Creatures of the Deep

          SUMMARY:To continue on with a theme of worldwide myth, I must look at the world itself. Earth's surface is more than 70% covered in water. All major civilizations had some form of contact with a large body of water. It was seen as the key to life. It's sheer size, and mysterious properties, contributed to the fact that water was regarded as an extremely magical substance, and home to many magical creatures. Mermaids and sea serpents dominated many a sailors tales. Even today, sightings of "Nessie" in Loch Ness , "Tessie" in Lake Tahoe and "Champy" in Lake Champlain are regular occurances. But where did these myths come from?

                                                                             

     "Imagine that you're an uneducated sailor aboard a creaking wooden sailing ship in mid-ocean. You're on watch when, suddenly--what's that!? Off the starboard bow, you see a huge thing leap into the air and crash back into the water. You've never seen a whale breach before. You're startled and scared. How do you describe what you saw? It's easy to understand how such a sight could grow into a tale about a monster. Scientists think that the bowhead whale was behind a lot of 'sea monster' sightings. The whale grows to be 60 feet long. Its strangely shaped mouth has hundreds of long, thin plates called baleen. (It uses the baleen to strain tiny animals out of the seawater for food.) As European sailors searched for a sea route across northern Canada, they encountered the Arctic-dwelling bowhead and mistook it for a monster." (Lanier '98)
     The mermaid myth has been around since Greek times. Many sailors even EXPECTED to see the creatures. So when they saw the dugong, relatives of manatees, in the distance, they did not question the stories. Dugong are slow- moving and gentle, with rounded bodies and notched tails that resemble "mermaid" tails.
        But that still leaves us with modern-day legends like Nessie. Many people think Nessie is a pleiosaur, a long-extinct sea-dwelling reptile. Could a dinosaur survive in the 23-mile- long, 700-foot-deep Loch Ness? This can only be determined by future investigation.

          ANALYSIS: There are many fantastical and extraordinary creatures residing within our waters. Whether they are magical, we may never know. But we can't give up hope. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the globe. Of that, only about 5 percent has been explored. Who knows legendary beings reside in its depths?

          REFLECTION QUESTION: Dr. Stuart Vyse, professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London, says "Humans are good at making things up. People like telling stories!" He uses this to explain how these myths originate. Do you think that humans are prone to convincing themselves false truths for the sake of imagination?

          CITATION: Lanier, Kristina. "Legends of the Sea." Christian Science Monitor. Sept. 8 1998: n.p. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 26 Feb 2012.