Pretty much every modern representation you’ll find of mermaid’s has it wrong. Even Disney’s interpretation of The Little Mermaid leaves out the gruesome details of Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale.
In it, the Little Mermaid drinks the sea witch’s potion to grow legs. In return, however, she is cursed in many ways. She gives up her tongue and her intoxicating voice and becomes mute. In return for her beautiful singing voice, though, she gains the most skilled dancing legs. But every time she takes a step with her new human legs, it pains her severely, feeling as if she’s stomping on swords. That isn’t the end of the curse, however. In order to receive a soul and escape death, she must convince the Prince to fall in love with her. If she doesn’t convince the prince to marry her, she will die accursed of a broken heart, soulless, and dissolve into the ocean to be forever lost at sea.
Luckily, the prince is attracted to her elegant dancing, so she dances for him endlessly, despite the pain in her feet. Later, the prince falls in love with another woman, and the mermaid is nearing her deadly fate. As she weeps by the sea, wounded by her broken heart, her sisters surface. They are carrying a knife from the sea witch, which they traded their long, luscious hair for.
The Little Mermaid must use the knife to slay the prince, and then place a drop of his blood on her feet to break the curse. She has fallen deeply in love with the Prince, though, so she cannot bring herself to kill him. Instead, she dives into the ocean, attempting to kill herself, where she dissolves into foam.
However, the honorable mermaid is not lost forever. Instead, she is given another chance at a soul, which she can gain after 300 years of good deeds for mankind.
Perhaps the earliest account of mermaids is the Syrian tale of Atargatis. She is often said to be the very first mermaid, who became so after an attempt at suicide. Atargatis was a beautiful goddess who fell in love with a human shepherd. However, she accidentally kills him with her godly power. Riddled with grief, she attempts to kill herself by diving into the depths of the ocean. Generally, when gods enter the ocean they become fish. But this tale accounts that Atargis was too beautiful to suffer this same fate, and the transformation stopped halfway through. Instead, Atargis was given the body of a fish and kept her beautiful hair and head.
The creepiest account of mermaids by far is the Greek account of the Sirens. Although initially depicted as devilish creatures with the legs of birds, eventually adaptations began to describe them as beautiful women with the bodies of fish. These mythical sea creatures were native to a group of islands known as the Sirenuse, and they were just as deadly as they were beautiful.
The Sirens has the voice of goddesses and sang a beautiful song that could be heard from miles away. Sailors heard their song as they passed through on their ships, which put them into a trance and lured them to the islands. The Sirens seduced the men with their beauty and lulled them with their gorgeous song, just before slaying them and devouring their bodies with their razor-sharp teeth.
The Sirens were repeatedly present in Greek mythology, even appearing as one of Odysseus’ obstacles during his homestretch.
To further the idea that mermaids are violent creatures, the Russian tales of the Rusalki describe the half-fish, half-woman creatures as the lost souls of women who drown themselves in the ocean due to unwanted pregnancies. The Rusalki angrily stalks the ocean, hunting down men and children to take them as prey, torturing them and devouring them as payment for their death.
While the ghastly tales of mermaids may be enough to keep you up at night, many accounts of mermen may have you replanning your vacation to the oceanside. Many accounts of mermen, like in the original Little Mermaid tale, depict them as a zombie-fish of sorts.
In the Little Mermaid tale, the sisters speak of the dead bodies of sailors that sink into the sea. They rise to become mermen but are unlike the mermaids and mermen born to the sea. Instead, these mermen are much like zombies, except with fish tails and fins. Some greek mythology describes them as carnivorous creatures much like the sirens. They travel in packs to hunt down passing ships, causing shipwrecks and devouring any unfortunate soul that is cast to the sea.
Every ancient account of mermaids across the world is a little different, but one thing is for certain. They are nowhere near as gentle and innocent as the Disney tales suggest.
There are more spooky souls than sirens and flesh-eating fish-men, though. If you’re looking for a fright the Halloween season, be sure to grab your haunted house tickets for the scariest haunted house in Dallas area. Thrillvania Haunted House Park is your one-stop-shop this Halloween for all the spooks and screams your heart desires.