Sailors, Curses, and Mermaids. Oh My!

I meant to do this yesterday with the release of Captain Jack Sparrow's new adventure in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, but unfortunately that didn't happen. I'll try to do better next week with blogging, but don't worry. I won't stay off for months. Anyway, on with the blog.

Ever since the release of the first film in 2003, Pirates of the Caribbean has captured the imagination of the entire planet. Fans have gone to see the heroics of Will Turner, the courage of Elizabeth Swan, and the cunning of Captain Jack Sparrow. The series newest title, On Stranger Tides, does not feature Will or Elizabeth, but Captain Jack has a great new adventure ahead of him. The pirate now searches for the legendary Fountain of Youth while confronting the woman from his past Angelica, and hot on their trail are the English Navy, zombies, mermaids, and Blackbeard himself.

While Captain Jack Sparrow is one of the smartest (or craziest) men to sail the oceans, he is not the first seafaring hero in the world, and he isn't the first person to encounter creatures like mermaids. Across the world people have had told stories of men who brave the vast oceans and encountered many dangers. I'll discuss some of the heroes in this blog, and what makes them so famous.
Perhaps one of the best known sailors in the realm of fiction is Sinbad the Sailor. First appearing in the collection of stories known as A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, what makes Sinbad so cool is that he didn't go on one, but seven voyages! Some of the adventures he's had involved a roc (a giant bird from Persian mythology that was supposed to carry off and eat elephants) that dropped rocks on his ship after he and his men ate the eggs of the roc. Another of his adventures find him on an island that turns out to be a giant sea animal. Some version say it is a turtle, but some recent adaptations had it as a fish. For some reason, no matter what happens, Sinbad always ends up setting sail again.
Another well-known tale of a seafarer is The Odyssey, which follows the adventures of Odysseus after the Trojan War is won by the Greeks. On his way home Odysseus and his men land on the Island of the Cyclopes, and end up having to blind Polyphemus to escape. Polyphemus calls on his father Poseidon to curse Odysseus, which seems to work considering the trouble that follows. Odysseus and his men encounter Sirens (bird women who lure sailors to their deaths with their voices), the sorceress Circe, and pass through Scylla and Charybdis before offending Apollo by eating some of his cattle. The result is that Odysseus loses his men and he takes twenty years total to get back home to Ithaca.

I think everyone's pretty familiar with what a mermaid is. Mermaids are the mythical sea creatures that are half-fish and half-woman, with the male counterpart being called a merman. Tales of mermaids extend all the way to the time of the Assyrians, over 3000 years ago (give or take). At first the tales of half-fish people were attributed to be the forms of the local mythology's sea god or goddess. Most of the ancient tales of mermaids are diversified, with some of them singing to lure sailors to their deaths to just being an underwater civilization that comes into contact with men. In our day and age the mermaid keeps the look of the original myths (although sometimes they're given seashell bikinis while the original mermaids were completely nude) while being portrayed as music lovers who live in the ocean like we live on the surface. Scientists believe that the stories of mermaids came up when sailors saw manatees swimming about, but that can't be so because tales of these beings have been told by the Arabians, the Greeks, and the Norse alike, long before America was discovered by the rest of the world. Some people even claim to see mermaids to this day. The legends are probably not true, but still it's fun to tell tales of these people and the sailors who encounter them.

The Mysteries of the Ocean

Well, as of today, the next adaptation of the Chronicles of Narnia series (the Voyage of the Dawn Treader) is now in theaters. One of C.S. Lewis's popular stories, it follows the adventures of Edmund, Lucy, and their practical cousin Eustace as they journey across Narnia's oceans to find Aslan's Country. This book explores a part of Narnia that, like our oceans, are deep and mysterious. In fact, so little is known about our oceans and what lies underneath them that people have been trying to figure that out for years.
One of the earliest tales of a sailor exploring the oceans goes back to Ancient Greece, in Homer's epic tale The Odyssey. The hero, Odysseus (known as Ulysses in Rome), has helped Greece win the Trojan war, but a series of events leads him to take 20 years to get home. Along the way, he encounters man-eating cyclopes, deadly enchanting sirens, and the infamous Scylla and Charybdis. These adventures are referenced in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, showing that the author was familiar with tales from Ancient Greece.
The Norse also had tales of sea creatures lurking in the deep. The most famous of these creatures was the Kraken, a giant octopus/squid like creature that pulled ships down to the bottom of the sea. What's scary is that the legend of the Kraken may have actually been a real creature! Although they don't pull ships down to the bottom of the sea, there is evidence that giant squid live in the oceans. Remains of giant squid have even been found in the stomachs of sperm whales, showing that if provoked they can be aggressive!
One of the most famous monsters to be seen in the oceans are sea serpents. For hundreds of years sailors have told stories of large, snake-like creatures that swam in the oceans. No reports of destroying ships are known, but that doesn't mean they were capable of doing so. They can easily be seen as the ocean's equivalent of the dragon, except that they didn't breathe fire or eat anyone (even though they could easily eat a ship if they wanted to).
Another famous sea creature that probably everyone is familiar with is the mermaid. These are some of the most unusual creatures around, because they were half fish, half women (more recent stories added male versions as well). The early stories had them behave like sirens, using songs to lure sailors to their deaths. More recent stories just have them as sea dwellers who love to sing. Perhaps the most famous story featuring mermaids is Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid, which became Disney's 28th animated film. Tales of mermaids have withstood the test of time, and it's quite safe to assume that they will still exist in fantasy stories for years to come.
While people had many stories about creatures hiding in the deep oceans, there is evidence that shows that long ago, the oceans were filled with monsters. Throughout history, super predators have evolved in the oceans of the world. In the Devonian era, the oceans were ruled by a monstrous fish-like creature known as Dunkleosteus, a fish with a bite so nasty a person would lose their leg completely from it. Later, in the age of the dinosaurs, creatures like Elasmosaurus (a long-necked plesiosaurus), Liopleurodon (a huge short-neck pliosaur the size of a whale), and Mosasaurus (a crocodile-like creature with flippers) ruled the oceans. After the dinosaurs came the whales, but these were killers like Basilosaurus, nothing like the gentle giants of today.
Perhaps the most ferocious sea creature was the real life Jaws: Megalodon. Megalodon was a 50-foot shark that swam in the oceans about 25 to 1.5 million years ago. This shark was capable of eating whatever it wanted. No doubt the great whites of today would seem like harmless guppies compared to this creature. If it were still alive, nothing would be left of the surfers who'd probably get attacked.
The oceans are a vast and mysterious place. Writers and movie makers have been telling stories that explore these vast realms (like Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Disney/Pixar's film Finding Nemo). With the way research technology has advanced, we may find more discoveries under the sea that we had no idea existed or were possible.