International Mermaid Day Date in the current year: March 29, 2024

Mermaids are mythical creatures with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. The male equivalent of the mermaid is the merman, although mermen are less common in folklore than mermaids. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many European, African, and Asian countries.

Mermaids in Western European folklore are believed to have been influenced by sirens from Greek mythology. Although sirens were originally portrayed as human-bird hybrids, their later portrayals depict them as mermaid-like. Like sirens, mermaids are often described as having an incredibly beautiful voice that they use to seduce men.

In Slavic folklore, mermaids are called rusalkas. Their portrayal and associated lore vary depending on the region. In many legends, rusalkas are the spirits of young women who were violently drowned against their will or committed suicide by drowning. They can tickle people to death or lure then into the water to drown.

Sea-people, or merfolk, can also be found in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, Thai, Cambodian, Indonesian, Filipino, Maori, Arabian, and indigenous Caribbean folklore. In some folk traditions, they are malevolent and associated with perilous events such as drownings, floods, shipwrecks, and storms. However, they can also be depicted as benevolent, falling in love with humans or granting them gifts.

Over the past centuries, mermaids have been regularly depicted in literature, film and television, music, and popular culture. Probably the most famous portrayal of mermaids in fiction is “The Little Mermaid”, a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It has been adapted into various media, including the 1989 Disney animated film of the same name and its 2023 live-action adaptation.

Interest in cosplaying mermaids has increased in the past years thanks to the growing popularity of fantasy cosplay in general and the availability of relatively inexpensive monofins used in costume mermaid tails. The practice of wearing, and often swimming in, a mermaid tail is called mermaiding or mermaidry. Mermaiders even hold fandom conventions; the world’s longest-running one is the California Mermaid Convention, and the biggest one is MerMagic Con.

International Mermaid Day was launched in 2018 by the American cable channel Freeform to celebrate the premiere of its new television show Siren about a young mermaid who comes to a small coastal town looking for her older sister who has been abducted. The series ran for three seasons and was canceled in 2020, but International Mermaid Day is observed to this day.

There are a lot of ways to celebrate these fascinating mythical creatures. You can read books and/or binge films and television series about mermaids, throw a mermaid-themed party, spend the day on the beach or at a pool (if the weather allows, of course), or even buy a mermaid tail and try mermaiding. And don’t forget to spread the word about the holiday on social media with the hashtags #InternationalMermaidDay and #MermaidDay.