They didn't sing. They attracted.

Type: Origins (Legendary Creature)

Before being beautiful, they were monstrous.
Before seducing, they devoured.

The first mermaids… had nothing to do with the wet-haired creatures sold as figurines today.
They weren't human.
They were not marines.
They were… intermediate .

In the oldest texts, they appear in ancient Greece, in Homer's Odyssey .
Ulysses, tied to his mast, begs his sailors not to untie him when he hears their singing.
But in this story, the mermaids have wings .
Greenhouses.
Feathers.
And the lower body of a bird.

No tailspin.
No pearly shell.
Just an irresistible song... that leads to shipwreck.

So where does this image of a half-submerged woman's body come from?
We must cross the centuries.
And sail further.

In West Africa, ancient tales tell of Mami Wata —a fish-tailed spirit woman, feared as much as admired.
She doesn't just attract men: she bewitches them , makes them mad, or rich, or sterile.
But she always demands something in return.

In Scandinavian folklore, Havfrue —literally “sea women”—are both guides and threats.
They sing.
But not to entertain.
They sing to warn... or to drown.

Later, in the Middle Ages, Portuguese sailors believed they saw strange creatures off the coast of Africa and Brazil.
Human forms.
But blurry.
Witnesses speak of shiny skin and webbed hands.
Modern hypotheses speak of manatees...
But even scientists admit that some stories are difficult to explain.

And then there are the old maps.
Those where we write on the edge of the ocean:
“Here are the sirens.”
Here live the mermaids.

SO…
Are these legends?
Symbols of fear of the open sea?
Or the distorted echoes of very real encounters, since forgotten?

One thing is certain:
Mermaids weren't born from Disney.
They come from an older need.
That of explaining what we see… when we are too far from the shore .