THE GERMAN MYTHOLOGIES...
OF mermaids are plenty. There are the Meerfrau; the Nix and the Nixe who were the male and female fresh-water inhabitants and it was believed that they were treacherous to men. The nixe lured men to drown while the nix could be in the form of an old dwarfish character or as a golden-haired boy and in
Iceland and Sweden...
Could take the form of a centaur. The nix also loved music and could lure people to him with his harp, if he was in the form of a horse he would tempt people to mount him and then dash into the sea to drown them. While he sometimes desired a human soul he would often demand annual human sacrifices. There was also a more elvin kind of Nixies that would sometimes appear in the market, she could be identified by the corner of her apron being wet. If they paid a good price it would be an expensive year but if they paid a low price the prices for that year would remain cheap.
In the Rhine...
were to be found the Lorelei from which the town took its name.
The Germans also knew the Melusine as a double-tailed mermaid as did the British heraldry as well.
RUSSIAN MERMAID MYTHOLOGY...
Includes the daughters of the Water-King who live beneath the sea; the water-nymph that drowns swimmers known as the Rusalka and the male water-spirit known as the Vodyany who followed sailors and fishermen.
IN AFRICA...
The tales of a fish-wife and river-witches.
What we have seen here is the beginings of the mermaid mythology that starts with the merman depictions of water-deities and other such pagan identies. The stories of mermaids as one may think of today.
