99 Fun Facts About Mermaid

The Mermaid Parade, a costumed art parade founded in 1983, is held in which New York seaside neighbourhood?

Coney Island. Each parade crowns a King Neptune and a Queen Mermaid, and it ends with a march to the beach to declare the ocean open for the summer swimming season.

The Lorelei, a siren said to lure boatmen onto the rocks with her singing, haunts which German river?

Rhine. The Lorelei is a real rock near St. Goar whose striking echo may have fed the legend, which is best known from Heinrich Heine's 1824 poem, later set to music.

What did Christopher Columbus most likely see when he reported three 'sirenas' off Hispaniola in 1493?

Manatees. Columbus noted in his journal that the three 'mermaids' were not half as beautiful as they are painted, with rather masculine faces.

The sirens of early Greek myth were originally depicted as women joined to what kind of creature?

Birds. The sirens swapped wings and claws for fish tails only in the Middle Ages, which is why French and Spanish still call a mermaid a 'sirène' or 'sirena'.

In the Odyssey, how does Odysseus manage to hear the sirens' song and survive?

He has himself tied to the mast on Circe's advice, while his crew row with wax in their ears. When he signals to be set free, they bind him tighter.

Jason's Argonauts sailed safely past the sirens because which musician drowned out their song?

Orpheus. Only one Argonaut, Butes, was drawn overboard and swam off towards the sirens, and the goddess Aphrodite snatched him up and carried him away.

In medieval bestiaries, the mermaid's comb and mirror were held up as symbols of what?

Vanity. The props were probably inherited from Venus, the goddess of love, and heraldry still shows mermaids with a mirror in one hand and a comb in the other.

Which Syrian goddess, called Derceto by the Greeks, was shown with a fish's body at her shrine near Ashkelon?

Atargatis. In the historian Diodorus's telling she threw herself into a lake out of shame and became a fish with a woman's head, while the daughter she abandoned grew up to be Queen Semiramis.

Which fish-tailed son of Poseidon later lent his name to sea-men in general?

Triton. Ancient artists multiplied him into whole troops of Tritons escorting the sea gods, and Disney later borrowed the name for Ariel's father, King Triton.

Mermaids' Lagoon is a favourite haunt of the children in which fictional land?

Neverland. The mermaids in Barrie's story are unfriendly to everyone but Peter Pan: Wendy never gets a civil word from one, and after dark their lagoon turns dangerous for mortals.

The Mermaid of Zennor, who lured a church chorister away to live beneath the waves, is a legend of which English county?

Cornwall. A medieval mermaid carved on a bench end in Zennor's church probably came first: the legend is thought to have grown up around the carving.

In Jean d'Arras's medieval romance, the fairy Melusine was cursed to take what form from the waist down?

A serpent. Her husband swore never to look at her on one day each week; he spied on her in the bath, and when he later denounced her as a serpent in public she flew off for good.

In modern Greek legend, a mermaid stops ships to ask sailors whether which king still lives?

Alexander the Great. The mermaid is said to be his sister Thessalonike: tell her he lives and reigns and she calms the sea, but any other answer brings a storm that sinks the ship.

Which coffee chain's logo is a crowned, twin-tailed siren?

Starbucks. Named after the first mate in Moby-Dick, the company searched old maritime books for a seafaring emblem and has had the siren on its cups since 1971.

Which Scottish creatures shapeshift between seal and human by removing their skin?

Selkies. In the best-known tale a man hides a selkie woman's sealskin to keep her as his wife, and years later she slips back to the sea the day one of her children finds it.

What is the Japanese equivalent of the mermaid called?

Ningyo. The name means 'human fish', and unlike the West's seductive mermaids it was feared: one washing ashore was read as an omen of war or calamity.

In Japanese legend, what did Yao Bikuni gain by eating a mermaid's flesh?

Centuries of life. She is said to have lived 800 years without ageing, wandering Japan as a nun before at last shutting herself away in a cave.

Which spirit, honoured across much of Africa, is often portrayed as a mermaid, a snake charmer, or both?

Mami Wata. Her snake-charmer look came from a poster of a real performer, printed in Hamburg: once copies reached West Africa, the charmer was soon taken up as the spirit's own image.

Rusalki, the water spirits of Slavic folklore, were traditionally said to be the souls of what?

Drowned young women, often jilted lovers or unhappy brides. They were thought most dangerous during Rusalka Week in early June, when villagers kept out of the water.

The Iara, a river mermaid who lures men with song, is from which country's folklore?

