After reading this week’s chapter of “Merpeople: A Human History” I discovered a significant amount of information that I didn’t know about the origins of mermaids. Finding out that mermaids come from a religious background overall was the most surprising fact I read since I have always believed that they originated from mythologically stories such as Greek Gods. It is strange to read about their evolution as how they were first being portrayed to finally how they are now being portrayed.

Throughout the introduction chapter Scribner was able to give a somewhat brief timeline of the history of mermaids but throughout that timeline I thought as if he gave more details into the appearance of mermaids and their evolution of that appearance. I thought it was significant as he emphasized that at some point mermaids were being sexualized and shown as this sort of temptation at some point of time to almost reduce the interest that humans had of them. I also thought it was interesting how Scribner provided images that showed the evolution of mermaids appearances as he wrote about them because for the reader it provides a better understanding to how throughout different periods of time, the mermaid image was shifting to fill the needs of how humans decided to represent merfolk.

Overall I thought the introduction to the entire book was impactful and left me with a significant amount of questions. The way Scribner was able to provide the religious background of mermaids, to showing how they have changed throughout the years, and to ultimately showing how mermaids overall play a significant part in today’s society all made me wonder as to why humans will believe that we are the only creatures to roam the earth? If mermaids to exist, what other creatures exist? Why is it that society decided to show mermaids as something imaginary and almost impossible to be true?