Editing Mermaid (section)

== Western European folklore ==
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[[File:Bookofmelusine.jpg|thumb|left|Raymond discovers Melusine in her bath, [[Jean d'Arras]], ''Le livre de Mélusine'', 1478.]]
[[Melusine]] is a mermaid-like character from [[European folklore]], cursed to take the form of a [[serpent (symbolism)|serpent]] from the waist down. Later depictions sometimes changed this to a fish tail.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://archive.org/details/melusine00jeanuoft | title=Melusine, Compiled (1382–1394&nbsp;AD) by Jean D'Arras, Englisht About 1500 | publisher=Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner | year=1895 | access-date=20 November 2012 | last = Donald | first = A.K.}}</ref> At some point, possibly in the late nineteenth century, her name became attached to the two-tailed mermaid of heraldry.<ref name=":0" />

The [[alchemist]] [[Paracelsus]]'s treatise ''[[A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits]]'' (1566) spawned the idea that the water elemental (or water sprite) could acquire an immortal soul through marriage with a human; this led to the writing of [[De la Motte Fouqué]]'s novella ''[[Undine (novella)|Undine]]'', and eventually to the famous literary mermaid tale, [[Hans Christian Andersen]]'s "[[The Little Mermaid]]".<ref name="jarvis">{{cite book|last=Jarvis |first=Shawn C. |author-link=<!--Shawn C. Jarvis--> |editor-last=Haase |editor-first=Donald |editor-link=<!--Donald Haase--> |title=The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales [3 Volumes] |publisher=Greenwood |year=2007 |url=https://archive.org/details/the-greenwood-encyclopedia-of-folktales-and-fairy-tales/page/621/mode/2up |pages=619–621 |isbn=978-0-313-04947-7}}</ref>

During the [[Romanesque art|Romanesque]] period, mermaids were often associated with [[lust]].<ref>[[Yves Morvan]], ''La Sirène et la luxure'', Communication du Colloque "La luxure et le corps dans l'art roman", Mozac, 2008</ref><ref>Teodolinda Barolini, ''La Commedia senza Dio: Dante e la creazione di una realtà'', 2003, p.150</ref>