Brazil. The Iara is thought to have grown out of a far uglier legend, the murderous river monster Ipupiara, gaining her beauty and fish tail from European mermaid tales.

Which explorer's crew reported a mermaid in the Arctic Ocean on 15 June 1608?

Henry Hudson. He logged the sighting without a hint of doubt, naming the two crewmen who saw her and noting a tail like a porpoise's, speckled like a mackerel.

The Fiji mermaid that P. T. Barnum exhibited in 1842 was made from what?

A monkey's torso sewn to a fish. To sell it, Barnum had an accomplice pose as 'Dr. J. Griffin' of a British Lyceum of Natural History that never existed and vouch for it as real.

Which Florida attraction has staged live underwater mermaid shows since 1947?

Weeki Wachee Springs. Its creator Newt Perry had trained Navy frogmen, and his trick was an air hose hidden in the scenery, so the mermaids could perform 20 feet down with no tanks.

A 'mermaid's purse' washed up on a beach is actually the empty egg case of which animals?

Sharks and skates. The leathery capsule protects the embryo until it hatches, and the empties that wash up are now logged by beachcombers to show scientists where the fish breed.

Sedna, a mermaid-like goddess who rules the seals and whales, belongs to the mythology of which people?

Inuit. In her story she is thrown from a boat and clings to its side until her fingers are cut away; the pieces become the sea animals she then rules from the ocean floor.

A sword-and-shield-wielding mermaid, the Syrenka, appears on the coat of arms of which capital city?

Warsaw. The emblem began as a scaly, dragon-like man, and only much later settled into the fish-tailed woman with sword and shield.

Which Studio Ghibli film, loosely based on The Little Mermaid, follows a goldfish girl who longs to be human?

Ponyo. Hayao Miyazaki swapped the mermaid for a goldfish princess, rescued by a five-year-old boy, whose sorcerer father schemes to drag her back to the sea.

In Andersen's tale, what may a mermaid do at fifteen?

Rise to the surface. The Little Mermaid is the youngest of six sisters born a year apart, so she spends five long years listening to the others' stories before her turn comes.

What does the sea witch take from the Little Mermaid in exchange for legs in Andersen's original story?

Her tongue. The witch cuts it out as her price, and warns that every step on the new legs will feel like treading on blades sharp enough to draw blood.

What happens to the Little Mermaid at the end of Andersen's original tale?

She dissolves into sea foam after throwing away the knife her sisters bought to save her, but does not simply vanish: she rises as a daughter of the air, a spirit that can earn heaven by good deeds.

Who commissioned Copenhagen's Little Mermaid statue in 1909?

Carl Jacobsen, son of Carlsberg's founder. The brewer was captivated by a ballet of the tale at Copenhagen's Royal Theatre, and gave the finished bronze to the city in 1913.

Whose body did Edvard Eriksen use for the Copenhagen statue after the ballerina refused to pose nude?

His wife's. Eline Eriksen posed for the body, and although the face is usually said to follow the ballerina Ellen Price, some accounts say Eline modelled that too.

Vandals have twice sawn which part off Copenhagen's Little Mermaid statue?

Her head. The one stolen in 1964 was never recovered, so a new head had to be cast; she has also lost an arm and been doused in paint, and has been restored every time.

What is the name of the sea witch in Disney's 1989 The Little Mermaid?

Ursula. Animators modelled her look on the drag performer Divine, who died in 1988, a year before the film came out.

Which number won The Little Mermaid (1989) the Oscar for Best Original Song?

Under the Sea. Lyricist Howard Ashman had proposed turning Sebastian from an English butler into a Jamaican crab, and the film's music shifted to Caribbean styles to match.

Who provided both the speaking and singing voice of Ariel in Disney's 1989 The Little Mermaid?

Jodi Benson. To record Ariel's big ballad, Part of Your World, she asked for the studio lights to be dimmed so that it would feel as if she were deep underwater.

In Disney's The Little Mermaid, what does Scuttle the seagull call the fork that Ariel finds in a shipwreck?

Dinglehopper. Scuttle assures her that humans use it to straighten their hair, which is why Ariel later combs hers with a fork at Prince Eric's dinner table.

Who played Ariel in Disney's 2023 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid?

Halle Bailey. Director Rob Marshall sought her out after watching her sing with her sister at the 2019 Grammy Awards.

In Splash (1984), how does the mermaid played by Daryl Hannah choose her human name?

From a Madison Avenue street sign. The joke was that nobody used Madison as a first name, yet within two decades of the film it was among the three most popular girls' names in America.

