Talk:Fillip Dahl/@comment-112206-20181230223739/@comment-112206-20190209223818

Actually, its interesting, I posted this theory on TV Tropes as well on the WMG page, and someone edited it to add that in Norse folklore that mermaids are actually benevolent creatures, and Dahl is Swedish. Then again, at this point Sweden had been Christianized for centuries so there's no way of knowing if Swedish folklore had any influence on him.

Another interesting addition I got on the TV tropes page was that the mermaids being able to effect the sanity of the sailors would make sense if they are actually intended to be sirens. Some pages of this wiki used to list them as sirens rather than mermaids. Not sure if there is any canon confirmation on the species of these creatures or not. Regardless, this is an interesting adition to my theory.

That said, all the replies have great points as well. Especially the point that sailors are naturally superstitious.