50 free Mermaid trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
45 free mermaid trivia questions with answers. Half woman, half fish, wholly everywhere. This quiz covers mermaids from every angle: the Greek sirens who started as birds, the fish-tailed goddess of Ashkelon, medieval bestiaries with their combs and mirrors, Melusine, the ningyo of Japan, Mami Wata, the Zennor mermaid, Columbus's disappointing sighting, P. T. Barnum's stitched-together Fiji mermaid, and the modern mermaid of Andersen's fairy tale, the Copenhagen statue, Disney's Ariel, Splash, H2O and the swimmers of Weeki Wachee. Forty-five questions run from easy to obscure. The easy questions ask what animal Columbus probably saw and which sea witch takes Ariel's voice; the hard ones want the year the Copenhagen statue lost its head, the day of the week Melusine grew her tail, the town that offered $1 million for proof of a mermaid and what the Fiji mermaid was actually made of. It suits kids, folklore fans and anyone who has ever argued whether the Starbucks logo is a mermaid or a siren. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on mermaids, sirens and the individual tales, films and places, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The English word 'mermaid' combines 'maid' with an old word 'mere' meaning what?
Sea
Its earliest known use is in Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale, around 1390.
Q 02What is the male equivalent of a mermaid called?
Merman
Together they are merfolk; mermen are described in folklore as wilder, uglier and less interested in humans.
Q 03What did Christopher Columbus most likely see when he reported three 'sirenas' off Hispaniola in 1493?
Manatees
He complained they were not as beautiful as painted, having rather masculine faces.
Q 04The sirens of early Greek myth were originally depicted as women joined to what kind of creature?
Birds
They only became fish-tailed in the medieval Christian era; French and Spanish still call a mermaid 'sirène' or 'sirena'.
Q 05In the Odyssey, how does Odysseus manage to hear the sirens' song and survive?
He has himself tied to the mast
His crew rowed with wax in their ears while he strained at the ropes.
Q 06What is the earliest text to describe the siren as fish-tailed rather than bird-like?
The Liber Monstrorum
This 7th- or 8th-century book of monsters called them 'sea girls' with the scaly tail of a fish.
Q 07In medieval bestiaries, the mermaid's comb and mirror were held up as symbols of what?
Vanity
The comb and mirror became the mermaid's persistent props for centuries after.
Q 08Which mermaid-like goddess, also called Derceto, was worshipped at Ashkelon?
Atargatis
In the myth she drowned herself in shame and was transformed; her abandoned daughter grew up to be Queen Semiramis.
Q 09Which fish-tailed son of Poseidon later lent his name to sea-men in general?
Triton
Neither Poseidon nor Amphitrite had tails themselves.
Q 10What is probably the earliest surviving artistic depiction of a mermaid in England, from about 1078?
A carving in Durham Castle's Norman chapel
It sits on a capital above one of the chapel's original Norman pillars.
Q 11In the Cornish legend of Zennor, the mermaid fell in love with a chorister named what?
Matthew Trewhella
The tale grew out of a 15th-century mermaid carved on a bench in the village church.
Q 12Melusine, the mermaid-like figure of European folklore, was cursed to take what form from the waist down?
A serpent
In the medieval romance the curse strikes every Saturday, when her husband must never see her.
Q 13On which day of the week did Melusine's curse transform her, according to the medieval romance?
Saturday
The Plantagenets and the Lusignan kings of Cyprus were both said to descend from her.
Q 21Which explorer's crew reported a mermaid in the Arctic Ocean on 15 June 1608?
Henry Hudson
It was on his second voyage, in either the Norwegian or Barents Sea.
Q 22The Fiji mermaid exhibited by P. T. Barnum in 1842 was actually made from what?
A monkey's torso sewn to a fish
A sea captain had bought it from Japanese sailors in 1822 for $6,000 of his ship's money.
Q 23Which Florida attraction has staged live underwater mermaid shows since 1947?
Weeki Wachee Springs
Stunt swimmer Newt Perry built the show around breathing from underwater air hoses.
Q 14The Starbucks logo depicts what, according to the company itself?
A twin-tailed mermaid, or siren
The 1971 original was topless with a fully visible double tail; the hair was rearranged in 1987.
Q 15Which Scottish creatures shapeshift between seal and human by removing their skin?
Selkies
They belong mainly to Orkney and Shetland; a ceasg is a Scottish freshwater mermaid.
Q 16What is the Japanese equivalent of the mermaid called?
Ningyo
The word literally means 'human-fish', and it was usually drawn as a woman's head on a fish body.
Q 17In Japanese legend, how long did Yao Bikuni live after eating human-fish flesh?
800 years
Her name literally means 'eight-hundred-year Buddhist priestess'.
Q 18Mami Wata, the water spirit of West Africa, is thought by scholars to have developed from what?
European mermaid images seen in the 15th century
Her later look was shaped by a 19th-century print of a European snake charmer.
Q 19Rusalki, the water spirits of Slavic folklore, were traditionally said to be the souls of what?
Drowned young women
One story has a rusalka tickle her victims to death while laughing.
Q 20In Brazilian folklore, which river-dwelling beauty lures fishermen with her singing?
Iara
She grew out of the Tupinambá water-devil Ipupiara and later took on the look of European mermaids.
Q 24In 2009, which Israeli coastal town offered $1 million for proof of a mermaid seen leaping in Haifa Bay?
Kiryat Yam
Dozens of people had reported a mermaid doing aerial tricks at sunset.
Q 25In 2012, workers in which African country quit reservoir sites, saying mermaids chased them?
Zimbabwe
Among the Shona, mermaid-like spirits are called njuzu.
Q 26A sword-and-shield-wielding mermaid, the Syrenka, appears on the coat of arms of which capital city?
Warsaw
A mermaid has stood for the city since the middle of the 14th century.
Q 27Who wrote the literary fairy tale 'The Little Mermaid', published in 1837?
Hans Christian Andersen
It appeared in Copenhagen in his collection Fairy Tales Told for Children on 7 April 1837.
Q 28In Andersen's tale, at what age is a mermaid first allowed to swim to the surface?
Fifteen
Disney's Ariel is sixteen; Andersen's heroine is the youngest of six sisters.
Q 29According to Andersen's grandmother mermaid, how long do mermaids live?
About 300 years
Unlike humans, they have no immortal soul and simply turn to sea foam at death.
Q 30What does the sea witch take from the Little Mermaid in exchange for legs in Andersen's original story?
Her tongue
She has the most enchanting voice in the world, and the witch cuts it out.