Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Preface To Sirens: No, Not Those Kinds Of Sirens


The dictionary defines a siren as "a device that makes a loud prolonged sound as a signal or warning." But it also tells us that it means, in Greek mythology, "each of a number of women or winged creatures whose singing lured unwary sailors on to rocks."

When I first thought about doing a show about sirens, I thought I might have to mix the two. But nope! The show will be about the mythological sirens.

Siren by the way can also mean "a woman who is considered to be alluring or fascinating but also dangerous in some way." Some singers are called sirens but there are also sirens of the silver screen.

Even better though is that there are at least four kinds of animals called sirens:

Siren (genus), a genus of aquatic salamanders in the family Sirenidae
Hestina, a genus of brush-footed butterfly commonly called sirens
Sirenia, an order of aquatic mammals including dugongs and manatees
Sirenidae, a family of aquatic salamanders

Alas, I will not be doing a show about them - except that they might have been named sirens after the mythological sirens - I can't find evidence of that in my limited research though.

Why a show about the deadly singing bird-like sirens? I'll tell you that tomorrrow!

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