Not every mermaid is a damp Disney princess. By Elaine K Howley

In open water swimming circles, few creatures have such enduring appeal as mermaids. More often than not, these half-femme/ half-fish sea-goddesses are depicted as preternaturally young and nubile with lowing blonde or ginger hair, generous bosoms and taught tummies that give way to a gloriously finned fishy tail. Almost universally Caucasian and often sporting glorious singing voices—the better with which to lure sailors to an untimely demise—they beckon with a version of serene beauty that matches the ideals of the cultural moment in which they’re created.

But, it seems, it hasn’t always been that way for all mermaids.

THE HIDEOUS HOAX

In the 1840s, perhaps the most singularly famous mermaid in the world was not freely swimming around some tropical archipelago, but rather traversing America as part of PT Barnum’s jumbled collection of curiosities and sideshows. Though Barnum is best remembered for his travelling circus, that small, repulsive mermaid was one of his earliest lucrative entertainment ventures.

In a piece she penned for Hyperallergic, writer Allison Meier called Barnum’s so-called Feejee Mermaid “aggressively ugly,” and boasting “expressions of exaggerated horror that recall Edvard Munch’s ‘he Scream.’” Upon seeing the item on tour in the 1840s, a reporter for the Charleston Courier commented that the “Feejee lady is the very incarnation of ugliness.” Even Barnum knew he had a delightfully nasty object in the form of the Feejee Mermaid, noting in his autobiography that the mermaid was “an ugly, dried-up, black-looking, and diminutive specimen… its arms thrown up, giving it the appearance of having died in great agony.”

Although it’s not certain whether the desiccated specimen Barnum exhibited still exists, a Feejee Mermaid with a potential connection to P.T. Barnum is currently on display at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The troutsized creation rests quietly inside a wood-and-glass case next to a poster advertising the rarity.