96 Fun Facts About Sirens

In which ancient Greek epic do the sirens make their first appearance?

The Odyssey, Book 12, is the sirens' earliest surviving appearance; Homer gives their song and their island meadow but never describes their physical form.

What did Odysseus' crew plug their ears with to avoid hearing the sirens?

Odysseus softened a cake of beeswax in the sun and pressed it into each crewman's ears; he alone listened, his own ears left unplugged.

How did Odysseus manage to hear the sirens' song without being lured to his death?

Odysseus had himself tied to the mast and ordered the crew to ignore his pleas; when he signalled to be freed, Perimedes and Eurylochus bound him tighter.

Which sorceress advised Odysseus on how to survive the sirens?

Circe, who had earlier turned his men into swine on Aeaea, warned Odysseus about the sirens before he sailed and told him how to pass them safely.

How were sirens usually depicted in early Greek art?

Archaic and classical Greek vases show sirens as birds with women's heads, a form possibly influenced by the Egyptian ba-bird; the fish-tailed image arrived centuries later.

How many sirens does Homer say there were?

Homer uses the grammatical dual for the sirens, implying exactly two; later writers such as Apollodorus raised the count to three and gave them names.

Which musician saved the Argonauts from the sirens by out-playing them on his lyre?

Chiron had warned Jason that Orpheus would be necessary on the voyage.

Which Argonaut still heard the sirens and leapt overboard, only to be rescued by Aphrodite?

Butes, son of Teleon, alone leapt overboard at the sirens' song; Aphrodite snatched him up and set him at Lilybaeum in Sicily, where he fathered Eryx.

The sirens are most often named as daughters of which river god?

Achelous, the great river god of Aetolia, is their usual father; their mother is variously given as Terpsichore, Melpomene, Calliope, or Sterope of Calydon.

Per Ovid, the sirens were companions of which goddess, and gained wings to search for her when she was abducted?

In Ovid's Metamorphoses the sirens, Persephone's playmates at her flower-gathering, asked the gods for wings so they could search the seas for her after Hades carried her off.

The sirens lost a singing contest to which group of goddesses?

The Muses beat the sirens in a singing contest, a tale told by Pausanias and Stephanus of Byzantium; Hera had goaded the sirens into issuing the challenge.

According to some post-Homeric authors, what happened to the sirens after Odysseus sailed safely past?

Hyginus says it was fated the sirens would live only until someone heard their song and passed by, so after Odysseus escaped they flung themselves into the sea and died.

What does the name of the siren Parthenope, whose body washed ashore at Naples, mean?

Parthenope means 'maiden-voiced', from parthenos (maiden) and ops (voice); Cumaean settlers named their new city after her when her body washed ashore on the bay.

On which small Naples island, site of Castel dell'Ovo, did the siren Parthenope wash ashore?

Megaride is the islet, now joined to the shore, on which Castel dell'Ovo stands; legend says Parthenope's body was carried there and the settlers buried her in their new city.

In a later Parthenope legend, which volcano did Jupiter turn a lovesick centaur into?

In Neapolitan legend the centaur Vesuvio fell in love with the siren Parthenope; Jupiter turned him into Mount Vesuvius, whose eruptions are said to be his frustrated rage.

Which Roman poet wrote in the Georgics that he had been nurtured by "sweet Parthenope"?

Virgil ends the Georgics saying 'sweet Parthenope' nurtured him while he wrote; Parthenope stood for Naples, where the poet lived and where his tomb is shown.

The Sirenusas, islands off the Amalfi Coast said to be the sirens' home, are also known by what name?

Li Galli, Neapolitan for 'the cocks', recalls the bird-bodied sirens; the three islets off Positano were later owned by the dancers Léonide Massine and Rudolf Nureyev.

Which island did Hesiod and Apollonius of Rhodes name as the sirens' home?

Anthemoessa, 'the flowery one', is the sirens' island in Hesiod's Catalogue of Women and in Apollonius's Argonautica; later writers placed the sirens off the Campanian coast near Capri.

Roman poets placed the sirens on small islands known by what Latin name?

Sirenum Scopuli, 'the sirens' crags', is the Latin poets' name for the sirens' islets; the Aeneid (5.864) sails Aeneas past them, 'heaped with the bones of many men'.

The male siren, once shown in Greek art alongside female ones, disappeared around which century?

Archaic Greek art showed bearded male sirens beside female ones; the male type vanished in the 400s BC, the fifth century BC, leaving only the female form.

The first written description of a siren as a fish-tailed "mermaid" is in which 8th-century work?

