Mermaids

In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic being that have upper body of a human female, but the feet is replaced with the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in many folklore cultures worldwide, including the Near East, Europe, and even Asia and Africa. The first stories appeared in ancient Assyria, when the goddess Atargatis transformed herself herself into a mermaid, for the guilty feeling of killing her human lover. Mermaids are sometimes related with precarious events, such as floods, storms, shipwrecks, and drownings. In some other folklore traditions or culture, they can be benevolent or beneficent, bestowing boons or falling in love with humans.