10 Creepy And Unique Mermaid Designs In Movies And TV

7. The Merpeople - Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire

This one is a slightly controversial one. Some might not consider the Merpeople in the fourth HP instalment classic mermaids per se, and agreeably they resemble more the common Merrow (no, not the pumpkin). In Celtic lore the Merrow is the rough and war- mongering cousin of the mermaid. With their green algae hair, shark teeth, and goggly eyes they are perfectly set up for deep sea adventures. Most of them carry a trident for hunting. Their powerful fishtail is mostly of an opaque silver colour or camouflaged in shades of blue and green, and resembles that of a shark, in other tales that of a squid, or in other, rare depictions, even that of a sea horse. Just like the ones in “Goblet of Fire”, these Celtic merrows decent from warrior tribes and have a rather short fuse.

During his bath Harry notices that the mermaid portrayed in the bathroom does not look like the rather frightful merpeople in the lake with their greyish skin and long, wild, dark green tentacles. Their eyes are yellow, just like their broken teeth, probably from chewing shells and mussels. These Merpeople are also very tall, and during the second task Harry encounters one of them in the lake near Hogwarts who he describes as seven feet tall with a long green beard and a choker of shark fangs, carrying a spear. Their appearance is very tribal and almost Scandinavian or Viking-like which is a welcome mix-up for these multi-facetted beings.

The legends of the Merrow are sparse and no other movie was inspired to sculpt its mer- creatures after these moody fellows. Just like the merpeople in “Goblet of Fire” they love making questionable bargains with the land folk, attack everything that breaks through the surface — and break their own rules. Quite fishy, if you ask me ... And while these warriors of the deep surely are quite frightening, they also mix up our expectations of mermen and should definitely be more considered amongst the more fascinating and multi-facetted mer-beings. Thank God Harry could save his own and his friends skin from these eerie brutes, as in ancient Celtic lore it is said that the Merrow drags its victim into the deepest sea where the light has no reign.

Here it is said the overly long, muscular fishtail wraps around the victims legs and body to squeeze the life out of it (in case there is still some precious oxide left somewhere in the delicate lungs), but also to break and grind the bones to dust. That way it will be much easier to devour its prey once it sank to the abyss. This predatory feeding behaviour resembles that of a python or big species of snakes in general. In the end the Merrow is more creature than human, and just like the Merpeople in HP4 they resemble our own kind more on the outside than in an evolutionary sense. One more reason to truly fear the common Merrow.