Note 35 — Chapter I · THE FABLE AND ITS INTERPRETATION.

The figures of the ancient partly human, partly piscine deities, from which originated the belief in mermaids, similarly passed through various mutations. The first idea was that of a man coming out of the mouth of a fish. Subsequently, the form was that of a man clad in the skin of a fish—wearing it as a mantle—the head of the fish covering that of the man, like a cap or helmet. And so on, till a being was developed the upper half of whose body was human, and the lower half, from the waist downwards, that of a fish.