Mermaids

Are They Real?

I was visiting a friend of mine a few weeks back and we were discussing the release of my first novella, The White Queen. His brother was visiting and asked me this question, Do you believe mermaids are real? At the time I of course said yes, but didn't really back up my claim.

In this post and in the next few months I shall try and convince you all that indeed yes, they are real. There really are mermaids, down there somewhere.

I do believe we can't be the only humanoid to have come through evolution. Everything you see around you, the trees, the birds, the fodder we grow, all derived from the ocean, many millions of years ago. I believe there was a split, we emerged on land as ape forms in the beginning, whilst in the water, the first early human cross fish occurred.

So you ask. How can they be so elusive? Why haven't there been any sightings?

Well there has,  Before I delve into those sailors who have accounted such fascinating tales, let me share with you a video.

Could merfolk be the masters of illusion too? It would explain why we humans rarely see them don't you think.

So what were those accounts you mentioned Charles?
Here is what I know.

Christopher Columbus, who I'm sure needs no introduction, accounted seeing mermaids, three of them off the coast of Haiti during his first voyage in January 1493.
Of his sighting, these words were included in his account,
"..came quite high out of the water,"
"...not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow the faces look more like a man's,"

There is an antiquated historical text known as 'Speculum Regale', or the 'King's Mirror. It was written in Norway of 1250, and said of a mermaid sighting,
"not as a beautiful woman, more like a semi-aquatic Neanderthal like creature,"

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Another explorer of the early 17th century had this to account.

‘This morning, one of our companie saw a Mermaid, and calling up some              
of the companie to see her, one more came up...From the navel upwards,                                   
her back and breasts were like a woman’s...her body as big as one of us;                                
in her going downe they saw her tayle, which was the tayle of a Porposse,                               
and speckled like a Macrell.’                                                             Henry Hudson, Explorer, 1608.

Our very own Orkney had a frequent visitor to Newark Bay, Deerness and many hundreds of people swore they'd seen the mermaid. One such account says,

"It is about six to seven feet in length, has a little black head, with neck, a snow white body and two arms, and in swimming it just appears like a human being. At times it will appear to be siding on a sunken rock, and will wave and work its hands."

And in 1903, the Orcadian newspaper ran this report,

"Ralph Taylor and crew, when visiting their lobster creels the other day, saw a strange creature, which looked like a mermaid, close by the foot of the Old Man.

"It rose out of the water to the height of three feet and looked like a lady with a shawl round her shoulders, and streaming down her face.

"This is the third occasion it has been seen at close range by them. The oldest people have never seen anything like it before, and wonder what it can be. Some think it must be the Deerness Mermaid on tour."

The Orcadian, Saturday, September 13, 1913

So you see there are or have been many sightings throughout the world.

Going back to my other statement about evolution. (jostling mind), have you considered some species which live on land yet have cousins who spend all their time at sea. The one leaping to mind is of course the, turtle and tortoise. Whilst turtles need to visit the land to lay eggs, they spend their lives at sea. Yet they are close relatives to their land fairing cousin, the tortoise.

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So why not a close relative of us humans living in the sea.