page_title: Mermaid
section_title: Art and literature
hierarchical_section_title: Mermaid / Art and literature
caption_attribution_description: English: The Mermaid of Zennor, wood-carved bench end, Cornwall, late fifteenth century. Photographed in September 2007 (in Zennor Church, Cornwall). Required attribution is: Photo by Tom Oates.
context_page_description: A mermaid is a mythological creature with a female human head and upper body and the tail of a fish. Mermaids are said to live mostly in the water, although sometimes they are known to come out of the water and sit on the large rocks above the sea. It was thought that they would make boats crash with their siren-like calls.
context_section_description: One famous image was created by John William Waterhouse, from 1895 to 1905, called A Mermaid (see the top of this article). It was an example of late British Academy style art, but disappeared and was not found until the 1970s. It is again in the collection of the Royal Academy.
  The most famous in more recent centuries is Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Little Mermaid (1836), which has been translated into many languages.
  The best known musical about mermaids are those by Felix Mendelssohn in his Fair Melusina and the three "Rhine daughters" in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.
  Movies with mermaids in them are drama television series such as Charmed. Animated movies include Disney's popular musical version of Andersen's tale, and Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo.
caption: 16th century mermaid chair
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