Mythology is rife with creatures that mix traits of the familiar and the fantastic. Maybe it’s because they resemble us, but half-human legends from werewolves to centaurs have been mesmerizing staples of world mythologies for thousands of years. Particularly alluring is a certain half-woman-half-fish that entices sailors and sea captains with her singing and curvaceous bod. Mermaids have appeared in Polynesian, Celtic, Middle Eastern, and Japanese mythology for centuries, and have swum into popular culture through folk tales, literature, song, and even the silver screen. From Ariel to the Sirens, here are 11 bewitching examples of what you get when you cross a fish and a pinup girl.

1. Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid

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Perhaps the most famous mermaid is the title nymph of the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, who risks her life in order to follow the shipwrecked human prince she loves onto land. Originally conceived as a ballet, the Danish author’s children’s story appeared in 1837; the original tale includes such elements as the little mermaid’s beloved grandmother, who “was a very wise woman…[who] wore twelve oysters on her tail,” and the exchange of the princess’s tongue for a pair of human legs from an evil sea witch. When her human lover marries someone else, Anderson’s mermaid is unable to return to her underwater kingdom and evaporates into sea foam. A statue of her by sculptor Edvard Erikson sits on a rock in the Copenhagen harbor.

2. The Sirens

One of the earliest records of bewitching sea-women appears in the Odyssey, where Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s epic poem, is warned by the sorceress Circe about the sirens whose singing lures sailors to a grisly death shipwrecked on the rocks. Odysseus convinces his crew to stuff wax in their ears so that the mesmerizing song won’t affect them, but has himself tied to the mast and more or less goes ballistic listening. The earliest ceramic paintings depict the sirens as women with the wings of sparrows, but in later folklore this image was changed to one closer resembling a modern mermaid (as in the 1909 painting by Herbert James Draper, above). The word itself survives in the Latin root for the words for mermaid in languages such as Italian (sirena) and French (sirene). 

3. Howard Pyle’s The Mermaid

Nineteenth century artist and illustrator Howard Pyle was a celebrity in his time for his illustrations in Scribner’s and Harper’s Monthly magazines and for his vivid paintings of King Arthur, Robin Hood, and other exotic rogues and heroes featured in his numerous children’s books. He invented our modern visual concept of a pirate, and inspired such artists as Norman Rockwell and Hal Foster, the creator of the Prince Valiant comics. Pyle’s mermaid is a standalone example of his work in the golden age of American illustration. Though it appears complete, the 1910 painting was left on the easel prior to the artist’s last trip to Europe, and only partially finished by a student after he passed away in Florence.