Splash was the very first film released under which Disney label created for adult audiences?

Touchstone Pictures. Disney chief Ron Miller launched the label in February 1984, weeks before Splash opened, so that films with more grown-up content need not carry the Disney name.

The girls of H2O: Just Add Water become mermaids after a full moon at a pool on which island?

Mako Island. The fictional island, with its moon pool under a dormant volcano, went on to name the spin-off series, Mako: Island of Secrets.

Which actress made her film debut in the 1990 comedy-drama Mermaids, alongside Cher and Winona Ryder?

Christina Ricci. Her debut came in a film that lost two directors, Lasse Hallström and Frank Oz, before Richard Benjamin took over; a year later she was Wednesday Addams.

The sea mammals most often mistaken for mermaids belong to which scientific order?

Sirenia. The order is named for the sirens, and its largest member, Steller's sea cow, was hunted to extinction by 1768, within 27 years of Europeans finding it.

Which composer won his first two Oscars for the score and a song from Disney's The Little Mermaid?

Alan Menken. He and lyricist Howard Ashman joined Disney after their off-Broadway hit Little Shop of Horrors, and the pair shaped the film like a Broadway musical.

On which Copenhagen waterside promenade does the Little Mermaid statue sit?

Langelinie. The statue is still under copyright until 2030, and the sculptor's heirs have taken a Danish newspaper to court over pictures of it.

For which event was the Little Mermaid statue first officially moved away from Copenhagen?

A world's fair in Shanghai. She was the centrepiece of the Danish pavilion at Expo 2010, and while she was away a screen in her usual place showed her live from China.

In Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, a mermaid's tear is needed for a ritual at which legendary place?

The Fountain of Youth. Blackbeard's crew capture a mermaid named Syrena for her tear, because whoever drinks the water with it takes the remaining years of the other drinker's life.

Which English poet wrote, around 1390, of a song merrier than the mermaid in the sea?

Geoffrey Chaucer. The singer is the rooster Chauntecleer in the Nun's Priest's Tale, where Chaucer cites the bestiary Physiologus as proof that mermaids sing well.

Thetis, the mother of Achilles, was one of which fifty sea nymphs of Greek myth?

Nereids. The fifty sisters lived in the depths with their father, the Old Man of the Sea, and were said to come to the aid of sailors in distress.

Which US agency issued a rebuttal after the hit 2012 fake documentary Mermaids: The Body Found?

NOAA answered Animal Planet's ratings hit with a web page on whether mermaids are real, stating that no evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.

Which actor, then known for the sitcom Bosom Buddies, played the man who loves a mermaid in Splash?

Tom Hanks was then little known, and bigger names were considered first; he plays the co-owner of a New York fruit and vegetable business in the role that made his name.

Which country's town of Kiryat Yam offered a $1 million prize in 2009 for proof of a mermaid?

Israel's Kiryat Yam put up the money after dozens of people reported a mermaid leaping out of the waters of Haifa Bay and doing aerial tricks.

Which cartoon features Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, two elderly superheroes in a retirement home?

SpongeBob SquarePants cast Ernest Borgnine as Mermaid Man and Tim Conway as Barnacle Boy because its creators were fans of the pair's 1960s sitcom McHale's Navy.

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, what does Harry eat to breathe among the merpeople?

Gillyweed comes from the house-elf Dobby in the book, but the film cut Dobby and has Neville Longbottom hand it over instead.

In the old sailors' ballad The Mermaid, sighting a mermaid at sea is a sign of what to come?

A wreck follows in the ballad, sung since the mid-18th century: the captain spots a mermaid on the way out to sea and the vessel goes down without any survivors.

Lori Lemaris, a mermaid posing as a wheelchair user at Metropolis University, dated which superhero?

Superman fell for Lori Lemaris as student Clark Kent and even proposed, then learned why she went home early each evening when he saw the tank of water in her room.

Which Hollywood star played Annette Kellerman, the Australian swimmer, in the film Million Dollar Mermaid?

Esther Williams often named it as her favourite of her films and borrowed its title, Million Dollar Mermaid, for her 1999 autobiography.

Catalina, a blonde mermaid with a golden scepter, is the mascot of which American seafood brand?

Chicken of the Sea began as a phrase describing the taste of the company's tuna and proved so successful that it became the company name too.

Which director, once child star Opie on The Andy Griffith Show, made the mermaid comedy Splash?

Ron Howard passed up directing Footloose to make Splash, which producer Brian Grazer had pitched to studio after studio before Disney agreed to back it.

