The word mermaid is a compound of the Old English mere (sea), and maid (a girl or young woman). The equivalent term in Old English was merewif. They are conventionally depicted as beautiful with long flowing hair.
The sirens of Greek mythology (especially the Odyssey), conceived of as half-bird and half-woman, gradually shifted to the image of a fish-tailed woman. This shift possibly started as early as the Hellenistic Period, but is clearly evident in mermaid-like depictions of “sirens” in later Christian bestiaries.
Some attributes of Homer’s sirens, such as the enticement of men and their beautiful song, also became attached to the mermaid.
There are also naturalist theories on the origins of the mermaid, postulating they derive from sightings of the manatee, or dugong or even seals.
Rusalkas are the Slavic counterpart of the Greek sirens and naiads. The nature of rusalkas varies among folk traditions, but according to ethnologist D.K. Zelenin they all share a common element: they are the restless spirits of the unclean dead. They are usually the ghosts of young women who died a violent or untimely death, perhaps by murder or suicide, before their wedding and especially by drowning. Rusalkas are said to inhabit lakes and rivers. They appear as beautiful young women with long pale green hair and pale skin, suggesting a connection with floating weeds and days spent underwater in faint sunlight. They can be seen after dark, dancing together under the moon and calling out to young men by name, luring them to the water and drowning them. The characterization of rusalkas as both desirable and treacherous is prevalent in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and was emphasized by 19th-century Russian authors. The best-known of the great Czech nationalist composer Antonín Dvořák’s operas is Rusalka.
In Sadko (Russian: Садко), an East Slavic epic, the title character—an adventurer, merchant, and gusli musician from Novgorod—lives for some time in the underwater court of the “Sea Tsar” and marries his daughter, Chernava, before finally returning home. The tale inspired such works as the poem Sadko by Alexei Tolstoy (1817–75), the opera Sadko composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and the painting by Ilya Repin.
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