The Liber Monstrorum, an Anglo-Latin catalogue of marvels, calls sirens 'sea-girls' with a maiden's body down to the navel and scaly fishes' tails below.

Medieval bestiaries gave the vain siren which two accessories, now emblematic of mermaids across Europe?

Bestiary artists gave the vain siren a comb and a mirror, emblems of Luxuria that passed to the mermaid and survive in heraldry and pub signs across Europe.

Isidore of Seville, in his Etymologiae, rationalised the sirens as what?

Isidore wrote that sirens were really prostitutes who ruined travellers, leading them into poverty; their wings and claws were invented, he said, because Love both flies and wounds.

In Isaiah 13:22, Jerome used the Latin for sirens to translate a Hebrew word meaning what?

Jerome's Vulgate renders the Hebrew tannim, jackals, as 'sirenae' in Isaiah 13:22, picturing them howling among the ruined palaces of Babylon.

In which canticle of the Divine Comedy does Dante dream of a siren who claims to have diverted Ulysses?

In Purgatorio XIX Dante dreams of a stammering woman who becomes a 'sweet siren' and boasts of turning Ulysses from his course, a boast Homer's account never supports.

Which Renaissance polymath's notebooks say the siren lulls mariners to sleep, then kills them?

Leonardo da Vinci's notebook bestiary says the siren sings so sweetly that she lulls mariners to sleep, then climbs aboard and kills them as they sleep.

Which 17th-century Jesuit scholar argued Noah must have built compartments for sirens on the Ark?

Athanasius Kircher, in his 1675 Arca Noë, reasoned that since sirens were real creatures, Noah must have built compartments to house them aboard the Ark.

In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia, which legendary founder of Britain nearly capsizes at the Pillars of Hercules?

Brutus of Troy, great-grandson of Aeneas, meets the sirens beyond the Pillars of Hercules in Geoffrey's Historia; his ships barely escape into the Tyrrhenian Sea, where he finds Corineus.

Which Roman naturalist dismissed sirens as fable while noting a claim they lived in India?

Pliny the Elder, in Natural History Book 10, refused to credit sirens but recorded Dinon, father of the writer Clearchus, claiming they lived in India.

Which city's national archaeological museum holds the bird-footed terracotta Siren of Canosa?

The Siren of Canosa, a bird-footed terracotta of about 300 BC from Apulia, is in Madrid's National Archaeological Museum; she was a grave figure guiding the dead to the afterlife.

Which of these siren-titled works is a short story by Franz Kafka?

Kafka's parable The Silence of the Sirens, written in 1917, holds that the sirens had a weapon deadlier than song, their silence, and that Ulysses, ears stopped and chained, never noticed it.

What is a freely made decision designed to bind your future self, like an advance directive, called?

A Ulysses pact, named for Odysseus's precaution against the sirens, is a decision made freely now to bind one's own future choices; advance directives and out-of-reach alarm clocks are everyday examples.

William Etty's huge 1837 painting The Sirens and Ulysses shocked viewers by showing the sirens how?

Etty showed the sirens as naked young women among corpses, the remains of earlier victims; the 1837 canvas, painted with an experimental technique, decayed fast and was restored in 2003-2010.

Which poet's ballad inspired Frederic Leighton's painting The Fisherman and the Syren?

Frederic Leighton's The Fisherman and the Syren (c. 1856-58) illustrates Goethe's ballad Der Fischer, in which a water-maiden sings a fisherman down into the river.

Which city's public gallery bought Waterhouse's Ulysses and the Sirens in 1891?

Hubert von Herkomer, acting for the National Gallery of Victoria, bought the painting for Melbourne in 1891, the year Waterhouse exhibited it at the Royal Academy.

Herbert James Draper's 1909 Ulysses and the Sirens hangs in which English city?

Hull's Ferens Art Gallery bought Draper's Ulysses and the Sirens from the artist for £600 in 1910, the year after he showed it at the Royal Academy.

Which animals make up Sirenia, the mammal order named after the sirens?

Sirenia comprises the manatees and dugongs, four living species of slow-moving sea cow whose surfacing forms are often blamed for sailors' mermaid sightings.

Which Scottish natural philosopher invented the siren before 1799 to power organ pipes?

John Robison, Edinburgh's professor of natural philosophy, built the first siren before 1799: a rotating valve interrupted a stream of air fast enough to sound a note, and some of his sirens powered organ pipes.

Which coffee chain's logo shows a twin-tailed siren?

