The Fish Prince and Other Stories: Mermen Folk Tales

by Jane Yolen, Shulamith Levey Oppenheim

Mermen? Yes. Long before mermaids emerged to people our inner seas, long before they established their restless, inviting niche in human fantasy, there was the merman. Born of the human need to dominate the great fruitful oceans, to control the vast destructive seas, to regulate the healing rains, to understand the tides, the merman emerged. The merman was water personified. The imposing water gods could be wheedled, cozened, implored, but—in the end—they were never fooled. How often were Poseidon or Neptune, Lir, Njord and the rest pictured riding the waves along inhospitable shores, shaking their magical tridents or spears or fists at the weak, imploring humans on land? The sea gods called up storms or quieted waves. They flooded the lands. They drowned the unwary. Yet despite the importance of early fish-tailed gods such as Ea-Enki and Dagon; despite the preponderance of mermen in the mythologies of Babylon, Greece, the British Isles, the Scandinavian peninsula, Germany; despite the mermen ranging along Slavic shores and inland seas; despite the mermen found in Chinese and Japanese lakes, along Polynesian island coasts, and in the lore and literature of the Middle East, the merman has become Legend’s Forgotten Man. With its 27 stories from around the world, this volume reconstructs the unnatural history of the Merman.

Genres: Short Stories, Childrens, Fairy Tales, Mermaids, Fantasy

224 pages, Paperback

First published April 17, 2001

About the author

Jane Yolen was a novelist, poet, fantasist, journalist, songwriter, storyteller, folklorist, and children’s book author who wrote more than three hundred books. Her accolades include the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, the Kerlan Award, two Christopher Awards, and six honorary doctorate degrees from colleges and universities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Born and raised in New York City, the mother of three and the grandmother of six, Yolen lived in Massachusetts and St. Andrews, Scotland.

Reviews

[Csenge]

A great concept for a book, and a very enjoyable collection of stories. I first expected it to be a full story collection, but the volume is more of a small encyclopedia of various male water beings around the world, interspersed with folktales and legends to illustrate some of them in context. In-between tales, we get short entries about several water creatures. Sometimes I wanted to know more about some of them, and sometimes I wanted to have more stories, but all in all, it was a light and intriguing read. It shows a fascinating picture of how people around the world have seen the male aspects of water and sea, and how different cultures told different stories about them.

[Warren Rochelle]

Everybody has heard of mermaids--Hans Christian Andersen's The Littlest Mermaid, and various others, such as the star of Splash, and the sirens luring men into the sea, and the list goes on.

But what of their male counterparts, the mermen? "Long before mermaids emerged to people our inner seas, long before they established their restless, inviting niche in human fantasy, there was the merman" (x). There are 27 stories of mermen from around the world here, as Jane Yolen and Shulamith Oppenheim take a reader on a tour of many cultures, from northern waters to Russia and other Slavic countries, to the British Isles, to Asia, and the Pacific Islands, and the New World.

Despite the wealth of stories, the merman "might be called Legend's Forgotten Man. In the Standard Dictionary of Folklore, the section on mermaids is four times as long as that on mermen." The authors argue this might because Nature is "most often considered female, and "the sea and water itself [is] a reflection of man's vision of the feminine element" (xi). They argue the men were here first and should be remembered.

The bibliography will lead the reader to more stories, about mermen, and folk tales in general, and the mythic.

For the scholar and for the writer.

[Shannon]

I personally love folklore and mythology. So I found this enjoyable. The stories were entertaining and it contained a gold deal of information on some of the stories and creatures. Other sections and creature descriptions were very limited though and I would have liked to have more stories and creatures from asia or africa, as it was rather eurocentric

[Megan]

Diverse tales of mermen from around the world. It was fascinating for me to read about how other cultures have dealt with water-dwellers and to compare mermen with the more popular mermaids. The style of writing was a bit difficult for me, as it sometimes featured longer stories and sometimes only short blurbs, but a worthwhile read nonetheless.

[Tori]

2008- Interesting collection of a type of folklore story you rarely hear about: mermen tales. Yolen did a nice job introducing us to each continent's tales by giving us relevant background information. I just wished some of the stories were longer, but the author really couldn't do much about that.

[Jossalyn]

last read 2006;
like the premise that all societies had a panoply of mermen.

[Brandi]

Interesting stories and it covered a lot of countries.