Chapter 5

FIG. 1.—NOAH, HIS WIFE, AND THREE SONS, AS FISH-TAILED DEITIES. From a Gem in the Florentine Gallery. After Calmet.

Early idolatry consisted, first, in separating the idea of the One Divinity into that of his various attributes, and of inventing symbols and making images of each separately; secondly, in the worship of the sun, moon, stars, and planets, as living existences; thirdly, in the deification of ancestors and early kings; and these three forms were often mingled together in strange and tangled confusion.

Amongst the famous personages with whose history men were made acquainted by oral tradition was Noah. He was known as the second father of the human race, and the preserver and teacher of the arts and sciences as they existed before the Great Deluge, of which so many separate traditions exist among the various races of mankind. Consequently, he was an object of worship in many countries and under many names; and his wife and sons, as his assistants in the diffusion of knowledge, were sometimes associated with him.

According to Berosus, of Babylon,—the Chaldean priest and astronomer, who extracted from the sacred books of "that great city" much interesting ancient lore, which he introduced into his 'History of Syria,' written, aboutB.C.260, for the use of the Greeks,—at a time when men were sunk in barbarism, there came up from the Erythrean Sea (the Persian Gulf), and landed on the Babylonian shore, a creature named Oannes, which had the body and head of a fish. But above the fish's head was the head of a man, and below the tail of the fish were human feet. It had also human arms, a human voice, and human language. This strange monster sojourned among the rude people during the day, taking no food, but retiring to the sea at night; and it continued for some time thus to visit them, teaching them the arts of civilized life, and instructing them in science and religion.[34]

FIG. 2.—HEA, OR NOAH, THE GOD OF THE FLOOD. Khorsabad.

In this tale we have a distorted account of the life and occupation of Noah after his escape from the deluge which destroyed his home and drowned his neighbours. Oannes was one of the names under whichhe was worshipped in Chaldea, at Erech ("the place of the ark"), as the sacred and intelligent fish-god, the teacher of mankind, the god of science and knowledge. There he was also called Oes, Hoa, Ea, Ana, Anu, Aun, and Oan. Noah was worshipped, also, in Syria and Mesopotamia, and in Egypt, at "populous No,"[35]or Thebes—so named from "Theba," "the ark."

FIG. 3.—DAGON. From a bas relief. Nimroud.

The history of the coffin of Osiris is another version of Noah's ark, and the period during which that Egyptian divinity is said to have been shut up in it, after it was set afloat upon the waters, was precisely the same as that during which Noah remained in the ark.

Dagon, also—sometimes called Odacon—the great fish-god of the Philistines and Babylonians, was another phase of Oannes. "Dag," in Hebrew, signifies "a male fish," and "Aun" and "Oan" were two of the names of Noah. "Dag-aun" or "Dag-oan" therefore means "the fish Noah." He was portrayed in two ways. The more ancient image of him was that of a man issuing from a fish, as described of Oannes by Berosus; but in later times it was varied to that of a man whose upper half was human, and the lower parts those of a fish. The image of Dagon which fell upon its face to the ground before "the ark of the God of Israel," was probably of this latter form, for we read[36]that in its fall, "the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold: only thestump(in the margin, "the fishy part") of Dagon was left to him. This was evidently Milton's conception of him:

"Dagon his name; sea-monster, upward manAnd downward fish."[37]

FIG. 4.—DAGON. After Calmet.

FIG. 5.—DAGON. From an Agate Signet. Nineveh.

In some of the Nineveh sculptures of the fish-god, the head of the fish forms a kind of mitre on the head of the man, whilst the body of the fish appears as a cloak or cape over his shoulders and back. The fish varies in length; in some cases the tail almost touches the ground; in others it reaches but little below the man's waist.

FIG. 6.—FISH AVATAR OF VISHNU. After Calmet and Maurice.

