Kappa are said to have an appetite for children and those foolish enough to swim alone in remote places - but they especially prize fresh cucumbers.
Like the Blue Men, the kappa sometimes interact with humans and challenge them to games of skill in which the penalty for losing is death. Said to reside in Japanese lakes, coasts and rivers, these child-size water spirits appear more animal than human, with simian faces and tortoise shells on their backs, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica (opens in new tab). Japanese legends have a version of merfolk called kappa. Local lore claims that before laying siege to a ship, the Blue Men often challenge its captain to a rhyming contest if the captain is quick enough of wit and agile enough of tongue he can best the Blue Men and save his sailors from a watery grave.
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They look like ordinary men (from the waist up anyway) with the exception of their blue-tinted skin and gray beards. One especially feared group, the Blue Men of the Minch, are said to dwell in the Outer Hebrides off the coast of Scotland, according to The Scotsman.
Though not as well known as their female counterparts, mermen have an equally fierce reputation for summoning storms, sinking ships and drowning sailors. In folklore, mermaids were often associated with misfortune and death, luring errant sailors off course and even onto rocky shoals, according to the Ohio State University. They must be very careful not to lose this while wandering about on land, because without it they would be unable to return to their underwater realm." Meri Lao, in her book " Seduction and the Secret Power of Women (opens in new tab)," notes that "In the Shetland Islands, mermaids are stunningly beautiful women who live under the sea their hybrid appearance is temporary, the effect being achieved by donning the skin of a fish. In some legends from Scotland and Wales mermaids befriended - and even married - humans. However, many people are perhaps most familiar with the Disney version of "The Little Mermaid," a somewhat sanitized version of a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale first published in 1837. Atargatis, also known as Derceto or the Syrian goddess, was half woman half fish deity of the ancient city Hierapolis-Bambyce in Syria. One of the earliest depictions of a mermaid came from Syrian mythology. Greek mythology contains stories of the god Triton, the merman messenger of the sea, and several modern religions including Hinduism and Candomble (an Afro-Brazilian belief) worship mermaid goddesses to this day. is usually depicted as having a bearded head with a crown and a body like a man, but from the waist downwards he has the shape of a fish." Thompson writes that "traditions concerning creatures half-human and half-fish in form have existed for thousands of years, and the Babylonian deity Era or Oannes, the Fish-god. One source, the "Arabian Nights," described mermaids as having "moon faces and hair like a woman's but their hands and feet were in their bellies and they had tails like fishes," Charles J.S Thompson, a former curator at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, notes in his in his book " The Mystery and Lore of Monsters (opens in new tab) (Kessinger Publishing, 2010). Merfolk (mermaids and mermen) are, of course, the marine version of half-human, half-animal legends that have captured human imagination for ages. Centuries ago, mysterious sea serpents and mermaids were believed to be hidden in the world's vast oceans.
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