Starbucks' green logo is a crowned twin-tailed siren; the original brown 1971 version showed her bare-breasted with both fish tails fully visible.

What extra force does Debussy's Sirènes, the third of his Nocturnes, call for?

Sirènes adds a female choir, wordless sopranos and mezzos, to the orchestra; the movement was held back from the December 1900 premiere and first heard in October 1901.

In O Brother, Where Art Thou?, what does Delmar believe the three singing washerwomen did to Pete?

Delmar finds a toad in Pete's clothes and is sure the sirens turned him into a toad; their song was dubbed by Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch.

Freeform's Siren (2018-2020) follows Ryn, a siren who arrives in which fictional coastal town?

Bristol Cove, a Washington fishing town that trades on mermaid legend, is where Ryn comes ashore searching for her captured sister Donna.

Netflix's 2025 miniseries Sirens was adapted by Molly Smith Metzler from her own play titled what?

Elemeno Pea, Metzler's 2011 play about a personal assistant and her sister at a Martha's Vineyard estate, was reworked into the five-episode miniseries set over one weekend.

Which Norwegian theorist titled his 1979 book on rationality Ulysses and the Sirens?

Jon Elster's Ulysses and the Sirens (1979) uses Odysseus's self-binding as its model of precommitment, a rational agent restraining the choices of a future self.

One proposed etymology links the name "siren" to Greek words meaning what?

One proposed etymology derives 'siren' from Greek seirá, 'rope', and eírō, 'to bind', making the name mean rope or binder, an entangler of those who hear her.

Which 10th-century Byzantine dictionary called sirens sparrows from the chest up and women below?

The Suda, the tenth-century Byzantine lexicon of some 30,000 entries, describes sirens as sparrow-shaped from the chest up and women below.

In Euripides' Helen, the sirens are winged daughters of which primordial figure?

Helen, in Euripides' play, calls on the sirens as winged maidens, daughters of the Earth (Chthon); Epimenides instead made them children of Oceanus and Ge.

Which musical instruments were sirens most often shown playing in Greek art?

Greek vase-painters most often gave sirens the lyre, kithara and aulos; Isidore of Seville later wrote that one siren sang, one played the flute and one the lyre.

According to the ancient Book of Enoch, which women will be turned into sirens?

The Greek text of 1 Enoch 19:2 says the angels' women, those led astray by the fallen angels, the Watchers, shall become sirens, one of the earliest references outside Greek myth.

After passing the sirens, which monsters did Odysseus's ship face next?

Right after the sirens came Scylla and Charybdis: Odysseus steered past Scylla, who snatched six of his men, and the whirlpool Charybdis before landing on Thrinacia, island of the Sun's cattle.

In Second World War Britain, what did a single steady tone from civil defence sirens signify?

A single steady two-minute note was the all clear; the warning of an imminent raid was the rising-and-falling 'warble' of the same sirens.

Engineers of which company invented the first electronic siren mimicking a mechanical one, in 1965?

Motorola engineers Ronald H. Chapman and Charles W. Stephens built the first electronic siren that mimicked a mechanical one in 1965; emergency vehicles moved to electronic wails in the 1980s.

Who named the siren in 1819, after noticing his device could produce sound under water?

Charles Cagniard de la Tour coined the name 'siren' in 1819 because his perforated-disc device could sound even under water, recalling the sea-dwelling sirens of Greek myth.

Two-tone sirens are usually designed to sound which musical interval, considered a 'sad' sound?

A minor third: the two rotors' port counts stand in a 6:5 ratio, the frequency ratio of that interval, giving the wail its mournful quality.

In Hyginus' Fabulae, why did Demeter curse the sirens?

Hyginus says Ceres made the sirens winged because they had not helped Proserpina when she was carried off; they were punished for failing to stop Persephone's abduction.

Which Roman poet, in his Epistles, holds up Ulysses resisting the sirens' voices as a model?

Horace's Epistles 1.2 praises Ulysses, who 'knew the sirens' voices', as a model of virtue and wisdom, unlike the foolish crew who would have drunk the witch's cup.

In the preaching of Clement of Alexandria, the siren was the symbolic vice of what?

Clement of Alexandria preached the siren as the symbol of pleasure, a song to be sailed past; Ambrose two centuries later likewise made her an allegory of worldly temptation.

A fragment of Sophocles makes which sea god the father of the sirens?

Phorcys is better known as the father of the Gorgons, which would make the sirens their sisters in this version.

The sirens were sometimes called the Muses of what?

