Historical documents or legends about mermaids?

Mermaids are generally considered as legendary aquatic creatures. Usually, the appearance of a mermaid is the upper body or the head is a person, and the lower body is a fish tail. The legendary mermaid in Europe is quite different from the legendary mermaid in China and Japan in appearance and nature, and sometimes it is even different from the appearance of "mermaid". Mermaid is a mermaid with aesthetic elements, mainly female, and often appears in legends and fairy tales all over the world. The Mermaid in the West The familiar image of the Mermaid in the West comes from Lorelei, a beautiful mermaid often mentioned in German legends and poems. She often appeared on the Rhine River when it was dark, confusing the passing boatmen with her beautiful appearance of Leng Yan and her sad and moving songs, distracting them, losing their way and finally sinking into the river. Mermaids in Andersen's fairy tales are the most popular. Because the night fog looks like a beauty with a fish tail, the legend of mermaid was born because of the misinformation of fishermen in medieval Europe. Mermaids in the west take the upper body as a person (mostly women) and the lower body as a fish. At that time, people probably misunderstood and regarded dugong and manatee, mammals living in the ocean today, as monsters, so they were widely circulated, but this statement was not based on facts. However, in art, literature or painting, as a symbol of metaphor, this is more credible. Mermaids are often used to symbolize unfortunate things, such as the mermaid in Andersen's fairy tales. In most literary works, mermaids have a tragic ending, and they are not happy in the end. Incidentally, although the mermaid sculpture that everyone is familiar with today has only one tail fin in the lower body, in ancient western paintings or decorations, many mermaids have two tail fins, perhaps because it is more convenient for the symmetry of the picture. In the 29th year (9 17 BC), Japanese mermaids were caught by fishermen in Pu Chuan near Shiga Prefecture, which also happened in the Edo period, especially in the 12th year of Kuanzheng (9 1800 BC), mermaids were caught in a river near Westinghouse in Osaka, and most people made a sensation after seeing it. This mermaid, more than one meter high, cries like a baby. From this point of view, mermaid is also a legendary magic beast, which can be regarded as a rather mysterious fish family. At that time, it was called shad or hairtail. In this respect, the Japanese mermaid is very different from the legendary mermaid goblin in appearance and nature. Its posture is not necessarily beautiful, but grotesque. It is found in the coastal waters of Wakayama Bay, Kyushu and Shikoku, and at the seaside in storm warning. /kloc-in the collection of ancient and modern works in the 0/3rd century, it says that "the head is like an ape and the teeth are as thin as a fish", which looks like a monster. The aforementioned "Talk of People from All Countries" records that "it has a human head, a red meat fold like a comb on its chest, and a fish-shaped lower body. There is another detailed and amazing record in the book Strange Words of Ancient and Modern Times, that is, "the head is like a human face, with eyebrows and eyes, white skin, red hair, hands between red fins, webbed fingers and fish-shaped lower body". In addition, at the end of Edo, the image of western mermaids was introduced to Japan, and a new record of six things (1786) written by the Dutch scholar Nozawa Ota was accompanied by a mermaid map. The upper part of a man is human and looks like a beautiful woman. The lower part is fish-shaped, covered with scales and fish tails. The image of mermaid is finally in the eyes of ordinary people. It is also reported that the mummy of mermaid was found, which shows that people at that time already believed that mermaid was a real animal. During the Meiji period, Xiong Nan, who was also a botanist and folklore scholar, published monographs on the ecology of marine animals such as dugong and manatee. So it is generally believed that mermaids are fictional animals based on these marine animals. However, Okinawa people still believe that mermaids really exist. Some people dare not catch dugong, and eating the meat of dugong is taboo because they worship mermaids. The shape and characteristics of the mermaid The Japanese set up the image of a mermaid, which came from the west during the Edo period. Mainly based on the description in the famous "mermaid princess" story in Andersen's fairy tale, later generations have a clear impression of the appearance of mermaid. Before this, the mermaid did not clearly record its appearance. In the past, even if people witnessed the appearance of mermaids, they only described them by word of mouth and vividly, and there were few specific descriptions in words. Generally speaking, people believe that mermaid is a legendary creature that lives in the sea, but no one can tell exactly what it sees, so it is better to regard mermaid as a monster than as beautiful as described in fairy tales. So what does the mermaid in the literature look like? In the "History of Japan" completed in the seventh century, it was written that "human beings are aliens" (aliens like human beings). In the legendary edo period of 800 bhikshunis, human fish bones could be used as medicine, but earlier, people believed that eating human fish would lead to immortality. According to the records in ancient and modern writings, mermaid is delicious and edible. But in Wakayama (now Fukui Prefecture), there is a famous legend of eight hundred monks. It is said that she lived to be 800 years old after eating mermaid. In addition, there are 800 statues of bhikshuni in the shrine of Kyeongcheo in Obuchi City, which have been enshrined since the Tokugawa shogunate era. It is said that there lived a man named Gao Qiao in Wakayama. One day, he caught a mermaid and ate it. There are many different stories in this part of the legend. Some people say that Gao Qiao got lost on the mountain or at sea and made a mistake. He brought people and fish back home. I wanted