April 8, 2024 • 15 mins
Immerse yourself in the fascinating world of mermaids in the latest episode of "My Slice of Life" podcast with your Highland host, Sharon. From African folklore to Christopher Columbus' encounters, this episode explores every nook and cranny of the mermaid mythos - are mermaids real or merely myths buffed up by repeated retelling and countless hoaxes? Don't forget to share your thoughts and comments!
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hey do you prefer to find the joy in life or do you just want some help with
that if so you're in the right place so come on in and join the joy bonnie clan
this is the my slice of life podcast,
hello and welcome to the my slice of life podcast my name is sharon and i am
(00:25):
your highland host This week is something a little different,
something which made me think about things in a very different way when I was
doing the research on mermaids.
Yeah, I've got to tell you, I thought about the topic and I wasn't sure and
I did some digging and I found out this is something that probably should be talked about. out.
(00:49):
So stay tuned to find out why.
Just before we get to it, I would like to point out, if you're new here,
that this isn't a paranormal channel.
In fact, I cover a range of topics.
As the title suggests, I'm coming to you from my slice of life.
So I bring you things which I find interesting and I hope you will too.
(01:11):
This is actually the fourth season of the podcast.
So if this is your your first listen, go back and check out the other topics
that I've covered because there's bound to be something else there that will catch your eye.
You could even follow the podcast so you will be sure not to miss out.
And speaking of missing out, share this little old podcast with someone else
(01:33):
so they don't miss out either.
Okay, back to the mermaids. I think I should start by telling you that in my
head I had pictures of fishermen in boats with some lovely looking fish lady
nearby and that was about it.
So I did a little digging to see if there was really anything else to find out and oh boy was there.
(01:57):
Turns out there are a lot of encounter stories, information and so on if you know where to look.
So let's go back a little.
Usually a mermaid is described as half very attractive woman, half fish.
But it does seem like at some point in history they've been mixed up with sirens from Greek mythology.
(02:23):
The Sirens are known for using their enchanting songs which they use to lure
fishermen and anyone else to a watery grave.
However, Sirens are half woman, half bird.
Not fish-like at all. It seems to be around the time of the Romans that the
stories began to get altered.
(02:44):
For example, they had Triton. He was a merman who was the son of Poseidon and
he was a messenger of the sea, often shown as a muscular man on the top half
and as a fish on the lower half of his body.
But if you think it was just the Romans describing these creatures you would
(03:05):
be very wrong and this is where I really got thinking.
You see these creatures have descriptions going way back in time and from all over the place.
Here's some examples. In African folklore, they have a water spirit called Mami
Wata, which is a mermaid-like entity.
(03:27):
The name means mother water. It kind of sounds like that. You can make that out.
And she's seen as a guardian of the waters and bestows blessings things on her
devotees, bringing healing and good fortune, good things like that.
In Slavic folklore, they have something called Rusalki or Mafkas.
(03:51):
They're believed to inhabit the lakes and streams of Eastern Europe.
These are described as beautiful maidens with long flowing hair,
often portrayed as vengeful and dangerous, with some believing they are actually
the spirits of drowned women who want others to meet the same fate.
So, not so nice. Okay, so over in Japan they have what's called the Ningyo,
(04:17):
I think that's how you pronounce it, sorry if I got that wrong,
and they're not really like the western version of the mermaid at all.
The Ningyo means human fish or merperson.
It's similar in that the top half of it is human,
the bottom half is that of a fish, but
it has a monkey type of mouth with really small teeth
(04:39):
and horns on its head scaly arms
and clawed hands and it is seen
as a harbinger of misfortune so again
not a good one not a good thing at all now it's
said even christopher columbus reported encountering mermaids
on one of his expeditions in his own journal dated the 9th of january 1493 he
(05:03):
states he saw three mermaids on the coast of the dominican republic now even
though Although many sailors have reported encounters for years,
the sighting reported by Columbus has since been put down to manatees.
Yeah, I don't really know if I should make a comment here or not,
but have you seen the manatee?
(05:26):
I'm not being funny, but even on my worst, worst day, I don't think I would be mistaken for one.
And what Christopher Columbus would have seen if you go by the lore would have been a beautiful woman.
So the experts say manatee.
Okay, I'm going to move on. You would be forgiven for thinking all that was in the past.
(05:48):
We know better today. They were just stories.
And I was thinking that that way myself until I found a few stories online.
