Nu Vibez and Roleplay Guide Magazine - June 2015 | Page 96
Mermaids. Our fascination with
them has gone on for centuries.
What draws us to these creatures?
A recent resurgence within the Second Life (SL) community has drawn
even more people to the tales of the
Mermaid, and with that, the Siren.
But just what is a mermaid? Or a siren for that matter. The answer is far
older than one might think.
The first stories found about these
creatures comes from Assyria in
1000 B.C. The goddess Atargatis,
feeling guilt over the accidental
death she caused of her human
lover, turned herself into a mermaid. Other legends stem from
the Greeks, where Alexander the
Great’s sister Thessalonike was supposedly turned into a mermaid after
death. She would riddle ships, and if
the answer pleased her, she would
grant calm seas. If displeased, she
would bring storms and doom upon
the ship and it’s crew. But how did
we arrive at where we are today?
Authors, tradesmen, artists and the
like all have their own ideas on what
a mermaid should and should not
be. But they all have come together to create the mermaid that many
find a calling to now. What is this idea
you ask? Well first let me state this.
Sirens and Mermaids are NOT the
same thing. Though current ideas
find them close cousins of sorts.
Mermaids normally are thought to
have the head, arms and upper torso of a beautiful human female. The
lower portion of their bodies is that
of a lovely fish tail. This is the general consensus of most ideas of what
mermaids are today. There are many
variations on this core concept,
though. Varieties are know to
have webbed fingers in their human looking hands, others have
lovely fins, be them dorsal, hips,
arms or other logical places. Yet
other mermaids have pointed or even webbed or fin-like
ears. There is a huge variety and
uniqueness one can see in such
creatures. One general rule of
thumb though, Mermaids tend
to have human skin tones on
their human torsos, at least for
the most part.
Sirens, when they first were
spoken of by the Greeks, actually looked more akin to what we
would call Harpies today. They
were, however, water dwellers,
which may be why our cultures
have slowly morphed them into
what they are today. Most people think of sirens as highly seductive creatures, some looking
akin to mermaids, while others
are brightly colored versions of
them, both skin and tail. This
seductiveness is used by them
to obtain their meals, most frequently, the foolish sailor that
is wooed by their advances or
their songs.
Now this is where the lines between sirens and mermaids tend
to blur for some people. The gift
of song is often attributed to
both. The siren’s song is more
than just lovely notes, it is a lure
for those that would fall prey to
it. Sirens sing for their suppers,
Mermaids s