49 Fun Facts About Mermaid

The Mermaid Parade, a costumed art parade founded in 1983, is held in which New York seaside neighbourhood?

Coney Island. Each parade crowns a King Neptune and a Queen Mermaid, and it ends with a march to the beach to declare the ocean open for the summer swimming season.

The Lorelei, a siren said to lure boatmen onto the rocks with her singing, haunts which German river?

Rhine. The Lorelei is a real rock near St. Goar whose striking echo may have fed the legend, which is best known from Heinrich Heine's 1824 poem, later set to music.

What did Christopher Columbus most likely see when he reported three 'sirenas' off Hispaniola in 1493?

Manatees. Columbus noted in his journal that the three 'mermaids' were not half as beautiful as they are painted, with rather masculine faces.

The sirens of early Greek myth were originally depicted as women joined to what kind of creature?

Birds. The sirens swapped wings and claws for fish tails only in the Middle Ages, which is why French and Spanish still call a mermaid a 'sirène' or 'sirena'.

In the Odyssey, how does Odysseus manage to hear the sirens' song and survive?

He has himself tied to the mast on Circe's advice, while his crew row with wax in their ears. When he signals to be set free, they bind him tighter.

Jason's Argonauts sailed safely past the sirens because which musician drowned out their song?

Orpheus. Only one Argonaut, Butes, was drawn overboard and swam off towards the sirens, and the goddess Aphrodite snatched him up and carried him away.

In medieval bestiaries, the mermaid's comb and mirror were held up as symbols of what?

Vanity. The props were probably inherited from Venus, the goddess of love, and heraldry still shows mermaids with a mirror in one hand and a comb in the other.

Which Syrian goddess, called Derceto by the Greeks, was shown with a fish's body at her shrine near Ashkelon?

Atargatis. In the historian Diodorus's telling she threw herself into a lake out of shame and became a fish with a woman's head, while the daughter she abandoned grew up to be Queen Semiramis.

Which fish-tailed son of Poseidon later lent his name to sea-men in general?

Triton. Ancient artists multiplied him into whole troops of Tritons escorting the sea gods, and Disney later borrowed the name for Ariel's father, King Triton.

Mermaids' Lagoon is a favourite haunt of the children in which fictional land?

Neverland. The mermaids in Barrie's story are unfriendly to everyone but Peter Pan: Wendy never gets a civil word from one, and after dark their lagoon turns dangerous for mortals.

The Mermaid of Zennor, who lured a church chorister away to live beneath the waves, is a legend of which English county?

Cornwall. A medieval mermaid carved on a bench end in Zennor's church probably came first: the legend is thought to have grown up around the carving.

In Jean d'Arras's medieval romance, the fairy Melusine was cursed to take what form from the waist down?

A serpent. Her husband swore never to look at her on one day each week; he spied on her in the bath, and when he later denounced her as a serpent in public she flew off for good.

In modern Greek legend, a mermaid stops ships to ask sailors whether which king still lives?

Alexander the Great. The mermaid is said to be his sister Thessalonike: tell her he lives and reigns and she calms the sea, but any other answer brings a storm that sinks the ship.

Which coffee chain's logo is a crowned, twin-tailed siren?

Starbucks. Named after the first mate in Moby-Dick, the company searched old maritime books for a seafaring emblem and has had the siren on its cups since 1971.

Which Scottish creatures shapeshift between seal and human by removing their skin?

Selkies. In the best-known tale a man hides a selkie woman's sealskin to keep her as his wife, and years later she slips back to the sea the day one of her children finds it.

What is the Japanese equivalent of the mermaid called?

Ningyo. The name means 'human fish', and unlike the West's seductive mermaids it was feared: one washing ashore was read as an omen of war or calamity.

In Japanese legend, what did Yao Bikuni gain by eating a mermaid's flesh?

Centuries of life. She is said to have lived 800 years without ageing, wandering Japan as a nun before at last shutting herself away in a cave.

Which spirit, honoured across much of Africa, is often portrayed as a mermaid, a snake charmer, or both?

Mami Wata. Her snake-charmer look came from a poster of a real performer, printed in Hamburg: once copies reached West Africa, the charmer was soon taken up as the spirit's own image.

Rusalki, the water spirits of Slavic folklore, were traditionally said to be the souls of what?

Drowned young women, often jilted lovers or unhappy brides. They were thought most dangerous during Rusalka Week in early June, when villagers kept out of the water.

The Iara, a river mermaid who lures men with song, is from which country's folklore?

Brazil. The Iara is thought to have grown out of a far uglier legend, the murderous river monster Ipupiara, gaining her beauty and fish tail from European mermaid tales.

Which explorer's crew reported a mermaid in the Arctic Ocean on 15 June 1608?

Henry Hudson. He logged the sighting without a hint of doubt, naming the two crewmen who saw her and noting a tail like a porpoise's, speckled like a mackerel.

The Fiji mermaid that P. T. Barnum exhibited in 1842 was made from what?

A monkey's torso sewn to a fish. To sell it, Barnum had an accomplice pose as 'Dr. J. Griffin' of a British Lyceum of Natural History that never existed and vouch for it as real.

Which Florida attraction has staged live underwater mermaid shows since 1947?

Weeki Wachee Springs. Its creator Newt Perry had trained Navy frogmen, and his trick was an air hose hidden in the scenery, so the mermaids could perform 20 feet down with no tanks.

A 'mermaid's purse' washed up on a beach is actually the empty egg case of which animals?

Sharks and skates. The leathery capsule protects the embryo until it hatches, and the empties that wash up are now logged by beachcombers to show scientists where the fish breed.