Now I know you've got to you know you need to take precautions when you're reading
anything online but similarities were cropping up all over the place.
It wasn't so much the YouTube channel that I was on or the story that I was
(06:13):
reading it was in the comments from others.
Now yeah there were some obvious jokes and a few good hoaxes.
There were some, actually quite a lot, which did not seem to be making fun of
it or joking about it at all and they seem to be coming from very specific places.
(06:34):
In Haiti for example, they are big believers in mermaids and I used to always
associate mermaids with the sea, ocean, that was it.
But they say no, you can find them in rivers too so it's not just the ocean.
In fact, they are told from childhood, you never go to the river with jewellery on.
(06:55):
And you think, well, why not? Why can't you go with jewellery?
It's because the mermaids will think it's a gift for them. You might think that
sounds a bit strange, but hold on, bear with me.
Now, according to the people of Haiti, mermaids are evil, just pure out-and-out evil.
In Haitian Creole, they are called medlo, which means owner of the water.
(07:16):
And one story I did see was from a woman, she said this happened to her when
she was around 11 years old.
So she went on holiday with her father to a place called St Mark which is on the west coast of Haiti.
She said she was wearing her mother's wedding ring. I don't know what happened
to the mother. She didn't say.
I wasn't there to ask her. Don't know. So she goes on holiday with her dad.
(07:39):
Now according to her, at some point she went into the water with this wedding ring on.
And she swears something came
up really quickly and just snatched the wedding ring off of her finger.
Now notice it snatched the wedding ring.
It didn't bite her. it didn't
you know whatever this thing was it she had no marks from
(08:02):
like a fish bite or and i mean if a fish is
going to jump up do fish jump up and bite your fingers no
no but whatever this was it was coming up specifically for the ring according
to this woman she swears it was a mermaid that came up and took that ring from
her finger and according to her kids in haiti are told to not stay near water
especially on their own now that incident could be put down to a couple of things I know,
(08:26):
but from the comments,
the videos, the stories I saw, I did put together a list of what seemed to be
accepted facts of mermaids.
Make of it what you will. It seems the Caribbean or Caribbean waters are full
of them because of the voodoo and the black magic that's practiced in the area.
(08:51):
This is, I'm going on what I've been reading and what I've been told.
I haven't been been there so I can't say for sure but we know Haiti has a link
to voodoo I think that's pretty standard knowledge and Haiti and Jamaica were
actually highlighted in particular as two places where these things are encountered a lot.
However, other places which have similar beliefs and practices also have mermaids
(09:16):
in their waters and South Africa was one that came up time and time again.
There were also reports from Guyana and Nicaragua which seemed to come up frequently
as well and like I said it seems to be the same sort of places that were coming up over and over.
Now the facts in inverted commas that I'm giving you.
(09:37):
They come from a Haitian woman but they seem to be agreed upon by other people
from all the places that I've just given you. So here's another one.
People can be abducted by mermaids and if one takes you, you won't be able to
breathe under the water because you'll be in their world.
So you know that won't be a problem but they want to make you their servant
(09:59):
and here's where things get a little little tricky.
If you've been a servant and you're let go, you have to go back to them at some
point to serve again whenever they tell you to.
You don't have a choice. And if you don't, you won't be able to go near water
again, any body of water, because they come and get you and take you by force.
(10:22):
Now, apparently this is a deal which is made with the mermaid.
And if you do go near water after breaking a deal with one of them,
they can either drown you,
take you back to be their slave forever, or take you and sell you to another mermaid.
Some people have made deals with mermaids where they agree to send their children
(10:43):
to serve them in some way, however if they fail to keep up with their end of
the deal, say they change their mind,
the mermaid can either make the child their permanent servant, or,
or sell them to another mermaid. Either way that child's not coming back.
Apparently a few people have come back after being a servant in their world
(11:05):
but some of them couldn't speak.
For some this lasted for around a year but for some others their silence was permanent.
The few who did manage to talk have spoken of a world underwater where they were kept as slaves.
Basically humans Humans are a commodity to mermaids to be used or sold as they see fit.
(11:29):
Generations of Haitian children have been told that if they are taken to be
a slave, they should act dumb and do the opposite of what has been asked.
For example, if you're asked to bring salt, you bring them sugar.
If you're told to go and tidy up an area, you make it messy, you make it look worse.
