After reading this week’s chapter of “Merpeople: A Human History” I learned a lot of new information I had never known before. I don’t have a large background on the history of mermaids and how they were involved in human history, so I did not know that they correlated to Christianity or any religion at all. I found it interesting how the church learned, appreciated, and believed in mermaids through art, sculpture, and myriad texts after such a long time of the Christian church and churchgoers in Europe overly sexualizing mermaids. While I do have the knowledge that mermaids have been sexualized over time, I did not know how the true belief and appreciation of them started.

As Scribner elaborated on the involvement of mermaids in the Christian Church, I was also intrigued by the fact that the Christian Church bridged “the gap between the supposedly ‘savage’ and the civilized,” (Scribner, 16). It is surprising to me that mermaids were accepted because of how the Christian Church portrayed them after it contributed to such extreme sexualization of them. Stories about mermaids today, that I have personally read or seen myself, typically do not have a religious belief tied to their background. The history of mermaids is much different than what is depicted in some popular media today.

While the beliefs and depictions of mermaids have been different throughout history, the Christian Church belief is one that intrigued me most. Comparing how mermaids were seen in different periods gives us a good idea of how we got to where we are today. It helps explain how mermaids are seen now in literature, media, and real-life beliefs. I am excited to expand on this topic through more research and discussion in class.