In The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, what is the name of Ariel and Eric's daughter?

Melody is a human princess who longs to swim in the ocean, the mirror image of her mother's old wish, and a wall is built to keep her castle apart from the water.

In which 2006 teen film is a mermaid, played by Sara Paxton, washed into a swimming pool by a storm?

Aquamarine has three days to prove to her father that true love exists, or she must go through with an arranged wedding to a merman.

Which preschool series follows a class of merperson children including Molly, Gil and Goby?

Bubble Guppies blends sketch comedy, lessons and songs, and each episode opens with Molly's greeting being cut short by one of Gil's antics.

Which rare birth condition, in which the legs are fused together, is known as mermaid syndrome?

Sirenomelia is graded in seven classes by which leg bones are present, from cases where only the soft tissues are joined to those with a single thigh bone.

Which poet's J. Alfred Prufrock laments, as his love song ends, that mermaids will not sing to him?

T. S. Eliot closes The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock with the mermaids, an image some critics have traced to a song by John Donne.

Which piece of freediving gear sits inside the tail of a professional mermaid performer?

A monofin is strapped to both of the swimmer's feet, and the tail is a sleeve pulled over it from ankle to waist, so the legs kick together like a whale's fluke.

Which Hong Kong comedy director made The Mermaid, the highest-grossing Chinese film up to 2016?

Stephen Chow also co-wrote and produced the comedy, which had China's biggest opening week and kept the record until Wolf Warrior 2 passed it in 2017.

In 2012, workers in which African country quit two reservoirs, saying mermaids had hounded them?

Zimbabwe saw work stop at reservoirs near Gokwe and Mutare; among the country's Shona people, mermaid-like water spirits are known as njuzu.

In Thai tellings of the Ramayana, the mermaid Suvannamaccha falls in love with which hero?

Hanuman's bridge to Lanka was her target: Suvannamaccha, a daughter of the demon king Ravana, set out to spoil the work and fell for its builder instead.

Which Renaissance alchemist named the undine, a water spirit who gains a soul by marrying a human?

Paracelsus held that such a union earned an undine an immortal human soul but shortened her time on Earth, an idea later fairy tales about sea maidens drew on.

Which Italian city, in legend, grew up where the body of the siren Parthenope washed ashore?

Naples began as a settlement named Parthenope in her honour; she is said to have thrown herself into the sea when her songs failed to entice Odysseus.

In which Irish writer's fairy tale does a fisherman give up his soul to marry a mermaid?

Oscar Wilde put The Fisherman and His Soul in his 1891 collection A House of Pomegranates; a witch agrees to help if the fisherman dances with her at the Witches' Sabbath.

Which Czech composer wrote the opera Rusalka, about a water nymph who longs to become human?

Antonín Dvořák's Rusalka opened in Prague in 1901; the witch Ježibaba warns the nymph that becoming human will cost her the power of speech and her immortality.

Dyesebel, a comic-book mermaid created by Mars Ravelo and often filmed, comes from which country?

The Philippines first met Dyesebel in Pilipino Komiks, drawn by Elpidio Torres, and her story went on to be adapted into five films between 1953 and 1996.

Which beaked, three-legged mermaid of Japanese legend became a viral charm against illness in 2020?

Amabie is said to have risen from the sea, foretold either rich harvests or an epidemic, and told people to copy its picture as a defence against illness.

In Chinese legend, the tears of the jiaoren, sea people who weave at looms, turn into what?

Pearls are what the jiaoren weep, a claim found in texts as old as the third-century Bowuzhi, and the raw silk they spin was known as mermaid silk.

In Irish folklore, which enchanted garment lets a merrow travel between deep water and dry land?

A cap called the cohuleen druith does the trick, and in one tale a County Kerry man weds a merrow after depriving her of her red one.

Which Hindu god's first avatar, Matsya, is often shown as human above the waist and a fish below it?

Vishnu took the fish form to rescue Manu, the first man, from a great deluge, a tale often set beside the flood myths of other cultures.

The ben-varrey, a mermaid said to reward kind fishermen with treasure, belongs to which island?

Isle of Man mermaids were thought friendlier to humans than most: in one tale a ben-varrey repays a fishing family's regular gifts of apples with prosperity.

Jengu, mermaid-like water spirits with gap teeth, are revered by the Duala people of which country?

Cameroon's Sawa peoples say the miengu, as the spirits are called in the plural, live in rivers and the sea and bring good fortune to those who worship them.

The ceasg, a Scottish mermaid who grants three wishes to her captor, has the tail of which fish?