In one of his "avatars," or incarnations, the god Vishnu "the Preserver," is represented as issuing from the mouth of a fish. He is celebrated as having miraculously preserved one righteous family, and, also, the Vedas, the sacred records, when the world was drowned. Not only is this legend of the Indian god wrought up with the history of Noah, but Vishnu and Noah bear the same name—Vishnu being the Sanscrit form of "Ish-nuh," "the man Noah." The word "avatar" also means "out of the boat." In fact the whole mythology of Greece and Rome, as well as of Asia, is full of the history and deeds of Noah, which it is impossible to misunderstand. In all the representations of a deity having a combined human and piscine form, the original idea was that of a person coming out of a fish—not being part ofone, but issuing from it, as Noah issued from the ark. In all of them the fish denoted "preservation," "fecundity," "plenty," and "diffusion of knowledge."[38]As the image was not the effigy of a divine personage, but symbolized certain attributes of Divinity, its sex was comparatively unimportant, although it is possible that, combined with the fecundity of the fish, the idea of Noah's wife, as the second mother of all subsequent generations, according to the widely-spread and accepted traditions of the deluge, may have influenced the impersonation.

Atergatis, the far-famed goddess of the Syrians, was also a fish-divinity. Her image, like that of Dagon, had at first a fish's body with human extremities protruding from it; but in the course of centuries it was gradually altered to that of a being the upper portion of whose body was that of a woman and the lower half that of a fish. Gatis was a powerful queen of Sidon, and mother of Semiramis. She received the title of "Ater," or "Ader," "the Great," for the benefits she conferred on her people; one of these benefits being a strict conservation of their fisheries, both from their own imprudent use, and from foreign interference. She issued an edict that no fish should be eaten without her consent, and that no one should take fish in the neighbouring sea without a licence from herself. It is not improbable that she and her celebrated daughter, whois said by Ovid and others to have been the builder of the walls of Babylon, were worshipped together; for that Atergatis was the same as the fish-goddess Ashteroth, or Ashtoreth, "the builder of the encompassing wall," we have, amongst other proofs, a remarkable one in Biblical history. In the first book of Maccabees v. 43, 44, we read that "all the heathen being discomfited before him (Judas Maccabeus) cast away their weapons, and fled unto the temple that was atCarnaim. But they took the city, and burned the temple with all that were therein. Thus wasCarnaimsubdued, neither could they stand any longer before Judas." In the second book of Maccabees xii. 26, we are told that "Maccabeus marched forth toCarnion, and to the temple ofAtargatis, and there he slew five and twenty thousand persons." In Genesis xiv. 5, this city and temple are referred to as "Ashteroth Karnaim."

Fig. 7 is a representation of Atergatis on a medal coined at Marseilles. It shows that when the Phœnician colony from Syria, by whom that city was founded, settled there, they brought with them the worship of the gods of their country.

FIG. 7.—ATERGATIS.From a Phœnician coin.

Atergatis was worshipped by the Greeks as Derceto and Astarte. Lucian writes[39]:—"In Phœnicia I saw the image of Derceto, a strange sight, truly! For she had the half of a woman, and from the thighs downwards a fish's tail." Diodorus Siculus describes (lib. ii.) the same deity, as represented at Ascalon, as "having the face of a woman,but all the rest of the body a fish's." And this very same image at Ascalon, which Diodorus calls Derceto, or Atergatis, is denominated by Herodotus[40]"the celestial Aphrodite," who was identical with the Cyprian and Roman Venus. Of all the sacred buildings erected to the goddess, this temple was by far the most ancient; and the Cyprians themselves acknowledged that their temple was built after the model of it by certain Phœnicians who came from that part of Syria.

FIG. 8.—VENUS RISING FROM THE SEA, SUPPORTED BY TRITONS. After Calmet.

Thus the worship of Noah, as the second father of mankind, the repopulator of the earth, passed through variousphases and transformations till it merged in that of Venus, who rose from the sea, and was regarded as the representative of the reproductive power of Nature—the goddess whom Lucretius thus addressed:

"Blest Venus! Thou the sea and fruitful earthPeoplest amain; to thee whatever livesIts being owes, and that it sees the sun:"

and to whom refers the passage in the Orphic hymn:

"From thee are all things—all things thou producestWhich are in heaven, or in the fertile earth,Or in the sea, or in the great abyss."