Sirens were sometimes called the Muses of the lower world; Walter Copland Perry wrote that their song was no less sad than sweet, lapping body and soul in a fatal lethargy.

Scholar Jane Ellen Harrison compared the all-knowing sirens to which other monster?

Harrison likened the all-knowing sirens to the Sphinx, another winged, woman-faced bringer of death; their song, she noted, takes effect at midday, in a windless calm.

Jesuit Cornelius a Lapide gave woman a siren's voice and the glance of which creature?

Cornelius a Lapide gave woman the glance of a basilisk: 'her glance is that of the fabled basilisk, her voice a siren's voice', enchanting and then depriving a man of reason.

Which French composer wrote 'Les sirènes' for mezzo-soprano, choir and piano in 1911?

Two years later she became the first woman to win the Prix de Rome for composition.

The 9th-century Physiologus that first drew the siren as a mermaid is named for which city?

The Bern Physiologus, a Carolingian manuscript of about 830 kept at the Burgerbibliothek in Bern, shows a fish-tailed siren even though its text describes a bird-woman.

In the Physiologus, the siren shares a single chapter with which other hybrid?

The Physiologus treats the siren and the onocentaur, a man-donkey hybrid, in one chapter because the Septuagint's Isaiah 13 names sirens and onocentaurs together among the creatures of ruined Babylon.

In Plato's Myth of Er, sirens attend which object representing the cosmos?

On the Spindle of Necessity, the whorls of the cosmos turn on the knees of Necessity while a siren sings one note on each rim; the Fates help them revolve.

The 'Sirens' episode of Joyce's Ulysses unfolds at which Dublin hotel?

The Ormond Hotel on Ormond Quay: Bloom dines there with Richie Goulding while Blazes Boylan sets off to meet Molly, and barmaids Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy play the sirens.

Margaret Atwood's poem 'Siren Song' appears in which 1974 collection?

You Are Happy (1974) contains Siren Song within the sequence Songs of the Transformed, alongside songs for a pig, a rat, a crow and a corpse.

Which rock guitarist bought the film rights to Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan?

Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead's guitarist, owned the film rights for years and drafted a screenplay with Saturday Night Live writer Tom Davis; no film was produced before his death in 1995.

The 1994 film Sirens, with Hugh Grant, is based on the life of which Australian artist?

Norman Lindsay's bohemian household in the Blue Mountains is the subject; most of the film was shot at his real home and studio in Faulconbridge, New South Wales.

Denis Leary's 2014 USA Network comedy Sirens follows EMTs in which city?

The US Sirens followed Chicago EMTs Johnny, Hank and Brian; a remake of the 2011 British series, it was cancelled after two seasons in 2015.

Channel 4's 2011 paramedic comedy-drama Sirens was based on which memoir?

Richard Madden, soon to be Game of Thrones' Robb Stark, played paramedic Ashley Greenwick.

Who plays Michaela 'Kiki' Kell, the billionaire's wife, in Netflix's 2025 Sirens?

Julianne Moore plays Michaela 'Kiki' Kell; Kevin Bacon is her husband Peter, Milly Alcock her assistant Simone, and Meghann Fahy Simone's sister Devon.

Who played Ryn Fisher, the title creature of Freeform's Siren?

Belgian actress Eline Powell played Ryn through all three seasons (2018-2020); Alex Roe and Fola Evans-Akingbola co-starred as Ben and Maddie.

The 2003 PlayStation 2 horror game Siren was directed by the creator of which series?

Keiichiro Toyama, who directed the first Silent Hill at Konami, made Siren at Sony's Japan Studio, setting it in the village of Hanuda with its 'sightjack' mechanic.

The zombie-like 'shibito' of the Siren video games have a name that literally means what?

Shibito is written with the kanji for corpse and person, literally 'corpse people'; Europe knew the game as Forbidden Siren, and the 2008 remake was Siren: Blood Curse.

Which model poses on the rocks of Anglesey on the cover of Roxy Music's 1975 album Siren?

Jerry Hall, then Bryan Ferry's girlfriend, posed as a siren on the Anglesey rocks; the album's 'Love Is the Drug' became the band's highest-charting US single.

Pearl Jam's 2013 single 'Sirens' was inspired by a concert on whose tour?

Mike McCready wrote the music after a show on Roger Waters's The Wall tour and wanted a Pink Floyd feel; Eddie Vedder's lyrics turned to mortality.

Varèse's Ionisation, scored with two sirens, calls for how many percussionists?