Salmon it is: the ceasg's lower half is that of a grilse, a juvenile one, and she is said to live in rivers and streams as well as the sea.

In Greek myth, the fisherman Glaucus grew a fish's tail and became a sea god after eating what?

A magical herb caught his eye, in Ovid's telling, when it brought the fish he had landed back to life; tasting it made Glaucus immortal but bound him to the sea for ever.

Pania of the Reef, a sea maiden with a statue on Napier's seafront, is from which people's legends?

Māori legend says Pania swam with the creatures of her reef by day and after sunset went to a stream running into the bay where Napier, New Zealand, now stands.

Which painter of The Lady of Shalott gave A Mermaid to the Royal Academy as his diploma work?

John William Waterhouse gave A Mermaid to the Royal Academy five years after his election as a full member, and the canvas has stayed in the Academy's collection in London.

Merliah Summers, the mermaid princess of Barbie in a Mermaid Tale, is a champion in which sport?

Surfing is Merliah's world in Malibu, and a 2012 sequel sends her overseas to compete in the ultimate contest on the waves.

Lasirèn, a mermaid spirit of wealth, beauty and romance, is honoured in which Caribbean religion?

Haitian Vodou takes her name from the French for the mermaid, la sirène, and she stands for the possibility of death as well as riches.

Which heroine of Liz Kessler's children's novels discovers in book one that she is half mermaid?

Emily Windsnap began as a poem Kessler was writing about a little girl who lived on a boat with a big secret, until an editor suggested turning it into a book.

In Disney's The Little Mermaid, Sebastian, the sea king's court composer, is what kind of animal?

A crab with a grand full name, Horatio Thelonious Ignacious Crustaceous Sebastian, he serves the king as adviser and chief musical composer.

H2O: Just Add Water, a teen drama about three girls who become mermaids, was made in which country?

Australia's Gold Coast in Queensland was the backdrop, with filming at the Sea World marine park, and popular demand won the show a third series.

Which Disneyland ride had live costumed mermaids in its lagoon for four summers between 1959 and 1967?

Submarine Voyage dropped its swimmers in 1967 after they reported health worries over diesel exhaust fumes and heavily chlorinated water; animatronic mermaids took over.

Cagniard de la Tour named his 1819 acoustic device the siren because it could do what?

Sound when submerged it did: with water run through it in place of air the fully immersed instrument kept up its note, and the baron wrote that this property earned it the name.

Which actress, later Mrs Banks in Mary Poppins, played a flirtatious mermaid in the comedy Miranda?

Glynis Johns rose to prominence with Miranda, whose playful mermaid outrageously flirts with and flatters every man she meets on dry land.

Which Victorian poet wrote The Forsaken Merman, about a sea king whose earthly bride never returns?

Matthew Arnold began the poem as an Oxford student in the early 1840s; in it the merman's wife goes ashore to pray at Easter, fearing for her soul, and stays there.

In Irish legend, the mermaid Lí Ban of Lough Neagh was caught in a fisherman's net and went on to become what?

A saint with a feast day on 27 January: she appears as Saint Muirgen in genealogies of Irish saints, having been baptised by Comgall after her time in the lough.

Dahut, princess of sunken Ys who in some tellings becomes a mermaid, is from which region's legends?

Brittany's legend usually places Ys in the Bay of Douarnenez, and in some versions Dahut haunts those waters as a mari-morgan who can still be heard singing.

Which Virginia port city has put up mermaid statues all over town since Mermaids on Parade began?

Norfolk's public art programme has spread the statues across the city, and visitors can follow a walking tour to track down the ones downtown.

The Legend of the Blue Sea, a TV drama pairing a mermaid with a con artist, is from which country?

South Korea's series drew on a Joseon-era tale, from the country's first collection of unofficial histories, about a fisherman who captures a mermaid and lets her go.

In the Futurama episode The Deep South, Fry falls for the mermaid Umbriel in which sunken city?

Atlanta is the legendary lost city, and Umbriel explains that its people turned into merfolk so fast because caffeine leaked from the Coca-Cola bottling plant.

Cala Maria, a gigantic mermaid boss, fights the player in which cartoon-style run-and-gun game?

Cuphead sends Cala Maria into battle with a crowd of sea creatures at her side, in a look its makers took from the rubber hose animation of early American cartoons.

In which story collection does Abdullah the Fisherman meet a merman who shares his name?

The Arabian Nights gives the fisherman the power to breathe in the deep, where the society he discovers is an inverted reflection of the one on land.