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    Mermania: The Little Book of Mermaids
    Mermania: The Little Book of Mermaids
    Mermania: The Little Book of Mermaids
    Ebook238 pages50 minutes

    Mermania: The Little Book of Mermaids

    By Rachel Federman and Laura Korzon

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    About this ebook

    Over 200 pages of legends, spells, facts and mermaid crafts!

    Do you need a little more magic in your life? What about shimmer? Look no further. Mermania is here!

    Packed full of over 200 enchanting pages of legends, spells, and facts, plus mermaid-inspired recipes and crafts, Mermania: The Little Book of Mermaids is the ultimate compendium of all things mer-people and their mystical aquatic lore.

    Did you know?
    This is the year of the mermaid – The mer-man film The Shape of Water won Best Picture Oscar and Netflix’s live action The Little Mermaid streams this summer – with Disney and Universal hot on their heels
    *
    Mermaids had a heyday in Israel in 2009 and Zimbabwe in 2012, where they halted government works until beer and rituals were offered
    *
    Throughout history, everything from manatees and sea-cows to skate and seals have been mistaken for beautiful mermaids!
    *
    Mermaids are believed to cure asthma and earache, and to warn of danger

    Full of gorgeous full-colour illustrations and plenty of joyful whimsy throughout, Mermania includes everything you could ever want to know about these magical creatures, all in a gorgeous, covetable, iridescent package!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateSep 19, 2019
    ISBN9780008362799
    Mermania: The Little Book of Mermaids
    Author

    Rachel Federman

    Rachel Federman is a writer, musician, and nonprofit consultant who has written over 20 books for adults and children, including The Mindful Gardener (Clarkson Potter, 2017) and Test Your Dog’s IQ (HarperCollins, 2016). She once saw three mermaids in the fountain at Washington Square Park in New York City. No one seemed to know how they got there.

    Read more from Rachel Federman

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      Book preview

      Mermania - Rachel Federman

      Introduction

      Mermaids belong to an enchanted realm. Their seascape is at once tantalizingly out of reach – even the greatest underwater diver must eventually come up for air – and achingly familiar, water being our first home.

      From the Middle English word mere – meaning lake or sea – mermaids are ‘maids of the sea’, the stuff of legends, but at the same time ever-present in our modern world. From TV series to music videos, from children’s illustrated books to feminist magazines, graffiti, stamps, tattoos, young adult lit, and manga comics, to inspirational postcards and cosy fish-tailed blankets, it seems that wherever you turn, our oceanic alter egos are there. Sprung from ancient fish gods, reborn from the tragedy of forbidden love, combined with the seductive power of the half-bird sirens who sang to Odysseus, and a warning against temptation in the Middle Ages, today mermaids exist as everything from birthday party entertainment to a reclaimed site of political and particularly feminist power.

      While we humans dream of being able to breathe underwater – and many a young child longs for the shiny scales of a multi-coloured tail of his or her own – throughout art and story, mermaids are seen yearning for life on land. A 2012 special on the Discovery Channel led viewers to believe that mermaids did in fact exist, a NYC parade near Mermaid Avenue celebrates the dazzling creatures on the Coney Island Boardwalk each year, a bronze statue in Copenhagen has been rebuilt after many attacks by vandals, and from as long ago as the Bronze Age these enchanted creatures have served as our muse.

      Surely, part of the mermaid’s appeal is how they dramatize our own dilemma – feeling our animal selves to be immortal, something more than the transient beings that we are. Perhaps these magical sea creatures help us to access a place beyond our material existence. And given that most of the world’s oceans remain unexplored, how can we be sure they don’t really have a material existence themselves?

      But perhaps their greatest effect on humans is the way mermaids remake our world. Their desire for a life on land helps us reimagine the one we already have. In their eyes, ordinary elements – air, feet, rain – take on a new hue, becoming extraordinary, even miraculous. Mermaids remind us that the realm to which we belong is enchanted too. Those who love the Earth, with its rising oceans, have increasingly embraced mermaids in their duality – as both harbingers of doom and agents of protection – to swim forward in the fight against climate change.

      If mermaids have a legacy that lasts for ages to come, one hopes it will be to help humans preserve the water-filled planet that we’re so lucky to have.

      Mermaid Names Around the Seven Seas

      Throughout history,

      mermaids

      have been known by many names:

      AQUATIC HUMANOID

      KELPIE

      LIMNIAD

      NAIAD

      NERIAD

      NIX

      OCEAN NYMPH

      OCEANID

      SIREN

      SPIRIT

      SPRITE

      SYLPHE

      UNDINE

      WATER NYMPH

      Mermaids have been known to live for up to

      three hundred

      years

      in their aquatic form.

      TRADING FINS FOR LIFE ON LAND TENDS TO SHORTEN THEIR LIFESPAN DRAMATICALLY, PLUS IT OFTEN MEANS

      giving up their voices along with their tails.

      IN RETURN, THEY’RE GRANTED A TERRESTRIAL ROMANCE, OR

      perhaps even a soul.

      SADLY, IT’S SAID THAT

      mermaids

      don’t have souls;

      ONCE THEY DIE THEY SIMPLY

      turn into

      sea foam.

      IN BIBLICAL TERMS (TO MISQUOTE GENESIS),

      ‘For sea foam

      thou art, and unto sea foam

      SHALT THOU RETURN.’

      In the waters off

      THE PORT OF HISTORIC NYHAVN, IN

      Copenhagen,

      LIES A WELL-LOVED BRONZE STATUE OF

      The Little Mermaid,

      MADE BY EDVARD

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