Mermaids

[Anome]

Why would a self-proclaimed "Science Fiction" channel show wrestling?

 

[David Plankton]

According to the tour guide, the oldest known representation of a mermaid in Europe belongs in the Norman chapel in Durham Castle as a carving at the top of a supporting pillar, and dates from around 1080. Other carvings include a stag, a leopard and a Green Man.

I was surprised at this as I imagined mermaid carvings were found exclusively in coastal locations, and also, if one was going to claim the title of 'oldest in Europe', then it would be somewhere like Cornwall, Portugal or Greece.

 

[skinny]

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ~ Mermaids

 

[Frideswide]

According to the tour guide, the oldest known representation of a mermaid in Europe belongs in the Norman chapel in Durham Castle as a carving at the top of a supporting pillar, and dates from around 1080. Other carvings include a stag, a leopard and a Green Man.

It's (probably) being used as a symbol or purely decorative.

Sources are books, (probably) craft records and reports from people who have been to a different place.

So nothing to do with the sea If you want to show The Nurturing Church then you put in a pelican, regardless of how far from an actual pelican you are.

It's all rather sad

 

[David Plankton]

Yes, the tour guide did say that although the date of the carvings was pretty much certain, the why's and wherefore's would probably never be known.

It's likely the stonemasons were told to "Put something nice, up there on that pillar" and capitulated.

The chapel was sealed off for centuries until the RAF took it over in WWII as a signals post. Very atmospheric place, but freezing cold.

 

[rynner2]

A mermaid keeps washing up in St Ives and people are going crazy
By CMJohannaCarr | Posted: August 13, 2016

Crowds of beach-goers have been wading into the sea in St Ives this summer for the opportunity to meet a real life mermaid.

Outshining a large seal who has been grabbing people's attention at Bamaluz beach, Laura Evans, the St Ives Mermaid, is greeted with excited squeals as she flicks her tail approaching the beach.
Announcing upcoming appearances on social media, the town's mermaid is used to seeing crowds waiting for her on the beach, but her increasing popularity means that more and more children and adults are turning up to get a photo with her.

Speaking about the moments before her appearances, Laura commented:
"I get unbelievably nervous. And then I get into the water and swim towards the smiling faces and I remember why I decided to do this. To be able to bring a bit of magic and joy is a total privilege."
With the help of her 'Mermaid Wrangler' Sarah Ashley, Laura patiently waits in the water whilst children take turns to have their photo taken with her.

The St Ives-born woman moved to London several years ago but returned to be with her family last year after suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
She then found an unconventional way to rebalance herself.
Leaving her city job in the legal department of the NHS, Laura decided to take up underwater photography and eventually bought herself a US$1,000 (£705) mermaid tail from America to embrace her childhood fascination with the sea.

Speaking to The Cornishman earlier this year, the 28-year-old said:
"Becoming a professional mermaid was quite an organic process really, I was born to it and the underwater world is my favourite place to be, it's a world we shouldn't be in but I have conditioned myself to spend prolonged amounts of time underwater," she said.
"I have enjoyed an unexpectedly large following even though I only started in October."

Michelle Williams posted this photo onto the St Ives Mermaid Facebook page saying: "It was fantastic to see you today! So exciting! Me and my mermaid obsessed daughter would loved to have spoken to you more but all the little ones need their turn! Hope you're ok and weren't mobbed too much! Needs to be safe for you in the water! Thanks for making her year! She was enthralled! So magical! Xxx"

etc...

http://www.westbriton.co.uk/mermaid...ives-beaches/story-29613825-detail/story.html

(More photos on page.)

 

[Xanatic*]

Going crazy? Apart from the kid holding the tail, they all look like they'd rather be elsewhere.

 

[mrpoultice]

Man claims to have found “dead mermaid” on Great Yarmouth beach
08:01 05 October 2016
George Ryan

A man has claimed in a Facebook post to have found what he describes as a “dead mermaid” on the beach at Great Yarmouth. **Graphic image warning**

Paul Jones posted a photograph purportedly taken at Great Yarmouth which has been shared 15,000 times on the social media website in two days.

In his post he wrote: “Today at Great Yarmouth we found what looks like a dead Mermaid washed up on the beach.”

Facebook users have been excited and horrified in equal numbers.

A popular suggestion is that it is the body of a seal which has washed up on the shore.

Source: The Eastern Daily Press

There's a link to the facebook post in the article linked above.

Mr P

 

[rynner2]

Spooky! The skull does look remarkably humanoid. I'd have expected a seal's skull to be more dog-like, perhaps.
Any anatomists care to comment?

 

[Analogue Boy]

Spooky! The skull does look remarkably humanoid. I'd have expected a seal's skull to be more dog-like, perhaps.
Any anatomists care to comment?

It looks like an aquatic variation of the Alien.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

According to one of the comments:

"I actually saw the original post on facebook, the guy who posted it runs a special effects company and does SFX make-up etc. No doubt this is something he has made."