Sedna, a mermaid-like goddess who rules the seals and whales, belongs to the mythology of which people?

Inuit. In her story she is thrown from a boat and clings to its side until her fingers are cut away; the pieces become the sea animals she then rules from the ocean floor.

A sword-and-shield-wielding mermaid, the Syrenka, appears on the coat of arms of which capital city?

Warsaw. The emblem began as a scaly, dragon-like man, and only much later settled into the fish-tailed woman with sword and shield.

Which Studio Ghibli film, loosely based on The Little Mermaid, follows a goldfish girl who longs to be human?

Ponyo. Hayao Miyazaki swapped the mermaid for a goldfish princess, rescued by a five-year-old boy, whose sorcerer father schemes to drag her back to the sea.

In Andersen's tale, what may a mermaid do at fifteen?

Rise to the surface. The Little Mermaid is the youngest of six sisters born a year apart, so she spends five long years listening to the others' stories before her turn comes.

What does the sea witch take from the Little Mermaid in exchange for legs in Andersen's original story?

Her tongue. The witch cuts it out as her price, and warns that every step on the new legs will feel like treading on blades sharp enough to draw blood.

What happens to the Little Mermaid at the end of Andersen's original tale?

She dissolves into sea foam after throwing away the knife her sisters bought to save her, but does not simply vanish: she rises as a daughter of the air, a spirit that can earn heaven by good deeds.

Who commissioned Copenhagen's Little Mermaid statue in 1909?

Carl Jacobsen, son of Carlsberg's founder. The brewer was captivated by a ballet of the tale at Copenhagen's Royal Theatre, and gave the finished bronze to the city in 1913.

Whose body did Edvard Eriksen use for the Copenhagen statue after the ballerina refused to pose nude?

His wife's. Eline Eriksen posed for the body, and although the face is usually said to follow the ballerina Ellen Price, some accounts say Eline modelled that too.

Vandals have twice sawn which part off Copenhagen's Little Mermaid statue?

Her head. The one stolen in 1964 was never recovered, so a new head had to be cast; she has also lost an arm and been doused in paint, and has been restored every time.

What is the name of the sea witch in Disney's 1989 The Little Mermaid?

Ursula. Animators modelled her look on the drag performer Divine, who died in 1988, a year before the film came out.

Which number won The Little Mermaid (1989) the Oscar for Best Original Song?

Under the Sea. Lyricist Howard Ashman had proposed turning Sebastian from an English butler into a Jamaican crab, and the film's music shifted to Caribbean styles to match.

Who provided both the speaking and singing voice of Ariel in Disney's 1989 The Little Mermaid?

Jodi Benson. To record Ariel's big ballad, Part of Your World, she asked for the studio lights to be dimmed so that it would feel as if she were deep underwater.

In Disney's The Little Mermaid, what does Scuttle the seagull call the fork that Ariel finds in a shipwreck?

Dinglehopper. Scuttle assures her that humans use it to straighten their hair, which is why Ariel later combs hers with a fork at Prince Eric's dinner table.

Who played Ariel in Disney's 2023 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid?

Halle Bailey. Director Rob Marshall sought her out after watching her sing with her sister at the 2019 Grammy Awards.

In Splash (1984), how does the mermaid played by Daryl Hannah choose her human name?

From a Madison Avenue street sign. The joke was that nobody used Madison as a first name, yet within two decades of the film it was among the three most popular girls' names in America.

Splash was the very first film released under which Disney label created for adult audiences?

Touchstone Pictures. Disney chief Ron Miller launched the label in February 1984, weeks before Splash opened, so that films with more grown-up content need not carry the Disney name.

The girls of H2O: Just Add Water become mermaids after a full moon at a pool on which island?

Mako Island. The fictional island, with its moon pool under a dormant volcano, went on to name the spin-off series, Mako: Island of Secrets.

Which actress made her film debut in the 1990 comedy-drama Mermaids, alongside Cher and Winona Ryder?

Christina Ricci. Her debut came in a film that lost two directors, Lasse Hallström and Frank Oz, before Richard Benjamin took over; a year later she was Wednesday Addams.

The sea mammals most often mistaken for mermaids belong to which scientific order?

Sirenia. The order is named for the sirens, and its largest member, Steller's sea cow, was hunted to extinction by 1768, within 27 years of Europeans finding it.

Which composer won his first two Oscars for the score and a song from Disney's The Little Mermaid?

Alan Menken. He and lyricist Howard Ashman joined Disney after their off-Broadway hit Little Shop of Horrors, and the pair shaped the film like a Broadway musical.

On which Copenhagen waterside promenade does the Little Mermaid statue sit?

Langelinie. The statue is still under copyright until 2030, and the sculptor's heirs have taken a Danish newspaper to court over pictures of it.

For which event was the Little Mermaid statue first officially moved away from Copenhagen?

A world's fair in Shanghai. She was the centrepiece of the Danish pavilion at Expo 2010, and while she was away a screen in her usual place showed her live from China.

In Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, a mermaid's tear is needed for a ritual at which legendary place?

The Fountain of Youth. Blackbeard's crew capture a mermaid named Syrena for her tear, because whoever drinks the water with it takes the remaining years of the other drinker's life.

Which English poet wrote, around 1390, of a song merrier than the mermaid in the sea?

Geoffrey Chaucer. The singer is the rooster Chauntecleer in the Nun's Priest's Tale, where Chaucer cites the bestiary Physiologus as proof that mermaids sing well.

Thetis, the mother of Achilles, was one of which fifty sea nymphs of Greek myth?

Nereids. The fifty sisters lived in the depths with their father, the Old Man of the Sea, and were said to come to the aid of sailors in distress.