TY  - BOOK
AB  - Among the oldest and most popular mythical beings, mermaids and other merfolk have captured the imagination since long before Ariel sold her voice to a sea witch in the beloved Disney film adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid." As far back as the eighth century BC, sailors in Homer's Odyssey stuffed wax in their ears in order to resist the Sirens who lured men to their watery deaths with song. More than two thousand years later, the gullible New York public lined up to witness a mummified "mermaid" specimen that the enterprising showman P.T. Barnum swore was real. The Penguin Book of Mermaids is a  treasury of such tales about merfolk and water spirits from different cultures, ranging from the Scottish selkies to Hindu water-serpents to Chilean sea fairies. A third of the selections are published here in English for the first time, and all are accompanied by commentary that explores their undercurrents, showing how public perceptions of this popular mythical hybrid at one a human and a fish illuminate issues of gender, spirituality, ecology, and sexuality.
AU  - Bacchilega, Cristina,
AU  - Brown, Marie Alohalani,
CN  - GR910
CN  - GR910
ID  - 913815
KW  - Mermaids.
KW  - Fairy tales
KW  - Symbolism in fairy tales.
KW  - Women
KW  - Sex role
KW  - Human ecology.
KW  - Spirituality in literature.
N2  - Among the oldest and most popular mythical beings, mermaids and other merfolk have captured the imagination since long before Ariel sold her voice to a sea witch in the beloved Disney film adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid." As far back as the eighth century BC, sailors in Homer's Odyssey stuffed wax in their ears in order to resist the Sirens who lured men to their watery deaths with song. More than two thousand years later, the gullible New York public lined up to witness a mummified "mermaid" specimen that the enterprising showman P.T. Barnum swore was real. The Penguin Book of Mermaids is a  treasury of such tales about merfolk and water spirits from different cultures, ranging from the Scottish selkies to Hindu water-serpents to Chilean sea fairies. A third of the selections are published here in English for the first time, and all are accompanied by commentary that explores their undercurrents, showing how public perceptions of this popular mythical hybrid at one a human and a fish illuminate issues of gender, spirituality, ecology, and sexuality.
SN  - 9780143133728
SN  - 0143133721
T1  - The Penguin book of mermaids /
TI  - The Penguin book of mermaids /
ER  -