I guess most people are familiar with the tale of the Little Mermaid who gives up her fish tail and her beautiful singing voice to walk on the land in the hopes of winning the love of a prince. When she fails, in the original story at least, she becomes foam on the water. It's a sad story with numerous life lessons and you can't help but feel sorry for her, but the mermaids of folklore are very different creatures. Yes, they are beautiful, yes, they have beautiful singing voices but there the similarity ends. Rather than pay a price for magic to enable them to walk on land, they mostly prefer to lure their would-be lovers into the sea.
 |
| © Shona M MacDonald 2012. All Rights Reserved |
There have been stories of Mermaids marrying human men and raising a family but these marriages rarely lasted and the Mermaids, unable to resist their true natures, would return to the sea.
The name Mermaid is thought to come from the French for sea, 'Mer', but the idea of a half human, half fish creature has been around in mythology throughout the ages. These fish tailed goddesses are found in many mythological stories, usually connected with fertility, love and the Moon. Even Aphrodite of Greek legend was born from the foam on the sea.
So, we've reached the halfway point in the Alphabet. Thank you for sticking with it this far. :) As I've been working on the book I've also been adding each new letter's illustration to a poster design that I'm hoping to make available. I'd be very interested to know if that's something any of you might like, so please let me know what you think. I'm also looking into the possibility of publishing the whole project in real book form so if you know of any publishers (or you are a publisher!!!) who produce books on this subject, please let me know.
Finally, a little plug for my other blog - Tales From the Wild Wood. It's a general art blog where I post stuff about my latest work, sketches, works in progress and witter away about whatever arty stuff is grabbing my attention at the time. I'm currently wrestling with the creation of a rather wobbly troll!!
I enjoyed reading what you have shared about mermaids, so interesting to consider. It is nearly impossible to get away from our true nature, thank goodness in most cases. Lovely page!
ReplyDelete