Hello, I am planning on writing about mermaids. But I don't want to romanticize it or anything. I want to write how it is according to myths. I found a load in books and online, but just to be sure, I was wondering if you know anything about them? Or some details, maybe? Thank you!
Can I ask you something about mermaids? I know basically nothing about them, aside for the fact that different cultures see them in different ways. Like… I would like to know HOW they are seen in those different cultures. (½)
Does it change their attitude? Where they live? Are they always “bad creatures” or not? And last.. What about selkies? (I’m sorry if this is not very clear but english is not my mother tongue) (2/2)
So we had two asks that were pretty similar about merfolk and since one was anonymous we’ve answered them both here. Hopefully, neither of you mind.
In Slavic culture the beliefs around mermaids vary. The moost used Russian word that is generally translated as “mermaid” is “rusalka” (русалка); it is present in different Slavic languages. Many scholars also believe that the Ukrainian and South Slavic “mavka” or navka (мавка/навка) has many similarities with rusalka, and can even be considered the same thing. Another word that can be used is “pharaonka” (or faraonka) (фараонка) – this one comes from one of the beliefs of their origin – in some regions it is believed that mermaids originated from the pharaoh’s army after they drowned in the Red Sea (Book of Exodus).
The word “mavka” or “navka”, on the other hand, is usually connected to Proto-Slavic “nav’” (навь) – “death” or “the dead”. As for the word “rusalka”, its origin isn’t exactly clear – some think that it comes from the Roman festival Rosalia (mostly basing it on one of the old Slavic festival “rusal’naya nedelya”, rusalnaya week), others connect it to different words around water – streambed “ruslo” (русло), or dew “rosa” (роса), or even the names of the rivers. Yet another scholar finds a connection between the name and the most common hair colour for the creatures – fair (rusyi – русый – in Russian).
While “rusalka” is one of the common translations for the mermaid, in many ways they’re more like nymphs – sometimes they’re believed to be wood sprites. Still, in many regions there’s a clear connection between rusalkas and water, and it is one of the popularized and culturally accepted translations.
Slavic mermaids are usually mischievous or even evil young women or girls. They lure young men into water and then drown them or tickle them to death (which could have been a euphemism of a sexual encounter, but it is not clear at this point); alternatively, they help young children who got lost in the woods or those people who help them.
Beliefs on where they come from varies: in some regions, as mentioned above, they’re the remnants of the pharaoh’s army, in others they’re dead young girls that died unmarried, or that committed suicide (usually by drowning) – the latter was popularized by one of the Gogol’s classic stories (although, he never uses the word “rusalka”). Some say witches become mermaids when they die, others that witches can’t become mermaids, it can only be young dead girls.
As for appearance, it can vary as well. Usually they’re described as young women with unfastened green, blond or fair hair wearing white garments, like sarafans. They also can be imagined as young girls. In other instances they’re scary old hags with huge breasts. Unkempt hair seems to be a very important attribute that is present in any description.
Their character vary in different regions. In Ural, rusalki sit underwater all the time. If we go south, we find out that the creatures are generally outgoing and come out of water for rusalnaya week to dance in circles not only with each other, but with other people as well. It’s not dangerous to contact them in general, but one shouldn’t go in water with them. Sometimes certain weeds and herbs are used to ward them off. Summing it all up, Slavic mermaids have a definite connection with death and supernatural and can be quite dangerous, but it’s possible to communicate with them without harm to yourself.
So, for the Philippines with it’s 7641 islands, many regions, many influences from other countries across time— there’s bound to be a wide variety of merfolk. Different places will have different stories. Some merfolk will be a bit more like half fish-half human. Others, especially those closer to inland waterfalls or where the rivers have strong undercurrent, the merfolk look almost exactly like humans. Sometimes they have gills or a strong fishy smell. Others are more like fish with scales on their skin, two legs and two arms, webbed feet and hands, as well as a fish head.
The terminology itself is… it depends who you ask. Some would say there is a hierarchy of merfolk and things like the Catau/Kataw are stronger because they also have abilities to control the waves, storms, the water as opposed to the Siyokoy and Sirena. Others would say that these are just different ways of calling merfolk and the different attributions each culture gives them (in which they don’t exist together in the same oceans)— Catau would be used by the Cebuano, Siyokoy and Sirena is more used by the Ilocano and the Tagalogs, Ugkoy is more used in Waray but I also had a friend who is Waray and calls them Catau.
Like other beings in the Philippines, they generally don’t mean to harm humans. Often, however, they do kidnap humans because they want to marry them or take them to their homes. They can also be rather generous with giving people gifts of gold jewelry and precious stones.
In western folklore they’re seen either as a good omen or an extremely bad one, tempting sailors to join them to be their husbands. Of course since humans can’t breathe water this ultimately means their death.
Selkies are super neat. They are seal women, spending most of their time on the water while occasionally taking off their seal skin on land to sun themselves. If a man finds their skin and hides it, he can take a selkie to be his bride and there is nothing she can do to stop him. However, should she ever find her skin, she will immediately take it and return to the sea, never to be seen again.
Etymologically, selkie means “seal”; in some regions they’re perceived as a creature other than mermaid, but we put them together because they share a lot of features with European mermaids, as well as mermaids around the world. Also, in many stories selkies are never referred to as such: they’re just called maighdean mara (“maiden of the sea”) – or, technically, the term that can be as easily used describing a mermaid or other water sprite.
One interesting feature of selkies is that they’re often connected to certain Irish families. Descendants of these supernatural creatures are either disfigured in one way or the other, or have exceptional prowess in some areas, especially stuff connected to the sea (seafaring, fishing), or sometimes both. They also might have a prohibition against killing seals, or have a physical reaction in response to seal-killing – when seals are killed on the shores of Inishowen, people in the village of Málann reportedly get nosebleeds. In many cases, the “supernatural” abilities are those that give the families advantage in the area or give them important roles in the community.
By the way, not only the Irish prescribed supernatural water-connected ancestry to their noblemen: another prominent example is the legend of Mélusine, the supernatural female ancestor of House of Lusignan. Although, giving any dynasty supernatural ancestry has always been a popular way to legitimize them to the common people; but that’s a different and a very long story.
In this sense the legends and folktales about selkies can be connected to the legend of the birth of Meroveus, the founder of Merovingian dinasty, although it’s more similar to the Irish legend of The Man Who Never Slept – here we deal not with sea maiden who are brought in to the human family, but the fruit of sexual encounter (normally without consent) between a woman and a supernatural water-dwelling being.
You can find much more about selkies, Meroveus and Mélusine, and also the connection between legends concerning them and societal changes of the time in the article “On Mermaids, Meroveus, and Mélusine: Reading the Irish Seal Woman and Mélusine as Origin Legend” by G. Darwin.”
