Note: Some of the images included in today’s article contain sickening images. They have been filtered out, so please be careful if you don’t want to see them.
Denmark is probably the most famous country for mermaids. The statue of the Little Mermaid at Copenhagen’s Langelinje wharf is a popular tourist attraction.
Sitting on a rock and quietly gazing out to sea, she looks as if she is about to start singing a mystical song.
The statue, based on Andersen’s fairy tale, is so famous that copies have been made and installed all over the world.
Unfortunately, the statue of the Little Mermaid has been damaged several times since its installation. Regardless of the reason for the crime, it seems a foolish act…
Some criminals used the mermaid statues as ideological offensive material because they are young, beautiful and naked. I think a mind that cannot see something beautiful as simply beautiful is very empty.
In other words, that is how much the beauty of this mermaid statue is enough to appeal to people’s hearts.
Everyone has their own standards of beauty, and everyone has their own preferences for both facial features and body proportions. However, the beauty of Langelinier’s mermaid princess may be the ‘standard of beauty’ for mermaids worldwide.
As it is, mermaids in folklore from around the world are almost always “young and beautiful women”. It’s almost as if we are too biased. Mermaids in comic books are also usually portrayed as pretty, idol-like girls.
Conversely, there is also a story about a male mermaid called Merman, but he is almost always treated as a monster.(^_^;)
Well, since they originally originated in mythology, such characterisation can be seen as a form of individuality.
However …
Japanese mermaids are not very beautiful.
No, I am not criticising them based on their appearance.
Ah, I guess I’m still judging them by their appearance… (-_-;)
Because this is it…
An expected mermaid drawn in 1805.
A mermaid is supposed to be a character that is half human and half fish, but this picture has quite a low human component. (^o^;)
Do we need horns…?
In addition, see picture here.
There is somewhat more human component … but I don’t want to spend too much time with them. (~_~;)
And here’s a picture of the extreme difficulty (attention needed)
Why are Japanese mermaids so close to the yokai…
I would like to boast about Japanese culture since I have a blog like this, but it is impossible to compete with foreign mermaids with these mermaid images… (^_^;)
What’s more, the last photo shows a mermaid mummy.
Did mermaids actually exist in Japan?
That’s not true !? (^_^;)
Actually… I mean, of course, this mummy is a fake.
In the second half of the 19th century, when Japan opened its doors to the world after major reforms, there was a “Japan boom” in part because of the rarity of the country. Various goods were exported from Japan because it was perceived as a mysterious country in the Far East.
The items traded were not limited to arts and crafts, but ranged from everyday items to unexplained junk.
The mermaid mummies were a type of artefact created to capitalise on such an export boom.
Some 150 years ago, during a time of reform and turmoil, these messy facts were buried in the mists of time.
Although they were, so to speak, fake mummies, the construction seems to have been rather solid, with the lower half of the body being made of real fish and the upper half of the body being made of plaster with cotton filling, with animal skin and hair pasted over the top of the plasterwork. （Modern scientific analysis reveals）
Although the confusing facts have been left behind in time, there are several temples in Japan where these relics of the past are carefully enshrined as a type of treasure because of their mysterious impression. (Many are closed to the public)
These backgrounds are related to a piece of Japanese folklore…
『YaoBikuni』
A fisherman accidentally wandered into another world, where he was entertained.
He was satisfied with the variety of dishes, which were unusual and rare. However, He did not eat the dish that was served as mermaid meat, because He thought it was disgusting.
However, as the food had been served to him, he decided to take it straight home.
When he got home, he was not sure what to do with the mermaid meat and decided to hide it in a cupboard for now.
But later, when he was away from home, his daughter happened to find it and ate it.
He and his wife were surprised to hear that their daughter had eaten mermaid meat, but she herself did not appear unwell and nothing seems out of the ordinary.
However, as the years passed, a strange condition began to appear in my daughter’s body.
While the fisherman, his wife and everyone around him age and grow old every year, only his daughter has completely stopped growing since she ate mermaid meat.
At first, I thought it was good to stay young forever, but then I realised that this was a terrible, terrible fact.
Eventually the daughter married and had children, but eventually her parents grew old and died, her husband eventually grew old and died, and finally even her own children grew old and died. Yet the daughter remained just as she had been when she was young.
All the people who lived at the same time as her daughter had died out, and all around her were new generations. She was the only one left behind in the passage of time…
Despairing of living, she tried to throw herself off a cliff to her death.
But somehow she was only lightly injured and could not die. No matter how many times she tried to kill herself, she could not die.
Having lost all hope and the means to die, she left the village as a nun…
When did it happen?
In the small port village of Obama, on the Sea of Japan in central Japan, a nun breathed her last.
She still looked like a very young nun, but her dying face showed a look of deep peace, as if her wish had finally been fulfilled.
It was not until some time later that it was discovered that the relics she was carrying were 800 years old…
［※ Yao＝Archaic term meaning 800 or a large quantity. Bikuni＝Buddhist nun］
Obama, Fukui Prefecture, where YaoBikuni is said to have died.
Like Andersen’s story of The Little Mermaid, many stories related to mermaids seem to have sad endings.
We are human beings, not supernatural beings.
It is best to live hard when we should live and die without regret when we should die. I don’t think we have time to trouble society for the sake of our principles…