Evil Portent Washes Up On Shore: Video Of Dead Mermaid & St. Isidore of Seville Etymologies On Mermaid/Sirens

People imagine three Sirens who were part maidens, part birds, having wings and talons; one of them would make music with her voice, the second with a flute, and the third with a lyre. They would draw sailors, enticed by the song, into shipwreck. 31. In truth, however, they were harlots, who, because they would seduce passers-by into destitution, were imagined as bringing shipwreck upon them. They were said to have had wings and talons because sexual desire both flies and wounds. They are said to have lived among the waves because the waves gave birth to Venus. 32. People tell of Scylla as a woman girded with the heads of dogs, with a great barking, because of the straits of the sea of Sicily, in which sailors, terrified by the whirlpools of waves rushing against each other, suppose that the waves are barking, waves that the chasm with its seething and sucking brings into collision. Etymologies