Mermaid of the Moment: Henry Hudson's Mermaid

In 1608, as explorer Henry Hudson was traveling with his crew off the coast of Norway, he recorded this account in his logbook:

This morning one of our companie looking over the boord saw a Mermaid,…from the Navill upward, her backe and breasts were like a woman's, her body as big as one of us; her skin very white; and long haire hanging down behind, of color black; in her going downe they saw her tayle, which was like the tayle of a porposse and speckled like a Macrell.

My artist hubby George, created an illustration depicting this event.