Under this latter phase—the impersonation of Venus—the fish portion of the body was discarded, and the cast-off form was allotted in popular credence to the Tritons—minor deities, who acknowledged the supremacy of the goddess, and were ready to render her homage and service by bearing her in their arms, drawing her chariot, etc., but who still possessed considerable power as sea-gods, and could calm the waves and rule the storm, at pleasure.

FIG. 9.

FIG. 10.

VENUS DRAWN IN HER CHARIOT BY TRITONS. From two Corinthian coins.

Figs. 9 and 10 are from two Corinthian medals, each shewing Venus in a car or chariot drawn by Tritons, one male, the other female. On the obverse of Fig. 9, is thehead of Nero, and on that of Fig. 10, the head of his grandmother Agrippina.[41]

From the very earliest period of history, then, the conjoined human and fish form was known to every generation of men. It was presented to their sight in childhood by sculptures and pictures, and was a conspicuous object in their religious worship. By the lapse of time its original import was lost and debased; and, from beingan emblem and symbol, it came to be accepted as the corporeal shape and structure of actually-existent sea-deities, who might present themselves to the view of the mariner, in visible and tangible form, at any moment. Thus were men trained and prepared to believe in mermen and mermaids, to expect to meet with them at sea, and to recognise as one of them any animal the appearance and movements of which could possibly be brought into conformity with their pre-conceived ideas.

Accordingly, and very naturally, we find that from north to south this belief has been entertained. Megasthenes, who was a contemporary of Aristotle, but his junior, and whose geographical work was probably written at about the period of the great philosopher's death, reported that the sea which surrounded Taprobana, the ancient Ceylon, was inhabited by creatures having the appearance of women. Ælian stated that there were "whales," or "great fishes," having the form of satyrs. The early Portuguese settlers in India asserted that true mermen were found in the Eastern seas, and old Norse legends tell of submarine beings of conjoined human and piscine form, who dwell in a wide territory far below the region of the fishes, over which the sea, like the cloudy canopy of our sky, loftily rolls, and some of whom have, from time to time, landed on Scandinavian shores, exchanged their fishy extremities for human limbs, and acquired amphibious habits. Not only have poets sung of the wondrous and seductive beauty of the maidens of these aquatic tribes, but many a Jack tar has come home from sea prepared to affirm on oath that he has seen a mermaid. To the best of his belief he has told the truth. He has seen some living being which looked wonderfully human, and his imagination, aided by an inherited superstition, has supplied the rest.

Before endeavouring to identify the object of his delusion, it may be well to mention a few instances of the supposed appearance of mermen and mermaidens in various localities.

Pliny writes[42]: "When Tiberius was emperor, an embassy was sent to him from Olysippo (Lisbon) expressly to inform him that a Triton, which was recognised as such by its form, had shown itself in a certain cave, and had been heard to produce loud sounds on a conch-shell. The Nereid, also, is not imaginary: its body is rough and covered with scales, but it has the appearance of a human being. For one was seen upon the same coast; and when it was dying those dwelling near at hand heard it moaning sadly for a long time. And the Governor of Gaul wrote to the divine Augustus that several Nereids had been found dead upon the shore. I have many informants—illustrious persons in high positions—who have assured me that they saw in the Sea of Cadiz a merman whose whole body was exactly like that of a man, that these mermen mount on board ships by night, and weigh down that end of the vessel on which they rest, and that if they are allowed to remain there long they will sink the ship."