It sounds like quite a blustery wind coming off the sea but I wondered if a waterlogged carcass would move as this appears to; it looks to be a bit lightweight.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Cropped, zoomed and rotated:
Looks too humanoid to be a seal. My money's on a hoax:

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

The skull is not elongated enough and the dentition looks all wrong for it to be a seal:

 

[Frideswide]

“Today at Great Yarmouth we found what looks like a dead Mermaid washed up on the beach.”

looks rather Feejee like.....

 

[Coal]

 

[Frideswide]

lovely Coal!

 

[rynner2]

Looks too humanoid to be a seal. My money's on a hoax:
View attachment 3357

Looks that way.

If it was real, you wouldn't just video it and take snaps, you'd report it to the authorities (HM Coastguard would know of interested local research groups). At the very least, if it's a real marine corpse, the local council should be informed, as it would be their responsibility to remove it as a potential public health hazard.

But internet hoaxers are too enmeshed in their own make-believe video view of life to understand what goes on in the Real World.

 

[Swifty]

Spooky! The skull does look remarkably humanoid. I'd have expected a seal's skull to be more dog-like, perhaps.
Any anatomists care to comment?

I'm not an anatomist Rynner but I have worked in special F/X ...

The skull itself looks to be the right size to be a 'Billy' skull .. a plastic skull that was re-sold 'around these parts' (North Norfolk) around a year ago .. I directed Mytho to a link to the company that sold them but I don't want to wake up the Mrs by fetching the unopened one in our bedroom just yet .. I'll try to remember to do that later for this thread ..

The skull was Pt1 of a monthly magazine that cost 99p only so naturally I bought a couple for later special F/X reasons myself .. I blackened the first one carefully with a cigarette lighter to make it look more realistic and it's currently sitting outside in our back yard inside a lobster pot with shells and driftwood to add a bit of fun ... later issues were considerably more expensive so you could eventually build a whole skeleton. It was either issue 2 or 3 from memory that had the rib cage ..

To create skin texture to fake something like this static one use prop would be simple enough, the traditional method would be to dip toilet tissue into either liquid latex or PVA glue to build up a face on it, after it's dried you'd paint it to make it look suitably gruesome. The plastic 'Billy' scull didn't come with a cranium in the first magazine, that might explain why it's got a conical cranium. Most likely the face had been reshaped with oil based clay. The fins at the bottom look fake to me, as though someone has hand creased a black plastic bin liner and cut it into shape. The skin texture and paint job on the torso is interesting. I'm 99% sure it's fake but I'm looking forward to seeing if I can snag an EDP billboard poster this morning from work .... we got one when the Mrs found the 'Jesus' pebble ... fair play to the artist if he has an F/X company I say !.. he's done a lovely paint job on it !

edit: The first time these were sold to the public in corner shops mainly was a few years ago ..

.... it looks like you can possibly still buy them from the company's website http://howyourbodyworks.co.uk/ .... a bargain at 99p.

Or, of course, the picture shows a real dead mermaid ... a bit sexist in my opinion .. it could have been a merman ?

 

[Swifty]

... and on a side note, the technique I've described is nothing new. Tom Savini used it in Dawn Of The Dead '78 although he used cotton wool and rice crispies for his corpse's skin texture build up .. the only problem was, he forgot to tell anyone he'd used a real human skeleton. Here's a good read up on what hilarity ensued after that social faux pas .. the adventures of that prop ..

http://halloweenlove.com/the-incredible-story-of-dawn-doe-a-real-skeleton-seen-in-dawn-of-the-dead/

 

[Coastaljames]

Of course it's a hoax.


How do I know this? The guy that initaially "found" and photgraphed it...happens to run an FX company and er...makes horror props.

You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes.

 

[Swifty]

Of course it's a hoax.


How do I know this? The guy that initaially "found" and photgraphed it...happens to run an FX company and er...makes horror props.

You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes.

No offence but as a Fortean, you don't know this unless you have the specimen or access to what I also consider to be an obvious sculpture. I agree with you that's it a fake though only because that's the most likely explanation, I'd love to have a link to his website to check out his/her other stuff ..

A great mermaid fake here .. but only if you don't believe in mermaids (notice the banana on the board next to her head as a clue that's it's a prank.. great work though, the plant mist sprayer they used with a small amount of gelatin powder in it looks very convincing as 'fresh' water droplets on her body that wouldn't still be there and would have evaporated by then as we see a prvious picture of the body on the beach) ..

 

[David Plankton]

How do I know this? The guy that initaially "found" and photgraphed it...happens to run an FX company and er...makes horror props.

Plus, it's far too 'grisly' for something washed up on a beach. He's overdone the gore by watching too many zombie films.

 

[Coastaljames]

No offence but as a Fortean, you don't know this unless you have the specimen or access to what I also consider to be an obvious sculpture.

Who's a Fortean?

The guy who took the photo makes horror/fx models/sculptures.

