Are Mermaids Real? A Look Mermaid Myths Across Cultures [Video]

Many cultures have different mermaid legends, leading to different depictions of the half-woman, half-fish beings. From creatures that can make you immortal to half-seal mythical creatures, here are a few ways that societies have viewed mermaids.

Ningyo

In Japanese culture, ningyo (a word that combines person and fish) is a fishlike creature with the mouth of a monkey, but the term has encompassed other beings. According to mermaid legend, eating ningyo flesh could make one immortal.

In the early 1900s, around the time when Japanese translations of “The Little Mermaid” first became available, the idea of mermaids began to change in Japan. According to Philip Hayward, a professor at University of Technology Sydney, in “Japan: The Mermaidisation of the Ningyo and Related Folkloric Figures“:

Selkies

Mermaid mythology is also present in Scotland and Ireland. As author Jason Marc Harris writes in “Perilous Shores: The Unfathomable Supernaturalism of Water in 19th-Century Scottish Folklore…