Mermaid. In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as floods, storms, shipwrecks, and drownings. In other folk traditions, they can be benevolent or beneficent, bestowing boons or falling in love with humans. The male equivalent of the mermaid is the merman, also a familiar figure in folklore and heraldry. Although traditions about and sightings of mermen are less common than those of mermaids, they are generally assumed to co-exist with their female counterparts. The male and the female collectively are sometimes referred to as merfolk or merpeople. The Western concept of mermaids as beautiful, seductive singers may have been influenced by the Sirens of Greek mythology, which were originally half-birdlike, but came to be pictured as half-fishlike in the Christian era. Historical accounts of mermaids, such as those reported by Christopher Columbus during his exploration of the Caribbean, may have been sightings of manatees or similar aquatic mammals. While there is no evidence that mermaids exist outside folklore, reports of mermaid sightings continue to the present day. Mermaids have been a popular subject of art and literature in recent centuries, such as in Hans Christian Andersen's literary fairy tale The Little Mermaid. They have subsequently been depicted in operas, paintings, books, comics, animation, and live-action films. The English word mermaid is not very old, with the earliest attestation in Middle English. The compound word is formed from mere, and maid. See §Scandinavian folklore for the modern Danish, modern Swedish, etc. Another English word mermin for siren or mermaid is older, though now obsolete. Middle English example in a bestiary is indeed mermaid, part maiden, part fish-like. Its Old High German cognate is known from biblical glosses and Physiologus. Old English is another related term, and appears once in reference not so much to a mermaid but a certain sea hag, and not well-attested later. Its MHG cognate, also defined as in modern German with perhaps merwoman a valid English definition. The word is attested, among other medieval epics, in the Nibelungenlied, and renderedmerwoman, mermaid, water sprite, or other terms; the two in the story are translated as on. The siren of Ancient Greek mythology became conflated with mermaids during the medieval period. Some European Romance languages still use cognate terms for siren to denote the mermaid, e.g., French and Spanish and Italian sirena. Some commentators have sought to trace origins further back into § Ancient Middle Eastern mythology. In the early Greek period, the sirens were conceived of as human-headed birds, but by the classical period, the Greeks sporadically depicted the siren as part fish in art.