ATL Mermaid Resting On Treasure Chest Decorative Box

ATL Mermaid Resting On Treasure Chest Decorative Box

A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head and torso and the tail of an aquatic animal such as a fish or dolphin. Various cultures throughout the world have similar figures. The word is a compound of mere, the Old English word for "sea," and maid, in its usual sense. Much like sirens, mermaids would sometimes sing to people and gods and enchant them, distracting them from their work and causing them to walk off the deck or run their ships aground. Other stories have them squeezing the life out of drowning men while attempting to rescue them. They are also said to take humans down to their underwater kingdoms. In Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid it is said that they forget that humans cannot breathe underwater, while others say they drown men out of spite.