What do mermaids look like?
The image of a mermaid in Slavic mythology is substantiallydiffers from our current ideas about these fantastic creatures, formed mostly, under the influence of modern Western cinema, where mermaids are depicted as beautiful maidens with fish tails. However, this appearance is peculiar to sea virgins - Western European mermaids, who, most likely, inherited their appearance from Homeric beautiful sirens, enticing sailors into the sea depths with their magic singing.
According to the traditional Russian notions ofThe way mermaids look, they do not seem to differ from people in appearance. Slavic mermaids are most similar in their appearance to ancient Greek naiads and German undines, the distinctive feature of which is the absence of a tail and the ability to get out of the water and move overland, which Western European virgins can not do.
In numerous folk tales, stories andShelyochka described in great detail how the real mermaids look, but often these descriptions differ significantly from each other. Nevertheless, nevertheless it is possible to single out some common features of mermaids, which are mentioned in almost every such story.
Appearance and customs of mermaids
- All mermaids have long, loose hair, mostly of a light-brown color, but in some sources it is sometimes said about green hair, like river hair.
- Mermaids usually look like young girls withpale translucent skin. According to folk beliefs, maidens-drowned women, suicides or children who have died unbaptized (they are also called masts) turn into mermaids.
- Most of the folk tales say that mermaids are nude, but sometimes they are dressed in long white shirts or torn sarafans.
- Mermaids are very fond of moonlight nights to go out to the coastal meadow and weave ourselves wreaths from grasses and flowers, which are worn on the head until dawn.
- Mermaids often go to the forest at night, where they swing on the branches of tall trees, shout out and scare the belated travelers with their laughter.
- Russian peasants believed that mermaids arrangedancing in the meadows, running and frolicking in the sown fields, and in those places where mermaids were having fun with the full moon, all herbs grow especially well and the greatest harvest of the vita will be born.
In this article we tried to tell in detailyou about how mermaids look. Photo and video materials, as well as numerous artistic illustrations that you can easily find on the Internet, will make our story more vivid.
