Episode 13: Sailors in Love
In the nineteenth century Darwin’s Origin of Species gave credence to the reality of mermaids. Darwin’s research concluded the possibility of mermaids as some evolutionary by-product or evidence of humankind’s descent from watery origins.
When this happened, the Victorians of the nineteenth century became obsessed.
Mermaids consumed everything.
The fantasy of the ethereal creature from the deep moved from sailor’s folklore into the cultural mainstream.
In this evolving folklore, the sight or sound of a mermaid was taken as a sign of storms or shipwreck.
There are many ballads that tell the same basic story: seamen spot a mermaid combing her hair, the win begins to blow, the ship is tossed on the stormy seas and is dashed on the rocks and the sailors go to heaven or hell.
