Mermaids are mythical creatures about which many legends have developed over several centuries. These creatures, women or perfumes, were described in many literary works. And, apparently, these inventions and legends did not appear from scratch.
In different sources and among different peoples, mermaids were described in different ways. But most often they were beautiful young women with a human body to the waist, and below them was a fish tail. Although there are descriptions of mermaids completely similar to humans. Mermaids live in the lake, in other bodies of water or on trees, there are those that live in the fields, the so-called field mermaids.
No one can say for sure: do mermaids exist?
The image of the mermaids was always colored by negative emotions, because they belonged to the world of the dead and tried to draw living people into their world, more often than men. Mermaids stopped travelers, attracted them with their beauty, their voice, and then pulled them into the water and drowned them. Mermaids and water - these are mythical creatures that supposedly were in some kind of union, because they lived in one place.
Mermaids appeared to everyone in the form of beautiful women with loose hair. Among the Eastern Slavs they were called pitchforks, and among the West European - Undins. Sometimes they were described as ugly, shaggy women who slew lost people, and also dragged those who bathed in the wrong place at the wrong time into the ponds.
According to old Russian traditions, dead girls who during their lifetime were not baptized or drowned turned into mermaids.
A mermaid may be a man, but this is less common.
So, do mermaids exist ?
Some reports from ancient times preserved descriptions of encounters with mermaid-like obscure creatures. This is kept in the chronicle and presented as a real story. However, the facts claiming that these mythical creatures are not fiction does not exist.
This describes some facts of a meeting with mermaids of sailors on the path of the ship. The described events say that some sailors even tried to talk to them, but they did not say a word.
Another historical fact that happened in Holland was described that the family sheltered a mermaid in one of the villages, and she lived with them for more than fifteen years, and when she died, she was buried as baptized.
There are many legends about meeting people with mermaids, but no one can give an affirmative answer about whether mermaids exist.
Scientists have long been elucidating the facts about the existence of such fish-like creatures, and several theories have been put forward how all these facts described in history were possible.
Hallucinogenic theory is the most common. It is based on a distortion of reality among sailors who have been at sea for a long time and under the influence of an unchanging environment day by day, they were inclined to see women in marine animals.
A similar theory was put forward by scientific oceanologists. They said that many marine animals, with a certain refraction of light and in some positions, are similar to a half-human half-fish. For example, sea sirens, manatees, pinnipeds, etc.
That supposedly people prone to see the unusual, they saw mythical creatures in these marine animals.
Were recorded in history and the facts of falsification of the bodies of mermaids. So, for example, a couple of centuries ago a guest performer appeared who sewed the upper part of the corpse of a woman with a fish tail and showed it to everyone on the market square, for which he took a lot of money from people. Thus, he earned his living.
But, one way or another, there are still many mysteries in this matter, and many facts have not been disclosed that none of the proposed theories can explain.
So the question is: do mermaids exist? remains open.