Ælian in one of his short, jerky, disconnected chapters,[43]which rarely exceed a page in length, and some of which only contain two lines, writes: "It is reported that the great sea which surrounds the island of Taprobana (Ceylon) contains an immense multitude of fishes and whales, and some of them have the heads of lions, panthers, rams, and other animals; and (which is more wonderful still) some of the cetaceans have the form of satyrs. There are others which have the face of a woman, but prickles instead of hair. In addition to these, it is said there are othercreatures of so strange and monstrous a kind that it would be impossible exactly to explain their appearance without the aid of a skilfully drawn picture: these have elongated and coiled tails, and, for feet, have claws[44]or fins. And I hear that in the same sea there are great amphibious beasts which are gregarious, and live on grain, and by night feed on the corn crops and grass, and are also very fond of the ripe fruit of the palms. To obtain these they encircle in their embrace the trees which are young and flexible, and, shaking them violently, enjoy the fruit which they thus cause to fall. When morning dawns they return to the sea, and plunge beneath the waves."

Ælian seems to have derived this information from Megasthenes, already referred to; but in another chapter,[45]he writes with greater certainty concerning these semi-human whales, and claims divine authority for his belief in the existence of tritons. "Although," he says, "we have no rational explanation nor absolute proof of that which fishermen are said to be able to affirm concerning the form of the tritons, we have the sworn testimony of many persons that there are in the sea cetaceans which from the head down to the middle of the body resemble the human species. Demostratus, in his works on fishing, says that an aged triton was seen near the town of Tanagra, in Bœotia, which was like the drawings and pictures of tritons, but its features were so obscured by age, and it disappeared so quickly, that its true character was not easily perceptible. But on the spot where it had rested on the shore were found some rough and very hard scales which had become detached from it. A certain senator—one of those selected by lot to carry onthe administration of Achaia and the duties of the annual magistracy" (the mayor, in fact,) "being anxious to investigate the nature of this triton, put a portion of its skin on the fire. It gave out a most horrible odour; and those standing by were unable to decide whether it belonged to a terrestrial or marine animal. But the magistrate's curiosity had an evil ending, for very soon afterwards, whilst crossing a narrow creek in a boat, he fell overboard and was drowned; and the Tanagreans all regarded this as a judgment upon him for his crime of impiety towards the triton—an interpretation which was confirmed when his decomposing body was cast ashore, for it emitted exactly the same odour as had the burned skin of the triton. The Tanagreans and Demostratus explain whence the triton had strayed, and how it was stranded in this place. I believe," continues Ælian, "that tritons exist, and I reverentially produce as my witness a most veracious god—namely, Apollo Didymæus, whom no man in his senses would presume to regard as unworthy of credit. He sings thus of the triton, which he calls the sheep of the sea:

'Dum vocale maris monstrum natat æquore triton,Neptuni pecus, in funes forte incidit extraDemissos navim';"

which I venture to translate as follows:

A triton, vocal monster of the deep,One of a flock of Neptune's scaly sheep,Was caught, whilst swimming o'er the watery plain,By lines which fishers from their boat had lain.

"Therefore," Ælian concludes, "if he, the omniscient god, pronounces that there are tritons, it does not behove us to doubt their existence."

Sir J. Emerson Tennent, in his 'Natural History of Ceylon,' quoting from theHistoire de la Compagnie deJésus, mentions that the annalist of the exploits of the Jesuits in India gravely records that seven of these monsters, male and female, were captured at Manaar, in 1560, and carried to Goa, where they were dissected by Demas Bosquez, physician to the Viceroy, "and their internal structure found to be in all respects conformable to the human." He also quotes Valentyn, one of the Dutch colonial chaplains, who, in his account of the Natural History of Amboyna,[46]embodied in his great work on the Netherlands' possessions in India, published in 1727,[47]devoted the first section of his chapter on the fishes of that island to a minute description of the "Zee-Menschen," "Zee-Wyven," and mermaids, the existence of which he warmly insists on as being beyond cavil. He relates that in 1663, when a lieutenant in the Dutch service was leading a party of soldiers along the sea-shore in Amboyna, he and all his company saw the mermen swimming at a short distance from the beach. They had long and flowing hair of a colour between grey and green. Six weeks afterwards the creatures were again seen by him and more than fifty witnesses, at the same place, by clear daylight. "If any narrative in the world," adds Valentyn, "deserves credit it is this; since not only one, but two mermen together were seen by so many eye-witnesses. Should the stubborn world, however, hesitate to believe it, it matters nothing, as there are people who would even deny that such cities as Rome, Constantinople, or Cairo, exist, merely because they themselves have not happened to see them. But what are such incredulous persons," he continues, "to makeof the circumstance recorded by Albrecht Herport[48]in his account of India, that a merman was seen in the water near the church of Taquan on the morning of the 29th of April, 1661, and a mermaid at the same spot the same afternoon? Or what do they say to the fact that in 1714 a mermaid was not only seen but captured near the island of Booro, five feet, Rhineland measure, in height; which lived four days and seven hours, but, refusing all food, died without leaving any intelligible account of herself?" Valentyn, in support of his own faith in the mermaid, cites many other instances in which both "sea-men and sea-women" were seen and taken at Amboyna; especially one by a district visitor of the church, who presented it to the Governor Vanderstel. Of this "well-authenticated" specimen he gives an elaborate portrait amongst the fishes of the island,[49]with a minute description of each for the satisfaction of men of science.

