of a chimney-sweep boy, and full of moral lessons about cleanliness and dirtiness. The Victorians liked to scare kids into behaving. Maybe mermaids snatch away children who go naked on the beach?

There are legends about mermaids in all the world's cultures, but most are versions of the same stories. As we know, a mermaid is a mythical aquatic creature with a human torso and the tail of a fish.  She tends to be dangerous and alluring to sailors in either an innocent or deliberate way. But in stories she can also be sweet and helpful like the Disney character.

A male version of a mermaid is called a "merman," and they are supposedly wild and ugly with little interest in humankind.  Females, males and children together are known as "merfolk."

Whew.  Anyway, such fascinating creatures make for fanciful art, which is how I got off on this crazy topic in the first place.

Russian Mermen- 1866 

Merfolk Playing- Flora White

A Mermaid- John Waterhouse

The Mermaid and the Prince- Edmund Dulac

The Fisherman and the Syren- Frederic Leighton

The Little Mermaid to the Rescue- Edmund Dulac