Note 242 — ABDULLAH[232] THE FISHERMAN AND ABDULLAH THE MERMAN.

Arab. “Ádamí” = an Adamite, one descended from the mythical and typical Adam for whom see Philo Judæus. We are told in one place a few lines further on that the merman is of humankind; and in another that he is a kind of fish (Night dccccxlv). This belief in mermen, possibly originating with the caricatures of the human face in the intelligent seal and stupid manatee, is universal. Al-Kazwini declares that a waterman with a tail was dried and exhibited, and that in Syria one of them was married to a woman and had by her a son “who understood the languages of both his parents.” The fable was refined to perfect beauty by the Greeks: the mer-folk of the Arabs, Hindus and Northerners (Scandinavians, etc.) are mere grotesques with green hair, etc. Art in its highest expression never left the shores of the Mediterranean, and there is no sign that it ever will.