Chapter 1 Seeing the Seas For hundreds of years sailors and explorers watched the ocean from the decks of their ships Sometimes creatures from below the water came to the surface Lively dolphins jumped alongside the ship Huge whales came up from the depths to breathe Many worried about sea monsters Sailors watched the water around their ships for these monsters Imagine That Cartographers or mapmakers drew dragons mermaids and sea monsters in the oceans on their maps 5
People from the Sea Some of these sailors claimed to see people in the water But these people weren’t other sailors who had jumped overboard They wrote stories about these surprising creatures that had upper bodies like humans But instead of legs these creatures had long scaly fish tails They called these creatures mermaids and mermen 6 Ancient Mermaids The first ever 1000 BCE story of a mermaid is the Syrian story of Atargatis who wanted to become a fish after her lover had died But the gods refused to turn her into a fish because she was so beautiful So they turned only her bottom half But even older than that are stories of mermen The first merman was the Babylonian god Oannes ca 8000 BCE According to myth Oannes had the head of a man and the body of a fish and would come to the seashore to teach mankind about writing arts and sciences
Stories of mermaids and mermen have been told since people started sailing the seas Tales came from northern countries near cold water such as Iceland and Denmark Stories also came from warm southern islands such as Polynesia and the Caribbean The further explorers travelled the more they shared the stories of their adventures and the things they had seen Mermaid stories from different countries mixed together Many sailors exchanged stories about beautiful women with fish tails who lived in the watery depths of the ocean 7