 

[ramonmercado]

A daring Gokwe mermaid snatches two boys and shows them off before killing them
05/03/2017 19:36:00
Font size:

mermaid
In a rather stranger than fiction case, which left people at Village Seven under Chief Nemangwe in Gokwe shocked, two boys died under unclear circumstances after they were reportedly snatched by a suspected mermaid at Pachemumvuri Dam.

It is reported that the mystical creature first pulled the boys, who were playing near the dam, under water only to resurface with them alive.

While adult witnesses, who had gathered at the scene when the boys first disappeared, were counselling the children on a rocky outcrop near the dam their hysterical parents appeared.

It is said the parents made the mistake of crying about the near death experiences of the boys and the mermaid grabbed the two minors again and disappeared under water. This time for good.

Traditionally, it is believed that when a person is taken by a mermaid people are not supposed to cry as doing so can lead to dire consequences, leading to the death of the victim. Police have since launched investigations into the case.

Acting Midlands Provincial police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Ethel Mukwende said investigations were in progress to ascertain what really transpired.

“I can confirm that we are investigating a case of sudden death by drowning which occurred at Village Seven under Chief Nemangwe on 19 February at around 12pm when two minors who were herding cattle drowned and their bodies were later retrieved by fellow villagers,” she said.

Before the incident, the creature had reportedly been seen on the banks of the dam several times. Confirming the shocking incident Chief Nemangwe whose jurisdiction the area falls under said a cleansing ceremony had since been conducted at the dam to calm the water spirits.

“It is reported that on the fateful day the two boys who were in Form One and Two at Ganye Secondary School were herding cattle when they saw the mermaid at the dam.

“According to a friend of the deceased boys, his companions jumped into the dam and tried to grab the mermaid because they believed it was just a big fish.

“But the mermaid pulled them down into the water,” said Chief Nemangwe.

The friend then ran home to alert the elders, who arrived at the dam to find the boys lying on a rock, alive.

“When their parents got to the dam they panicked believing their children had died and started crying.

“A whirlwind suddenly engulfed the place before the mermaid swiftly appeared from the water and grabbed the boys for the second time but this time their lifeless bodies resurfaced later,” said Chief Nemangwe. ...

- See more at: http://zimbabwenewsonline.com/index...before-killing-them.html#sthash.19DPR8gn.dpuf

 

[GNC]

That photo looks like the figurehead on an old sailing ship that's been wrecked and washed ashore.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Seen that photo before. Fake.
Also...'Village Seven'? Odd.

 

[David Plankton]

This probably belongs in 'Strange Folk', but....

California police left puzzled after finding 'mermaid' walking down the street.

Police in California have been left puzzled after finding a self-declared mermaid wandering the streets.

Officers were called to help uncover the identity of the woman, who said only that her name was Joanna and that she was a mermaid. When she was found in the city of Fresno, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, she had wet hair and said she had been in the water in a nearby lake.

Upon inspection, police discovered the woman had webbed toes on both feet. She was unable to provide any further information about her identity, saying simply “I don’t know” in response to most questions.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...mermaid-california-woman-joanna-a7669151.html

 

[XBergMann]

She looks nothing like Daryl Hannah as well


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...mermaid-california-woman-joanna-a7669151.html

1. News
2. World
3. Americas

Woman with webbed feet found naked and wet by police insists she is a mermaid
Officers appeal for help in identifying mystery woman

Police said the woman would only say her name was Joanna and that she was a mermaid Fresno Police Dept
Police in California have been left puzzled after finding a self-declared mermaid wandering the streets.

Officers were called to help uncover the identity of the woman, who said only that her name was Joanna and that she was a mermaid. When she was found in the city of Fresno, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, she was mostly naked with wet hair, and said she had been in the water in a nearby lake.

Upon inspection, police discovered the woman had webbed toes on both feet. She was unable to provide any further information about her identity, saying simply “I don’t know” in response to most questions.

Fresno Police sources confirmed to The Independent that the woman had been found walking on a road near a lake at around 3am on Tuesday, 4 April.

She was spotted by a driver who stopped to check she was OK. The woman then asked for help and to be taken to hospital. She was driven to a medical centre in northern Fresno where officers were called to help establish her identity.

Officers described her behaviour as “bizarre” are said they were unclear at this stage whether her failure to give her identity was a result of medical reasons or simply a decision not to.

Sources said the woman was “coherent and responsive” but unable to answer officers' questions. She was then listed as a missing person and the public were asked to help identify her.

Fresno police believe they have now established who she is but are waiting for the results of identity checks before releasing

 

[Mythopoeika]

A mermaid who could speak English? Hmmmm.

 

[Ermintruder]

Webbed feet?

Option A: Slight webbing between toes?

Option B: massively-extended tarsal bones in both feet (including the toes) and a wide vascularised loose covering of skin with cartilage edging, with hugely-developed musculature in the whole legs and ankles...

Let me guess which Option it wil be (hint...not Option B. Or I will eat my flippers)

ps where's the plural mermaids @XBergMann ?