What if i a siren singing gentlemen to sleep

The image entered Greece and gathered new stories to explain it since the belief systems were different. Given the apparent prophetic nature of the siren song, their links with birds would make sense. During his odyssey, Odysseus learned about the power of the sirens from Circe the sorceress. He gave beeswax to his sailors to plug up their ears. But he wanted to hear their song and survive , and since he was passing their island, why not try?

The sailors tied him to the mast and plugged up their ears. When the ship got in range, the sirens began their song. They heaped praise on Odysseus and he became possessed by an urge to meet them. They safely passed the island, and the enchantment faded. Odysseus had managed to hear their song and survive.

But the sirens did not. As a side note, this painting by John William Waterhouse caused an outcry in It just goes to show how pervasive this image of sirens as mermaid-like creatures was, even in the 19th century. In the stories about Jason and the Argonauts, they also had to sail past the island.

Thankfully, they had the legendary musician and poet Orpheus with them. He started playing his lyre when they sang their song. His music drowned theirs out and the Argonauts sailed safely past. The sirens only managed to bewitch a single Argonaut. He jumped overboard to swim to their island. But Aphrodite intervened and either plopped him in Lilybaeum now Marsala or took him as a lover.

The stories vary! Some believe the songs avenged the sirens for the wrongs done to them. Others think they might have sung the songs out of grief for their fate. And they even told Odysseus that they knew all of the sadness in the world, and they knew everything that was to happen. The only way to handle this level of pain and foresight was to share it with others.

By the early 4th century BC, sirens start appearing in art as women from the waist up, and birds from the waist down. Which is probably closer to the Demeter myth, where the handmaidens asked for wings to help their search for Persephone.

Once we get to the Early Modern Period, European scholars had the ancient Greek texts, but not the images that went with them. Without the artistic depictions, the scholars had to work out what the vague descriptions meant.

They already had some clue of what mermaids were supposed to be. So they conflated the two, superimposing the siren onto the mermaid. And by the 19th century, writers had access to tales such as that of the water nymph Lorelei, who lured men to their death on the Rhine.

But in the original myths, their prophetic songs and phenomenal voices were far more impressive than their physical beauty. Accessed 10 July Sirens: GreekMythology. Making the sirens into bird creatures sounds like harpies.

My image of a siren is a lovely woman, but she can change her image and thus has shape shifting qualities. Of course, their voices were sublime, and gave the humans who heard their songs became so addicted that they would forego eating, sleeping, etc.

Ruth Fisher. Given their nature as handmaidens of a goddess of Death and their ability to draw men to their deaths with song my educated guess is sirens are demonized psychopomp spirits from a pre-Hellenistic cult. The early iconography resembles Persian statuary and given the enmity between Athens and Persia, it makes sense that the Athenians would mock, disfigure, and demonize spirits of a Persian cult in their mythology as propaganda.

I think I heard that after the muses plucked the sirens feathers, the sirens fell into the water, and grew fish tails. And they still had wings by the time Odysseus dropped by and effectively killed them. The fish tail connection was a much later addition.

One naiad even holds onto his arm. The threatening power of female sexuality could be what led artists to apply these same characteristics to both mermaids and sirens. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Icons by Icon8. Get your fabulous folklore fix on your favourite podcast app! Find it here or subscribe on these platforms or your app of choice! Folklore blogger and host of the Fabulous Folklore podcast. Writer of dark fantasy novellas, Gothic short stories and the occasional weird Western.

Once described as a cross between Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Working on a PhD about haunted house films! Find out when new posts go live. I'll also send you my guide to protecting your home using folklore! Archaic perfume vase in the shape of Siren, c. Via Wikimedia Commons. A more traditional representation of the siren by Edward Armitage [Public domain]. We were quiet, tired, and stunned by the force of our recent collision. I squinted in the light, that unforgettable light, that pure, so-bright December light, there on a beach at the far rocky edge of the city.

Please use it wisely. Sirens sang at the edges. They sang on far rocky cliffs overlooking the ocean. The men who heard their song, it is important to note, were already at sea. Literal sea. Figurative sea. It is important to note, too, that what looked like an edge to the men was the center for the Sirens. They sang, laughed, remembered to buy paper towels and to get the exercise they needed. What seemed so exotic to others, so enticing, was life as usual on the cliff.

I spent some time with Ovid recently, and in his Metamorphoses , the Sirens are not lurers, not mondo-babe seductresses. They were the girls in the meadow when Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and they went in search of their lost friend. All over land, high and low, they searched and sang so she might hear their song and sing out in response.

Golden-feathered bird girls who sang to find their friend. What might happen instead? A new sort of knowing, an arrival, a return. The Sirens are explicit about what they offer. Not seaside sex, not carnality on the cliffs. The Sirens know and they can tell you what they know.

They can tell you anything. Is this, then, the ultimate seduction? To have our own story told to us? Not just to be understood, not just to have your life story sung back to you, but to arrive back to an original home, way back, when there were no words, just the dim, dark, rushing echoes of sounds absorbed through skin, cosmic blood rush rhythm, whoom whoom whoom. This, I think, is the sound of the Sirens.