In revenge Circe, who was herself in love with Glaucus, turned Scylla into a hideous sea monster. Glaucus asked a Greek witch, Circe for a love potion to get Scylla to fall in love with him. Later Roman authors of Greek myths such as Ovid, describe Scylla as a beautiful woman who had the misfortune of attracting the attention of a sea god called Glaucus. Homer uses the sea monster Scylla and her equally evil neighbor, Charybdis, to illustrate the dilemma of choosing the lesser of two evils. Odysseus, the legendary hero who instigated the Greek victory through his clever plan involving the Trojan horse after ten years of battle in the Trojan war, had to get past this giant creature on his way home to Ithaca. She was a water nymph and the daughter of Ceto - the ultimate sea monster - and Porchys in Greek mythology. Greek Mythology’s Sea Monster Scylla The Scylla sea monster, red figure bell-crater, c 450 – 425 BCE, via Most of us, though, accept merfolk as just a jolly good tale.ģ. Manatees have to come up for air around every twenty minutes or less. The most sensible so far is that a drunken (or not!) sailor or beachcomber might easily mistake a manatee surfing the waves or catching its breath while rising from the water for a fish-tailed human. It was so convincing that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the USA felt obliged to issue an official statement denying the existence of merfolk.īecause of the myth of merpeople (mostly mermaids) is so widespread, people have tried to come up with several explanations for these visions. One famous example comes from an Animal Planet documentary from 2012/13 in which producers claimed to have found proof of a real mermaid. Through folktales, plays, children’s story books, and Hollywood movies, mermaids have played on our imaginations even in this century, as a water spirit, a water nymph, a sea monster, or a malicious water god - with a human upper body and a fishy tail. Not a typical sea monster in looks, the mermaid is a sea monster in behavior. The story reminds us of Odysseus and the sirens, and other similar folktales in many cultures, that talk of mermaids luring sailors to their deaths, all across the world. Although Lorelei is not portrayed with a fishtail nor shown living in an ocean, her story describes the quintessential mermaid. The tale of a beautiful maiden on a rock in the Rheine River, combing her golden hair with a golden comb and luring sailors with her enticing and irresistible song to wreck their ships on the rocks. He muses that he does not understand why the old tale keeps circling in his mind. Thus starts the German poem Die Lorelei by Heinrich Heine. “Ich Weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten, Das ich so traurig bin Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten, Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn”. The Deadly Allure of Mermaids The Mermaid, by John William Waterhouse, 1900, via the Royal Academy And thus, legends of such creatures crushing flimsy wooden ships and feasting on sailors went from seaside taverns to urban communities - growing in size as they spread!Ģ. One can imagine what a fearful sight such a sea monster would be for already superstitious sailors. Their eyes are up to ten inches (25.4 cm) in circumference, which allows them to see in the dark depths of the ocean where they live. The females can grow up to an enormous size of over fifty feet (over fifteen meters), and the males are just a little shorter at around thirty-two feet (over ten meters). These longer tentacles are used to bring food into their parrot-like beaks. They have eight suckered arms and two tentacles. Like a living jet engine, this true sea monster propels itself forward by blasting sucked-in water out through a rear funnel. Scientists have since discovered many interesting facts about the giant squid. They subsequently managed to capture one and bring it to the surface. The famous author, Jules Verne, did not know when he wrote his science fiction novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea that the giant squid portrayed in his famous novel was in fact a real sea monster! The reality of it was confirmed when Japanese scientists photographed a live specimen of this sea monster in 2004. Giant Squid, from Japan, 2015, via the New York Times They were alternately seen as both good and bad - messages from God, or messages from the devil. It is thought that the Norwegians saw bits of carcasses from dead specimens of these giant sea monsters washed up on their shores, and from there the legends spread. In reality, both of these creatures have eight arms with suckers, and the squid has an additional two tentacles (appendages with suckers only at the end) which may account for the difference. In some descriptions this sea monster has ten arms and in others eight. Over time the Kraken took on a more squid or octopus-like appearance.
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