to try it since I brought it back, but everyone dared not eat it because it was disgusting. Only my curious daughter ate the mermaid. As a result, she lived for hundreds of years, and finally felt that things were impermanent and became a monk, traveling around the world for Nepal. It is said that she returned to her hometown in her later years and lived in a grass temple. By this time, she had lived for 800 years, and finally died of hunger strike in the cave of Housai Mountain. China's oldest natural history, The Classic of Mountains and Seas: The Classic of South China in the Sea, records the mermaid in China: "The country that cares about Bo, keeps ears, engraves titles and goes north is all in the south of the water. Note: Ear removal, ear removal, ear removal is a pendant, that is, ear removal is in Zhu Yahai; Engraving, revealing his face, painting is a scale mining, that is, Jiao Ren also. "Among them, Jiao Ren's appearance is a fish with a head and four feet, which later spread to Japan and became the most primitive mermaid image. There are also some descriptions in Shan Hai Jing, which seem to describe aquatic creatures such as mountain pepper fish, giant salamander, eel and catfish. They look like people and are covered with scales, and they feel closer to a mixture of people and animals. There is a record of "mermaid" in Volume 6 of Historical Records, Biography of Qin Shihuang, written by Sima Qian in the Western Han Dynasty, which mentioned: "At the beginning of the emperor's accession to the throne, Lishan was ruled consistently and merged with the world. The world sent more than 700,000 people down the Tongque Terrace through three springs, making it full of strange things. Let the craftsman make a crossbow, and people who wear it at close range need to shoot it. Take mercury as a hundred rivers and seas, instill machines, there is astronomy on the top and geography on the bottom. Take mermaid cream as a candle, and it will last for a long time. The Collection of Interpretation in Liu Song Pei's bamboo slips quoted the ancients' explanation of "mermaid" as: "Guangxu said:' Mermaid looks like a fish and has four legs." Guangyi Cloud:' Fish sounds like a child's cry, has four feet and is shaped like a herring, which can cure cattle and produce Iraqi water. Zhiyun:' Mermaid looks like a human figure, more than a foot long. Gross. Sharks with good skin, sawn wood with good wood. There are small clothes around the neck, from which the gas comes out. In the mausoleum of Qin Shihuang, mermaid cream is a candle, that is, this fish is also. Out of the East China Sea, there is one in Taizhou today. "Reporter: Today, if the emperor uses lacquerware lamps in the tomb, the fire will not go out." (Press: □ for ancient books. ) "Japanese catfish" is the name of a fish. In today's Yangmingshan National Park in Taiwan Province Province, there are still "Silurus septempunctatus" and "Silurus lunatus", which are slippery and like to inhabit rivers, ponds or swamps. Jiao Ren in the South China Sea is recorded in Ji Shen and Natural History. Legendary creatures such as mermaids are similar to mermaids, and Sai Ren in Greek mythology is half fish and half man. She always appears in the stormy waves, singing beautiful and moving songs on the shore, charming the sailors who travel to and from the sea, and making the ships they drive involuntarily sail to the rocks on the shore and smash them into pieces. When the Greek hero Odysseus sailed through the sea area, he accepted the advice of the witch Circe and told the crew to plug their ears tightly to avoid hearing confusing songs and tie themselves tightly to the mast to avoid being confused and mad. In Japanese folklore, there is also a mermaid-like monster called "Isoji". Her lower body is fish-shaped, much like a mermaid, but her face is very different. The mouth is cracked to the ear, the teeth are sharp, and there are two antlers on the head. This is a terrible alarm. Hiding on the stormy coast, as long as someone approaches, they will jump on the waves and turn people's bodies over from the beginning. Isoji is a monster about 20 to 30 meters long, so once she snipes, no matter how powerful, people can't stand it. John William Waterhouse's Mermaid Lingyu: There are records of Lingyu in Shan Hai Jing and Shan Hai Jing Overseas Xijing ... Arowana Ling lives in its north and looks like a raccoon (carp). This passage means that in the fertile north, there is a creature called arowana, which looks like carp. "Lingju" means that it can live on land, which means that this fish is amphibious. Some people think that he is the spiritual fish mentioned elsewhere in the book, and the octopus mentioned later may also refer to this kind of fish. The face, hands, feet and body of rhombic fish in Shan Hai Jing Hai Nei Bei Jing are in the sea. Let's describe it in detail here. Lingfish is half man and half fish, with faces, hands and feet, which is different from mermaid whose lower body is fishtail in Greek mythology. Mermaid in literary works The mermaid image in Andersen's fairy tale The Daughter of the Sea is the most familiar, and the story of the little mermaid's sacrifice for love has touched readers all over the world. 19 12, according to Andersen's fairy tales and his own imagination, Danish sculptor Edward Eriksson carved the statue of "sea girl" with red copper and placed it on the beach of Copenhagen Harbor Waterfront Park. Up to now, the statue of "sea girl", which is half fish and half man, has become the symbol and pride of Denmark. Qu Qin (18 14- 1842) wrote a long history fantasy novel's "General Manager Nan meets eight dogs", which is very useful to describe the fat of mermaid. As for what kind of use it is, there is no clear description in the book, but the ancient books published at that time also drew illustrations of the mermaid's upper body. Junichiro Tanizaki's short story The Mermaid Sighs, Kafka's short story The Silence of Sai Ren, Ogawa Mimei's fairy tale The Red Candle and the Mermaid, Donna Joe Napoli's fantasy novel The Elegy of the Siren, and Baku Yumemakura's fantasy novel The Teacher of Yin and Yang's short story Bai Bizuni.