In the introduction to The Penguin Book of Mermaids, I found the duality between our curiosity surrounding mermaids, and our fearing the unknown to be interesting. The first story alone that we are introduced, Lorelei’s Tale, is a testament to this. A beautiful maiden who is betrayed, accused of being a witch (shocker), and decided to kill herself in a strong act of love, is then turned into a cautionary tale to warn men of the alluring echos coming from that cliff. Couldn’t Lorelei just do this act in peace without it being turned into a tale portraying her as a “villain” mermaid attempting to kill men? It was bad enough already that she was betrayed, let alone took her own life. While this may be all fiction, and Lorelei may have never existed, the fear surrounding the tale seems to directly play into the fear of unknown, sparking curiosity. Almost as though curiosity is what drowned the cat. Man may be lured, but they took the steps to get themselves drowned.
Besides the fear mongering that surrounds mermaids, their habitat alone also sparks even more curiosity. The fact that we do not know what 90% or more of what the ocean looks like, and inhabits, only adds to this narrative. If say mermaid were purely fictional, and were only created for the sole purpose to serve as a cautionary tale, their natural habitat being the ocean was a nice touch. As the text perfected stated, “[…] the human-fish or human-snake hybrid is all the more a monster because its element is water, which is both a life source and a mystery that humans are transported by but cannot fully inhabit”. Think about it, if there was a way for humans to inhabit the ocean, you best believe that humans would take whatever infrastructure, resources, and systems merpeople have in place, and no longer fear them. Humans, or man, are really the enemy. Not the merpeople. Again, circling back to Lorelei, she may have simply been misunderstood and was grieving, but in turn she was labeled a witch, maybe could have also been called a “harlot”, as sirens were once labeled as well.
I found your post about Lorelei very interesting as her tragic story sort of parallels my own blog post in regards to how mermaid tales are a reflection in the hypocrisy of how men view women. In these plots it describes how these men yearn to possess them however it is to be on their own terms while the woman is expected to abandon who she is in order to meet their demands less they be villainized for it.