FIG. 12.—MERMAID AND FISHES OF AMBOYNA. After Valentyn.

The fame of this creature having reached Europe, the British minister in Holland wrote to Valentyn on the 28th of December, 1716, whilst the Emperor Peter the Great, of Russia, was his guest at Amsterdam, to communicate the desire of the Czar that the mermaid should be brought home from Amboyna for his inspection. To complete his proofs of the existence of mermen and merwomen, Valentyn points triumphantly to the historical fact that in Holland, in the year 1404, a mermaid was driven, during a tempest, through a breach in the dyke of Edam, and was taken alive in the lake of Purmer. Thence she was carried to Haarlem, where the Dutch women taught her to spin, and where several years after, she died in the Roman Catholic faith;—"but this," says the pious Calvinistic chaplain, "in no way militates against the truth of her story." The worthy minister citing the authority of various writers as proof that mermaids had in all ages been known in Gaul, Naples, Epirus, and the Morea, comes to the conclusion that as there are "sea-cows," "sea-horses," "sea-dogs," as well as "sea-trees," and "sea-flowers," which he himself had seen, there are no reasonable grounds for doubt that there may also be "sea-maidens" and "sea-men."

In an early account of Newfoundland,[50]Whitbourne describes a "maremaid or mareman," which he had seen "within the length of a pike," and which "came swimming swiftly towards him, looking cheerfully on his face, as it had been a woman. By the face, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, ears, neck and forehead, it appeared to be so beautiful, and in those parts so well proportioned, having round about the head many blue streaks resembling hair, but certainly itwas no hair. The shoulders and back down to the middle were square, white, and smooth as the back of a man, and from the middle to the end it tapered like a broad-hooked arrow." The animal put both its paws on the side of the boat wherein its observer sat, and strove much to get in, but was repelled by a blow.

In 1676, a description was given by an English surgeon named Glover, of an animal of this kind. The author did not designate it by any name, but the incident has the honour of being recorded in thePhilosophical Transactions.[51]About three leagues from the mouth of the river Rappahannock, in America, while alone in a vessel, he observed, at the distance of about half a stone-throw, he says, "a most prodigious creature, much resembling a man, only somewhat larger, standing right up in the water, with his head, neck, shoulders, breast and waist, to the cubits of his arms, above water, and his skin was tawny, much like that of an Indian; the figure of his head was pyramidal and sleek, without hair; his eyes large and black, and so were his eyebrows; his mouth very wide, with a broad black streak on the upper lip, which turned upwards at each end like mustachios. His countenance was grim and terrible. His neck, shoulders, arms, breast and waist, were like unto the neck, arms, shoulders, breast and waist of a man. His hands, if he had any, were under water. He seemed to stand with his eyes fixed on me for some time, and afterwards dived down, and, a little after, rose at somewhat a greater distance, and turned his head towards me again, and then immediately fell a little under water, that I could discern him throw out his arms and gather them in as a man does when he swims. At last, he shot with his head downwards, by which means he cast his tail above thewater, which exactly resembled the tail of a fish, with a broad fane at the end of it."