The theory is that the mermaid would then think that the child is useless and
(11:50):
so return them but according to some this can backfire because the child could
get killed for being useless or sold on.
There were a lot of reports about hearing singing like with the sirens which
people said they could feel physically pulling them into the water.
(12:13):
Were drawn to it couldn't stop themselves one lady
even said she was physically taken by a nice lady in inverted commas who said
she was going to teach her to swim after hearing the music she just went with
this woman and if the family hadn't intervened she was sure she was going to
be taken apparently they were quite far from shore when she was rescued so to summarize.
(12:37):
Don't go near the water if you hear singing or music no matter how lovely it
sounds Don't wear jewellery when you go to the water, be that ocean, river, lake, whatever.
Any body of water counts when it comes to mermaids.
Don't go near the water at night and don't go near it at noon either.
(12:59):
Yeah, that was new to me too. I've never heard that before.
Now there are some very interesting videos on YouTube.
Some are obviously people trying to get their clicks and doing their best to come up with a hoax.
But there's one channel
that I found that I found really interesting and it's
from a fisherman his channel is called simply spring and
(13:21):
I'm not sure what to make of his videos he shows a lot of
weird videos in general but there are some
he has done from when he's on
the ship or a fishing boat whatever you want to call it in one
video in particular you can hear this weird noise it's
like music or singing and he's running around the boat
trying to locate where the sound is coming
(13:41):
from he's shouting back to them as well and i
don't know his reactions seem genuine the way
he's acting it seems genuine and i know
there's a lot of hoaxes like i said but go and
have a look at his videos simply spring you'll need
to find the the mermaid ones i didn't note
(14:02):
down what they they were called but you'll find them it won't be hard I don't.
Know see what you think of them I'd be interested to
hear what you think and so with that that
wraps up this week's episode all about mermaids
I'm not sure about this one to be
honest I'm not I initially thought it was just
a story but after seeing so many
(14:23):
people from like different places telling the
same thing starting to wonder maybe it's
just going to be another one of those mysteries that we never
get to know the truth about so with all
that being said please leave this episode a
like leave a comment to let me and others know
what you think about mermaids and check
(14:45):
out my links in the description come on over
to the blog you'll get a lot of content there ranging
from gardening entertaining movies poetry stories stories from you know my slice
of life dog talk lots and lots of different things there's something for everybody
so I hope to see you there so until next week friends which trust me you do
(15:06):
not want to miss next week's episode you take care of yourself.
Hey do you prefer to find the joy in life or do you just want some help with
that if so you're in the right place so come on in and join the joy bonnie clan
this is the my slice of life podcast,
hello and welcome to the my slice of life podcast my name is sharon and i am
(00:25):
your highland host This week is something a little different,
something which made me think about things in a very different way when I was
doing the research on mermaids.
Yeah, I've got to tell you, I thought about the topic and I wasn't sure and
I did some digging and I found out this is something that probably should be talked about. out.
(00:49):
So stay tuned to find out why.
Just before we get to it, I would like to point out, if you're new here,
that this isn't a paranormal channel.
In fact, I cover a range of topics.
As the title suggests, I'm coming to you from my slice of life.
So I bring you things which I find interesting and I hope you will too.
(01:11):
This is actually the fourth season of the podcast.
So if this is your your first listen, go back and check out the other topics
that I've covered because there's bound to be something else there that will catch your eye.
You could even follow the podcast so you will be sure not to miss out.
And speaking of missing out, share this little old podcast with someone else
(01:33):
so they don't miss out either.
Okay, back to the mermaids. I think I should start by telling you that in my
head I had pictures of fishermen in boats with some lovely looking fish lady
nearby and that was about it.
So I did a little digging to see if there was really anything else to find out and oh boy was there.
(01:57):
Turns out there are a lot of encounter stories, information and so on if you know where to look.
So let's go back a little.
Usually a mermaid is described as half very attractive woman, half fish.
But it does seem like at some point in history they've been mixed up with sirens from Greek mythology.
(02:23):
The Sirens are known for using their enchanting songs which they use to lure
fishermen and anyone else to a watery grave.
However, Sirens are half woman, half bird.
Not fish-like at all. It seems to be around the time of the Romans that the
stories began to get altered.
(02:44):
For example, they had Triton. He was a merman who was the son of Poseidon and
he was a messenger of the sea, often shown as a muscular man on the top half
and as a fish on the lower half of his body.
