You may know that I live in Hobart, Tasmania. What you may not know is that Hobart was, in the 1890′s, a thriving whaling port. At that time there was one pub for every 11 citizens, because of the large number of visiting sailors. Most of these “hotels” were in fact brothels, and today I walked past one which has retained its original name if not its original function.
I’ve always been fascinated by the beautifully painted sign, depicting a mermaid, of the Ocean Child Hotel [recently replaced! Drat!] The name arises because “mermaid” was sailor’s slang for “prostitute”. Clearly the Ocean Child was rather up front about things, a century ago.
But today I was wondering about the “Little Mermaid”. Mermaids are both promiscuous and virginal. The prostitute can give birth to children but not to people with a name and place in society. Her children are nobodies. The Hans Christian Andersen character gives up her tail, and gains legs (and one supposes, female sexual organs) in return for her voice. Is that because she had power and her own autonomy as a prostitute which she lost as a “proper” woman and a wife? What she gained by giving it up was status as the prince’s wife – at once a voiceless cipher and a bearer of future people-with-names.
“Ocean Child” isn’t code for pedophilia, by the way. She’s a child because she can’t bear children – the defining characteristic of a woman in our atavistic past. But longer ago than that the sea was an aspect of the mother goddess. “Mer” (sea) and “Mere” (mother) are related words, after all. That female power (and sailors have always known the sea is female, Neptune notwithstanding) has been trivialised and denigrated to the point where the goddess is depicted as a fish/prostitute. Just the same the mystery and fear of an empowered woman lies just under the surface. Neither sea nor mermaid could ever be a wife! A related myth has Oddyseus meet the sirens, whose song can lure sailors to their death. What’s fascinating about that is that Homer has their lure not be lust but knowlege. They sing of what is and what will be.
Sailors battle elemental forces and they know a thing or two, deep in their bones. They know the sea is a woman, secure in her wisdom and her sexuality, and immune from domination by our culture and our technology. They know that water runs deep in every female, and that in the end that wild magic cannot be named or tamed or made a part of our society. Sailors battle with it, respect it, and understand it a little. But in the end they are afraid of it.