Thormodus Torfæus[52]maintains that mermaids are found on the south coast of Iceland, and, according to Olafsen,[53]two have been taken in the surrounding seas, the first in the earlier part of the history of that island, and the second in 1733. The latter was found in the stomach of a shark. Its lower parts were consumed, but the upper were entire. They were as large as those of a boy eight or nine years old. Both the cutting teeth and grinders were long and shaped like pins, and the fingers were connected by a large web. Olafsen was inclined to believe that these were human remains, but the islanders all firmly maintained that they were part of "a marmennill," by which name the mermaid is known among them.

Of course the worthy bishop of Bergen, Pontoppidan, has something to tell us about mermaids in his part of the world. "Amongst the sea monsters," he says,[54]"which are in the North Sea, and are often seen, I shall give the first place to the Hav-manden, or merman, whose mate is called Hav-fruen, or mermaid. The existence of this creature is questioned by many, nor is it at all to be wondered at, because most of the accounts we have had of it are mixed with mere fables, and may be looked upon as idle tales." As such he regards the story told by Jonas Ramus in his 'History of Norway,' of a mermaid taken by fishermen at Hordeland, near Bergen, and which is said to have sung an unmusical song to King Hiorlief. In the same category he places an account given by Besenius in his life of Frederic II. (1577), of a mermaid that calledherself Isbrandt, and held several conversations with a peasant at Samsoe, in which she foretold the birth of King Christian IV., "and made the peasant preach repentance to the courtiers, who were very much given to drunkenness." Equally "idle" with the above stories is, in his opinion, another, extracted from an old manuscript still to be seen in the University Library at Copenhagen, and quoted by Andrew Bussæus (1619), of a merman caught by the two senators, Ulf Rosensparre and Christian Holch, whilst on their voyage home to Denmark from Norway. This sea-man frightened the two worshipful gentlemen so terribly that they were glad to let him go again; for as he lay upon the deck he spoke Danish to them, and threatened that if they did not give him his liberty "the ship should be cast away, and every soul of the crew should perish."

"When such fictions as these," says Pontoppidan, "are mixed with the history of the merman, and when that creature is represented as a prophet and an orator; when they give the mermaid a melodious voice, and tell us that she is a fine singer, we need not wonder that so few people of sense will give credit to such absurdities, or that they even doubt the existence of such a creature." The good prelate, however, goes on to say that "whilst we have no ground to believe all these fables, yet, as to the existence of the creature we may safely give our assent to it," and, "if this be called in question, it must proceed entirely from the fabulous stories usually mixed with the truth." Like Valentyn, he argues that as there are "sea-horses," "sea-cows," "sea-wolves," "sea-dogs," "sea-hogs," etc., it is probable from analogy, that "we should find in the ocean a fish or creature which resembles the human species more than any other." As for the objection "founded on self-love and respect to ourown species which is honoured with the image of God, who made man lord of all creatures, and that, consequently, we may suppose he is entitled to a noble and heavenly form which other creatures must not partake of," he thinks "its force vanishes when we consider the form of apes, and especially of another African creature called 'Quoyas Morrov' described by Odoard Dapper" in his work on Africa, and which appears to have been a chimpanzee. Pontoppidan regarded it as being the Satyr of the ancients. He therefore claims that "if we will not allow our Norwegian Hastromber the honourable name of merman, we may very well call it the 'Sea-ape,' or the 'Sea-Quoyas-Morrov;'" especially as the author already quoted says that, "in the Sea of Angola mermaids are frequently caught which resemble the human species. They are taken in nets, and killed by the negroes, and are heard to shriek and cry like women."