But if you think it was just the Romans describing these creatures you would
(03:05):
be very wrong and this is where I really got thinking.
You see these creatures have descriptions going way back in time and from all over the place.
Here's some examples. In African folklore, they have a water spirit called Mami
Wata, which is a mermaid-like entity.
(03:27):
The name means mother water. It kind of sounds like that. You can make that out.
And she's seen as a guardian of the waters and bestows blessings things on her
devotees, bringing healing and good fortune, good things like that.
In Slavic folklore, they have something called Rusalki or Mafkas.
(03:51):
They're believed to inhabit the lakes and streams of Eastern Europe.
These are described as beautiful maidens with long flowing hair,
often portrayed as vengeful and dangerous, with some believing they are actually
the spirits of drowned women who want others to meet the same fate.
So, not so nice. Okay, so over in Japan they have what's called the Ningyo,
(04:17):
I think that's how you pronounce it, sorry if I got that wrong,
and they're not really like the western version of the mermaid at all.
The Ningyo means human fish or merperson.
It's similar in that the top half of it is human,
the bottom half is that of a fish, but
it has a monkey type of mouth with really small teeth
(04:39):
and horns on its head scaly arms
and clawed hands and it is seen
as a harbinger of misfortune so again
not a good one not a good thing at all now it's
said even christopher columbus reported encountering mermaids
on one of his expeditions in his own journal dated the 9th of january 1493 he
(05:03):
states he saw three mermaids on the coast of the dominican republic now even
though Although many sailors have reported encounters for years,
the sighting reported by Columbus has since been put down to manatees.
Yeah, I don't really know if I should make a comment here or not,
but have you seen the manatee?
(05:26):
I'm not being funny, but even on my worst, worst day, I don't think I would be mistaken for one.
And what Christopher Columbus would have seen if you go by the lore would have been a beautiful woman.
So the experts say manatee.
Okay, I'm going to move on. You would be forgiven for thinking all that was in the past.
(05:48):
We know better today. They were just stories.
And I was thinking that that way myself until I found a few stories online.
Now I know you've got to you know you need to take precautions when you're reading
anything online but similarities were cropping up all over the place.
It wasn't so much the YouTube channel that I was on or the story that I was
(06:13):
reading it was in the comments from others.
Now yeah there were some obvious jokes and a few good hoaxes.
There were some, actually quite a lot, which did not seem to be making fun of
it or joking about it at all and they seem to be coming from very specific places.
(06:34):
In Haiti for example, they are big believers in mermaids and I used to always
associate mermaids with the sea, ocean, that was it.
But they say no, you can find them in rivers too so it's not just the ocean.
In fact, they are told from childhood, you never go to the river with jewellery on.
(06:55):
And you think, well, why not? Why can't you go with jewellery?
It's because the mermaids will think it's a gift for them. You might think that
sounds a bit strange, but hold on, bear with me.
Now, according to the people of Haiti, mermaids are evil, just pure out-and-out evil.
In Haitian Creole, they are called medlo, which means owner of the water.
(07:16):
And one story I did see was from a woman, she said this happened to her when
she was around 11 years old.
So she went on holiday with her father to a place called St Mark which is on the west coast of Haiti.
She said she was wearing her mother's wedding ring. I don't know what happened
to the mother. She didn't say.
I wasn't there to ask her. Don't know. So she goes on holiday with her dad.
(07:39):
Now according to her, at some point she went into the water with this wedding ring on.
And she swears something came
up really quickly and just snatched the wedding ring off of her finger.
Now notice it snatched the wedding ring.
It didn't bite her. it didn't
you know whatever this thing was it she had no marks from
(08:02):
like a fish bite or and i mean if a fish is
going to jump up do fish jump up and bite your fingers no
no but whatever this was it was coming up specifically for the ring according
to this woman she swears it was a mermaid that came up and took that ring from
her finger and according to her kids in haiti are told to not stay near water
especially on their own now that incident could be put down to a couple of things I know,
(08:26):
but from the comments,
the videos, the stories I saw, I did put together a list of what seemed to be
accepted facts of mermaids.
Make of it what you will. It seems the Caribbean or Caribbean waters are full
of them because of the voodoo and the black magic that's practiced in the area.
(08:51):
This is, I'm going on what I've been reading and what I've been told.
I haven't been been there so I can't say for sure but we know Haiti has a link
to voodoo I think that's pretty standard knowledge and Haiti and Jamaica were
actually highlighted in particular as two places where these things are encountered a lot.
