Village of the Mermaids by Carlton Mellick III
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Mermaids are jerks.
I looked up some mermaid legends. Turns out that different cultures have lots of different versions of these creatures.
Greece: This lady got turned into a mermaid, and when a boat was leaving for high seas adventures (why people did this I do not know. I’m terrified that a rental car will break down and I’ll have to walk 4 miles. Going away from land for WEEKS? Are you kidding?) she would ask if King Alexander was still alive. If you said yes, she would calm the sea. If you said no, she’d whip up the water. At which point I would have suggested turning around, but suggested it for the 1000th time that day and would have probably been unheeded.
1,001 Nights: Apparently mermaids exist in this text, but they look exactly like humans. They can just live underwater. Which seems like a cool power. BUT, it turns out that they have built some sort of underwater communist society. I knew there was a catch. Lousy commies. Think they can do whatever they want…
Eastern Europe: Mermaids are thought to be the spirits of young women who died, usually violently, before they were married. And they lure men to their death. Also, they live in lakes and streams as well as the ocean. So I guess I need to be more careful when I’m walking past the ditch every time I go to my pizza place. I could be lured in by…wait, no I couldn’t. I don’t think there’s a magical enough, beautiful enough woman in existence to get me to jump into that creek. When that creek is dry, the things at the bottom will chill your bones. Or just make you say, “Why did someone have like 12 computer monitors, and why did they dump them here?”
China: In two mermaid stories, mermaids are returned to the sea. The first is about a man who finds a woman by the sea, and her body is covered by fine hairs. I’m picturing felt. And he marries her, they hang out, and then she’s returned to the sea. The second, a guy sees this woman on the beach, gets closer and sees she’s got webbed hands and feet, and he carries her back to the water. The end. I don’t mean to be too harsh on the folklore of Chinese mermaids, but I feel there’s a significant lack of conflict or character development in these stories.
Africa: It would seem that the mermaids of Africa are basically the same as Western mermaids, although they are highly respected as spirits of the water. They too lure men to their deaths. So I guess as I’m being lured to my death by this variety of woman, I’d be more respectful about it. Wear a nice shirt or something.
Japan: There is something called a ningyo that’s a fish sort of thing, and eating its flesh will give you a long life. Would I eat mermaid to get a longer life? I guess it depends. Is it a person with a fish body or a fish with a person body? Also, would mermaid sushi taste like fish or like people? I have a lot of questions before I can dive in on this one.
The Little Mermaid: Okay, I know we all know it was Disney-fied. And I’ve heard lots of people talk about the fact that in the story, in order to be human the mermaid surrenders her tongue AND it will feel like every step on land is like stepping on knives. Which is pretty fucked up. But how about the rest of the story?
So it turns out the mermaid, who becomes human, has to marry the prince before he marries someone else, otherwise she will die of a broken heart. As the prince is already promised to someone else, the mermaid’s sisters cut off their hair and trade it for a magic knife that the mermaid can use to KILL THE PRINCE and release herself from the spell or contract or whatever. She says, “Screw it,” throws the knife into the sea and then throws herself into sea where she fizzles into foam and then becomes a…well, for all intents and purposes, a ghost.
I’m not much for looking on Facebook to see what exes might be up to. But now I wonder if I shouldn’t just make sure that nobody is either buying a magic knife in exchange for hair, and that no one has mysteriously turned into foam. I’m probably flattering myself here, but better safe than sorry.