Hey, this is Heather from the Renaissance English History Podcast, and this is your Tudor Minute for January 9.
Today in 1493 Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, saw three mermaids, and said they were “not half as beautiful as they are painted.” Of course they weren’t mermaids, but manatees, also known as sea cows.
Mermaids, mythical creatures that are half-female, half-fish, have been known in seafaring cultures since the time of the Greeks. They are normally described as having a woman’s head and torso, and a fishtail instead of legs. Mermaids live in the ocean and can put on a human shape and human mortal men. They are also related to sirens, another creature known to sea farers who was part-woman, part-bird, who lived on islands and sang songs to lure sailors to their deaths. If this sounds familiar, Disney’s The Little Mermaid combines these two creatures into Ariel.
Mermaid sightings by sailors, when they weren’t made up, were most likely manatees. Manatees are slow-moving aquatic mammals with human-like eyes, bulbous faces and paddle-like tails. It is likely that manatees evolved from an ancestor they share with the elephant. Mermaids were one of the many sea creatures that both frightened and entranced sailors at this time period.
That’s your Tudor Minute for today. Remember you can dive deeper into life in 16th century England through the Renaissance English History Podcast at englandcast.com.
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast,  one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.