A Welcome from Juna Lee Poinfax

To all guests of this website, web-toed or not: 

Thank you for diving in. Welcome to the society of glorious and beautiful Mer-people who exist among you. You may be a Mer and not know it yet.  This website is dedicated to dispelling myths and prejudices that have built up about merfolk over the centuries. You may think that mermaids and mermen are Hollywood stories or fairytales, but we do exist. 

In summary: Mermaids are real. 

All right, now we can deconstruct that statement. Mermaids, as you know them, are not real. No half-naked, fin-bottomed people are swimming around out there in your local lake, all right? All those classic paintings by Waterhouse, all those cheesy Hollywood movies, plus the Disney cartoon, to name a few examples--all just cute little myth. But as with most worldwide mythology with ancient and abiding roots, there's always a pearl of truth in the middle of the oyster of folklore. 

"I pledge allegiance
to the flag of the
World Council
of Mers
and to the
people for
which it stands
one Nation,
under water,
with liberty
and justice
for all."

"Pledge of allegiance" seen on Mer teenager's   
T-shirt during a clan reunion in
Mendocino, California.

The World Council has no official flag, and no pledge.

Email
Juna Lee

Mers are that pearl. The truth always rises . . . right? 

I am a "person of water." One of the Water People. Mer Folk, if that makes you happy. I don't have fins, I don't live in the water, I don't shapeshift between a pouty Darryl Hannah clone and a half-fish cartoon figure. I have two legs, I always have two legs, and I look more or less like anyone else. Only better. And with webbed toes. 

Water People are real, yes. Very real. Thanks to certain psychic gifts and endless charisma, we live among you discreetly, though often in control of  local and, indeed, worldwide events. If not for a hapless inability to reproduce like Landers, aka rabid rabbits, we'd no doubt rule the planet. 

Well, in fact, we do rule the planet. But not in sheer numbers. And if you ordinary-toed people realized we exist -- I mean really realized, as in our psychic inviso-shield failed and you Landers suddenly had to grapple with the fact that a supernaturally superior cousin exists to plain old Homo Sapien (we jokingly call our kind Homo Swimmians) you'd probably freak out. And we’d end up on the covers of the tabloids -- along with the two-headed babies and celebrity gossip. 

So I'm taking it on myself to educate you in the hopes of some sort of diplomatic break-through, though, really, I'm just incredibly vain and I love talking about myself (a typical trait of Water People.) 

Continued on the Introduction Page.

 

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Sanctioned for release by the World Council, Spring 2004

For more information on Mers, the WaterLilies series, and additional books by official Mer chronicler Deborah Smith, visit BelleBooks
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