Mermaids — or mermaid-like creatures — have existed in mythology for thousands of years.
The first mermaid myths may have originated around 1000 B.C., when a Syrian goddess jumped into a lake to transform into a fish, but her great beauty could not be changed, and only her bottom half transformed.
Many other mermaid stories have appeared in folklore from various cultures around the world since then. The African water spirit Mami Wata, for example, takes on the form of a mermaid, as does the Caribbean water spirit Lasirn.
Various explorers, the most famous of whom was Christopher Columbus, have reported sightings of mermaids throughout history.
According to the American Museum of Natural History, Columbus claimed to have seen mermaids near Haiti in 1493, which he described as “not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men.”
In Edward Rowe Snow’s “Incredible Mysteries and Legends of the Sea” (Dodd Mead, January 1967), Captain John Smith is described as seeing a big-eyed, green-haired mermaid off the coast of Newfoundland in 1614; apparently Smith felt “love” for her until he realized she was a mermaid.
