Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Spotting a Mermaid on This Day in History

 

This day in history: On this day in 1493, while sailing off the coast of Hispaniola, Christopher Columbus spotted three sirens or mermaids which he said were not as beautiful as they are represented, due to some masculine features in their faces, but many considered these to be sightings of manatees.

This was not the only sighting of mermaids in the past. 

During Henry Hudson's second voyage on 15 June 1608, members of his crew reported sighting a mermaid in the Arctic Ocean, either in the Norwegian or Barents Seas.

Dutch explorer David Danell during his expeditions to Greenland in 1652–54 claimed to have spotted a mermaid with "flowing hair and very beautiful", though the crew failed to capture it.

In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa.




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