Ionisation (1929-31) is written for 13 percussionists playing about forty instruments, including a high and a low siren; Nicolas Slonimsky conducted its 1933 premiere in New York.

When tested, electronic sirens often play which familiar tune instead of a wail?

Many electronic sirens run a 'Westminster chimes' test, the clock-tower melody, so a quiet check does not alarm anyone; mechanical sirens instead 'growl' briefly at low speed.

Avraamov's 1922 Symphony of Sirens, conducted by rooftop flag-waving, premiered where?

Baku staged it on 7 November 1922, for the revolution's fifth anniversary; the score used the Caspian flotilla's foghorns, factory sirens, cannons, machine guns and a hydroplane.

The Chrysler Air Raid Siren, the world's loudest, was powered by what?

A Hemi V8 engine from Chrysler drove its compressor, producing 138 decibels at 100 feet; Chrysler built the sirens in the 1950s for Cold War civil defence.

The Netherlands tests its air-raid sirens at noon on which day every month?

The first Monday of each month at noon, about 4,200 sirens across the Netherlands sound a test lasting one minute and twenty-six seconds.

Besides Holocaust memorial day, when do Israel's sirens halt the nation for a minute?

Yom HaZikaron, Israel's Day of Remembrance for fallen soldiers and terror victims, has a one-minute siren at 8 pm as it begins and a two-minute siren at 11 am.

Which wartime leader devised the one-piece 'siren suit' as leisurewear in the 1930s?

Winston Churchill devised the zip-up 'romper' suit in the 1930s for bricklaying at Chartwell; renamed the siren suit in wartime, his bottle-green velvet version was made by Turnbull & Asser.

Sirens, the eel-like salamanders of family Sirenidae, lack which body parts entirely?

Sirens have no hind limbs and no pelvic girdle, only small forelimbs; they keep feathery external gills throughout life and also have well-developed lungs.

Siren salamanders are the only salamanders ever observed doing what?

Sirens are the only salamanders recorded eating plants, grazing filamentous algae and other vegetation, though worms, snails and crustaceans make up most of their diet.

The reticulated siren, a salamander described in 2018, goes by what nickname?

The reticulated siren, nicknamed the 'leopard eel' for its spotted pattern, was described in 2018 from the Florida panhandle and southern Alabama and reaches about 60 cm.

Steller's sea cow, the largest sirenian ever, was hunted to extinction in which year?

The last Steller's sea cow was killed in 1768, just 27 years after Georg Steller described it in 1741; at 8-10 metres it dwarfed every living sirenian.

Which town near Naples was said to take its name from a temple of the sirens?

Sorrento, Roman Surrentum, claimed the sanctuary of the sirens on its peninsula described by Strabo; legend made Ulysses its founder and derived the town's name from the sirens.

The siren Leucosia's name comes from the Greek word for which colour?

Leucosia is built on leukos, Greek for 'white', the root of leukocyte; Punta Licosa south of Salerno preserves her name, and Nicosia's Greek name Lefkosia shares the element.

The Syrena, a two-stroke car nicknamed 'little siren', was built from 1957 to 1983 where?

Poland's FSO, then FSM in Bielsko-Biała, built the Syrena from 1957 to 1983, over 521,000 in all; the name honours the Syrenka, the sword-bearing mermaid on Warsaw's coat of arms.

The 'Siren Order' mobile app, named for a coffee chain's logo, debuted in 2014 where?

South Korea got Siren Order first, in 2014, letting customers order ahead from their phones; the US Mobile Order & Pay pilot followed in Portland, Oregon that December.

The anonymous 'Siren Painter' is named for a stamnos of Odysseus held in which city?

London's British Museum holds the Siren Vase, an Attic red-figure stamnos of about 480-470 BC showing Odysseus's ship passing the sirens, from which the painter takes his name.

The Ulysses mosaic at Dougga, Tunisia, with bird-legged sirens, dates to roughly when?

The Dougga mosaic, now in Tunis's Bardo Museum, dates to around AD 265, the third century; one siren holds a flute, one a lyre, and the third, empty-handed, sings.

Who released the first recording of Tim Buckley's 'Song to the Siren', in 1969?

Pat Boone cut the first released version for his 1969 album Departure, a year before Buckley's own on Starsailor; This Mortal Coil's 1983 cover with Elizabeth Fraser spent 101 weeks on the UK indie chart.

Siren Head, the 40-foot monster with megaphones for a head, was created by which artist?

Canadian artist Trevor Henderson created Siren Head in 2018 as one of his photo-manipulated internet cryptids; it became a viral fixture of fan games and videos.