However, other places which have similar beliefs and practices also have mermaids
(09:16):
in their waters and South Africa was one that came up time and time again.
There were also reports from Guyana and Nicaragua which seemed to come up frequently
as well and like I said it seems to be the same sort of places that were coming up over and over.
Now the facts in inverted commas that I'm giving you.
(09:37):
They come from a Haitian woman but they seem to be agreed upon by other people
from all the places that I've just given you. So here's another one.
People can be abducted by mermaids and if one takes you, you won't be able to
breathe under the water because you'll be in their world.
So you know that won't be a problem but they want to make you their servant
(09:59):
and here's where things get a little little tricky.
If you've been a servant and you're let go, you have to go back to them at some
point to serve again whenever they tell you to.
You don't have a choice. And if you don't, you won't be able to go near water
again, any body of water, because they come and get you and take you by force.
(10:22):
Now, apparently this is a deal which is made with the mermaid.
And if you do go near water after breaking a deal with one of them,
they can either drown you,
take you back to be their slave forever, or take you and sell you to another mermaid.
Some people have made deals with mermaids where they agree to send their children
(10:43):
to serve them in some way, however if they fail to keep up with their end of
the deal, say they change their mind,
the mermaid can either make the child their permanent servant, or,
or sell them to another mermaid. Either way that child's not coming back.
Apparently a few people have come back after being a servant in their world
(11:05):
but some of them couldn't speak.
For some this lasted for around a year but for some others their silence was permanent.
The few who did manage to talk have spoken of a world underwater where they were kept as slaves.
Basically humans Humans are a commodity to mermaids to be used or sold as they see fit.
(11:29):
Generations of Haitian children have been told that if they are taken to be
a slave, they should act dumb and do the opposite of what has been asked.
For example, if you're asked to bring salt, you bring them sugar.
If you're told to go and tidy up an area, you make it messy, you make it look worse.
The theory is that the mermaid would then think that the child is useless and
(11:50):
so return them but according to some this can backfire because the child could
get killed for being useless or sold on.
There were a lot of reports about hearing singing like with the sirens which
people said they could feel physically pulling them into the water.
(12:13):
Were drawn to it couldn't stop themselves one lady
even said she was physically taken by a nice lady in inverted commas who said
she was going to teach her to swim after hearing the music she just went with
this woman and if the family hadn't intervened she was sure she was going to
be taken apparently they were quite far from shore when she was rescued so to summarize.
(12:37):
Don't go near the water if you hear singing or music no matter how lovely it
sounds Don't wear jewellery when you go to the water, be that ocean, river, lake, whatever.
Any body of water counts when it comes to mermaids.
Don't go near the water at night and don't go near it at noon either.
(12:59):
Yeah, that was new to me too. I've never heard that before.
Now there are some very interesting videos on YouTube.
Some are obviously people trying to get their clicks and doing their best to come up with a hoax.
But there's one channel
that I found that I found really interesting and it's
from a fisherman his channel is called simply spring and
(13:21):
I'm not sure what to make of his videos he shows a lot of
weird videos in general but there are some
he has done from when he's on
the ship or a fishing boat whatever you want to call it in one
video in particular you can hear this weird noise it's
like music or singing and he's running around the boat
trying to locate where the sound is coming
(13:41):
from he's shouting back to them as well and i
don't know his reactions seem genuine the way
he's acting it seems genuine and i know
there's a lot of hoaxes like i said but go and
have a look at his videos simply spring you'll need
to find the the mermaid ones i didn't note
(14:02):
down what they they were called but you'll find them it won't be hard I don't.
Know see what you think of them I'd be interested to
hear what you think and so with that that
wraps up this week's episode all about mermaids
I'm not sure about this one to be
honest I'm not I initially thought it was just
a story but after seeing so many
(14:23):
people from like different places telling the
same thing starting to wonder maybe it's
just going to be another one of those mysteries that we never
get to know the truth about so with all
that being said please leave this episode a
like leave a comment to let me and others know
what you think about mermaids and check
(14:45):
out my links in the description come on over
to the blog you'll get a lot of content there ranging
from gardening entertaining movies poetry stories stories from you know my slice
of life dog talk lots and lots of different things there's something for everybody
so I hope to see you there so until next week friends which trust me you do
(15:06):
not want to miss next week's episode you take care of yourself.
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