# Mermaid Facts Script

The first mermaid was a goddess who tried to turn into a fish.
3,000 years ago, the Assyrian goddess Atargatis fell in love with a mortal.
When she accidentally killed him, she tried to transform into a fish out of shame.
But she was too beautiful, so she only transformed halfway.
In Japan, mermaids aren't beautiful at all.
The ningyo is just a human head attached directly to a fish body.
But eating one supposedly grants you immortality.
So fishermen hunted them for centuries.
Alexander the Great's sister allegedly became a mermaid after she died.
She would stop ships and ask: "Is the king alive?"
Answer wrong, and she'd summon a storm to sink you.
Greek sailors feared this question for centuries.
In 1842, P.T. Barnum advertised a real captured mermaid.
He handed out pamphlets showing a gorgeous creature.
What people actually saw was a monkey head sewn onto a fish.
It looked like it died in absolute agony.
Even Columbus thought he saw mermaids.
He wrote in his journal they weren't as pretty as the paintings.
That's because he was looking at manatees.
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