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In folklorea mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. In ancient Assyriathe goddess Atargatis transformed herself into a mermaid out of shame for accidentally killing her human lover.

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Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as floods, storms, shipwrecks, and drownings. In other folk traditions or sometimes within the same traditionsthey can be benevolent or beneficent, bestowing boons or falling in love with humans.

The male equivalent of the mermaid is the mermanalso a familiar figure in folklore and heraldry. Although traditions about and sightings of mermen are less common than those of mermaids, they are generally assumed to co-exist with their female counterparts. The male and the female collectively are sometimes referred to as merfolk or merpeople. The conception of mermaids in the West may have been influenced by the Sirens of Greek mythologywhich were originally half-birdlike, but came to be pictured as half-fishlike in the Christian era. Historical accounts of mermaids, such as those reported by Christopher Columbus during his exploration of the Wdre, may have been sightings of manatees or similar aquatic mammals.

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While there is no evidence that mermaids exist outside folklore, reports of mermaid sightings continue to the present day. Mermaids have been a popular subject of art and literature in recent centuries, such as in Hans Christian Andersen 's literary fairy tale " The Little Mermaid " They have subsequently been depicted in operas, paintings, books, comics, animation, and live action films. The word mermaid is a compound of the Old English mere seaand maid a girl or young woman. The sirens of Greek mythology especially the Odysseyconceived of as half-bird and half-woman, gradually shifted to the image of a fish-tailed woman. This shift possibly What were the problems facing Alexander the as early as the Hellenistic Period[4] but is clearly evident in mermaid-like depictions of "sirens" in later Christian bestiaries.

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Some attributes of Homer 's sirens, such as the enticement of men and their beautiful song, also became attached to the mermaid. There are also naturalist theories on the origins of the mermaid, postulating they derive from sightings of manateesdugongs or even seals. Depictions of entities with the tails of fish, but the upper bodies of human beings appear in Mesopotamian artwork from the Old Babylonian Period onwards.

The first known mermaid stories appeared in Assyria c. The goddess Atargatismother of the Assyrian queen Semiramisloved a mortal a shepherd and unintentionally killed him.

Ashamed, she jumped into a lake and took the form of a fishbut the waters would not conceal her divine beauty. Thereafter, she took the form of a mermaid—human above the waist, fish below—although the thhe representations of Atargatis showed her as a fish with a human head and arm, similar to the Babylonian god Ea.]