You can find the character "Mermaid" in folklore, it's an aquatic creature with the head & upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. It appears in the folklore of many cultures in the world (Near East, Europe, Asia, and Africa). Here are some paintings of the mermaid those are related to cultures: Ilya Repin, Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom (1876). Suvannamaccha and Hanuman, mural at Wat Phra Kaew, Bangkok. Arthur Rackham, Rhinemaidens, from The Rhinegold & The Valkyrie (1910). John William Waterhouse, A Mermaid (1900). The Fisherman and the Syren, by Frederic Leighton, c. 1856–1858 Raymond discovers Melusine in her bath. Jean d'Arras, Le livre de Mélusine, 1478.
Atargatis was the goddess of the moon. She was worshiped 3000-4000 years ago in ancient Assyria (Mesopotamian kingdom and the empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant) and later on all over the Mediterranean. feminine powers and water. Storie how Atargatis became a mermaid is quite sad. According to the myth, Atargatis fell in love with a mortal shepherd called Hadad and they had a daughter called Semiramis. Semiramis, later on, became the queen of Assyria. She was most well-known for creating the famous hanging gardens of Babylonia. Atargatis accidentally caused the death of Hadad. She could not live with her guilt and drowned herself into a lake near Ascalon. Waters, however, could not hide her beauty and she was transformed into a mermaid. A woman with a tail of a fish. Story of Atargatis is the first mermaid stories ever told. A Nabataean depiction of the goddess Atargatis dating from sometime around 100 AD, currently housed in the Jordan Archaeological Museum