The Bishop adds that in the diocese of Bergen, as well as in the manor of Nordland, there were hundreds of persons who affirmed with the strongest assurances that they had seen this kind of creature; sometimes at a distance and at other times quite close to their boats, standing upright, and formed like a human creature down to the middle—the rest they could not see—but of those who had seen them out of water and handled them he had not been able to find more than one person of credit who could vouch it for truth. This informant, "the Reverend Mr. Peter Angel, minister of Vand-Elvens Gield, on Suderoe," assured his bishop, when he was on a visitation journey, that "in the year 1719, he (being then about twenty years old) saw what is called a merman lying dead on a point of land near the sea, which had been cast ashore by the waves along with several sea-calves (seals), and other dead fish.The length of this creature was much greater than what has been mentioned of any before, namely, above three fathoms. It was of a dark grey colour all over: in the lower part it was like a fish, and had a tail like that of a porpoise. The face resembled that of a man, with a mouth, forehead, eyes, etc. The nose was flat, and, as it were, pressed down to the face, in which the nostrils were very visible. The breast was not far from the head; the arms seemed to hang to the side, to which they were joined by a thin skin, or membrane. The hands were, to all appearance, like the paws of a sea-calf. The back of this creature was very fat, and a great part of it was cut off, which, with the liver, yielded a large quantity of train-oil." The author then quotes a description by Luke Debes[55]of a mermaid seen in 1670 at Faroe, westward of Qualboe Eide, by many of the inhabitants, as also by others from different parts of Suderoe. She was close to the shore, and stood there for two hours and a half, and was up to her waist in water. She had long hairs on her head, which hung down to the surface of the water all round about her, and she held a fish in her right hand.

Pontoppidan mentions other instances of similar appearances, and says that the latest he had heard of was of a merman seen in Denmark on the 20th of September, 1723, by three ferrymen who, at some distance from the land, were towing a ship just arrived from the Baltic. Having caught sight of something which looked like a dead body floating on the water, they rowed towards it, and there, resting on their oars, allowed it to drift close to them. It sank, but immediately came to the surface again, and then they saw that it had the appearance of an old man, strong-limbed,and with broad shoulders, but his arms they could not see. His head was small in proportion to his body, and had short, curled, black hair, which did not reach below his ears; his eyes lay deep in his head, and he had a meagre and pinched face, with a black, coarse beard, that looked as if it had been cut. His skin was coarse, and very full of hair. He stood in the same place for half a quarter of an hour, and was seen above the water down to his breast: at last the men grew apprehensive of some danger, and began to retire; upon which the monster blew up his cheeks, and made a kind of roaring noise, and then dived under water, so that they did not see him any more. One of them, Peter Gunnersen, related (what the others did not observe) that this merman was, about the body and downwards, quite pointed, like a fish. This same Peter Gunnersen likewise deposed that "about twenty years before, as he was in a boat near Kulleor, the place where he was born, he saw a mermaid with long hair and large breasts." He and his two companions were, by command of the king, examined by the burgomaster of Elsineur, Andrew Bussæus, before the privy-councillor, Fridrich von Gram, and their testimony to the above effect was given on their respective oaths.

Brave old Henry Hudson, the sturdy and renowned navigator, who thrice, in three successive years, gave battle to the northern ice, and was each time defeated in his endeavour to discover a north-west or north-east passage to China, though he stamped his name on the title-page of a mighty nation's history, records the following incident: "This evening (June 15th) one of our company, looking overboard, saw a mermaid, and, calling up some of the company to see her, one more of the crew came up, and by that time she was come close to the ship's side, lookingearnestly on the men. A little after a sea came and overturned her. From the navel upward, her back and breasts were like a woman's, as they say that saw her; her body as big as one of us, her skin very white, and long hair hanging down behind, of colour black. In her going down they saw her tail, which was like the tail of a porpoise and speckled like a mackarel's. Their names that saw her were Thomas Hilles and Robert Rayner."

Steller, who was a zoologist of some repute, reports having seen in Behrings Straits a strange animal, which he calls a "sea-ape," and in which one might almost recognise Pontoppidan's "Sea-Quoyas-Morrov." It was about five feet long, had sharp and erect ears and large eyes, and on its lips a kind of beard. Its body was thick and round, and it tapered to the tail, which was bifurcated, with the upper lobe longest. It was covered with thick hair, grey on the back, and red on the belly. No feet nor paws were visible. It was full of frolic, and sported in the manner of a monkey, swimming sometimes on one side of the ship and sometimes on the other. It often raised one-third of its body out of the water, and stood upright for a considerable time. It would frequently bring up a sea-plant, not unlike a bottle-gourd, which it would toss about and catch in its mouth, playing numberless fantastic tricks with it.

