THOROUGHLY MODERN MERMAIDS
SEDUCTIVE SIRENS OR FISH-TAILED FEMINISTS?
The enduring popularity of mermaids as a cultural phenomenon means that their story spans eras, continents and art forms. The earliest surviving images date from over three thousand years ago; since then, mermaids have been carved in temples and churches, decorated fountains and palaces, and been used as inn signs, figureheads and tattoos. Sightings of fishy humanoids were reported by the first sailors in the Mediterranean and by pioneers to the New World, and are still rumoured around busy modern coasts. Mermaids can be emblems of maritime trade, of the sea’s beauty and terror, or of feminine seduction, and legends of water-spirits, both romantic and frightening, are told worldwide.
A mermaid’s meaning depends on who’s interpreting her. To a mariner, traditionally, she’s an omen of storm; poets have employed her as a symbol of fickle womanhood, her sinuous tail meaning she’s slippery by nature; a showman might advertise a stuffed specimen as a marvel, to bring in the crowds. Representations change over time, too. Whereas in antiquity, a hybrid woman-fish was an image of a goddess or at least an attendant on the deities of the sea, later iconography made her signify sin and temptation, a metaphor reworked by Pre-Raphaelite artists to whom a Siren was a sexy model.
In December 2013, I saw a mermaid in Madrid. She was about four foot long from her waving curls to her tail-fin, scrawled on a wall in red spray paint. Instead of a mirror she had a heart in her hand, next to the feminist symbol of a circle and cross; beneath her was the slogan Abajo el patriarcado! – ‘Down with patriarchy!’ Alongside, another message read: No dejes a tu vida, sea escenario! – ‘Don’t give up on your life, take centre stage!’
My Spanish Siren was neither vamp nor victim, but a self-aware female, angry and confident.
SIREN SONGS
In 2012, an Internet article identified mermaid novels as the “hottest new trend” of Young Adult fiction, but concluded that they were unlikely to oust vampires or schoolboy magicians from the bestseller lists “because they are, to put it bluntly, girls’ books”. Of the authors mentioned in the article, one is a man, 16 are women.
A few of the books cited are actually about sea boys, but the article’s title refers to mermaids alone. This is standard usage, in spite of the fact that mermen have as ancient a presence, in legend and in art, as mermaids. Although witnesses report seeing bearded as well as breasted creatures in the waves, and if merfolk have a gender at all (given their lack of equipment), there’s nothing to say that their chromosomes