Somewhat similar accounts have been brought from the Southern Hemisphere, two, at least, of which are worth transcribing.

Captain Colnett, in his 'Voyage to the South Atlantic,' says:—"A very singular circumstance happened off the coast of Chili, in lat. 24° S., which spread some alarm amongst my people, and awakened their superstitious apprehensions. About 8 o'clock in the evening an animalrose alongside the ship, and uttered such shrieks and tones of lamentation, so much like those produced by the female human voice when expressing the deepest distress as to occasion no small degree of alarm among those who first heard it. These cries continued for upwards of three hours, and seemed to increase as the ship sailed from it. I never heard any noise whatever that approached so near those sounds which proceed from the organs of utterance in the human species."

Captain Weddell, in his 'Voyage towards the South Pole' (p. 143), writes that one of his men, having been left ashore on Hall's Island to take care of some produce, heard one night about ten o'clock, after he had lain down to rest, a noise resembling human cries. As daylight does not disappear in those latitudes at the season in which the incident occurred, the sailor rose and searched along the beach, thinking that, possibly, a boat might have been upset, and that some of the crew might be clinging to the detached rocks.

"Roused by that voice of silver sound,From the paved floor he lightly sprung,And, glaring with his eyes around,Where the fair nymph her tresses wrung,"[56]

guided by occasional sounds, he at length saw an object lying on a rock a dozen yards from the shore, at which he was somewhat frightened. "The face and shoulders appeared of human form and of a reddish colour; over the shoulders hung long green hair; the tail resembled that of a seal, but the extremities of the arms he could not see distinctly."

"As on the wond'ring youth she smiled,Again she raised the melting lay,"[56]

for the creature continued to make a musical noise during the two minutes he gazed at it, and, on perceiving him, disappeared in an instant.

FIG. 13.—A JAPANESE ARTIFICIAL MERMAID.

The universality of the belief in an animal of combined human and fish-like form is very remarkable. That it exists amongst the Japanese we have evidence in their curious and ingeniously-constructed models which are occasionally brought to this country. I have one of these which is so exactly the counterpart of that which my friend Mr. Frank Buckland described, originally inLand and Water, and which forms the subject of a chapter in his 'Curiosities of Natural History,'[57]that the portrait of the one (Fig. 13) will equally well represent the other. The lower half of the body is made of the skin and scales of a fish of the carp family, and fastened on to this, so neatly that it is hardly possible to detect where the joint is made, is a wooden body, the ribs of which are so prominent that the poor mermaid has a miserable and half-starved appearance. The upper part of the body is in the attitude of a Sphinx, leaning upon its elbows and fore-arms. The arms are thin and scraggy, and the fingers attenuated and skeleton-like. The nails are formed of small pieces ofivory or bone. The head is like that of a small monkey, and a little wool covers the crown, so thinly and untidily that if the mermaid possessed a crystal mirror she would see the necessity for the vigorous use of her comb of pearl. The teeth are those of some fish—apparently of the cat-fish, (Anarchicas lupus). These Japanese artificial mermaids have brought many a dollar into the pockets of Mr. Barnum and other showmen.

Somewhat different in appearance from this, but of the same kind, was an artificial mermaid described in theSaturday Magazineof June 4th, 1836. Fig. 14 is a facsimile of the woodcut which accompanied it. This grotesque composition was exhibited in a glass case, some years previously, "in a leading street at the west end" of London. It was constructed "of the skin of the head and shoulders of a monkey, which was attached to the dried skin of a fish of the salmon kind with the head cut off, and the whole was stuffed and highly varnished, the better to deceive the eye." It was said to have been "taken by the crew of a Dutch vessel from on board a native Malacca boat, and from the reverence shown to it, it was supposed to be a representative of one of their idol gods." I am inclined to think that it was of Japanese origin.

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