In Central African mythology, a sort of fresh-water mermaid traditionally known to have white skin and African features. They can be met at waterfalls though they actually live in villages elsewhere where they presumably have legs and live in houses and such.
Men desiring a Siren for a wife would have to make arrangements with her mother and provide a large dowry or bride-price.
Legend in Ngouha2, Congo tells that a man from there once tricked a Siren into letting him marry her daughter by use of magic. When the mother shook off the spell, she sent torrents of rain to wash out the village. The villagers forced the man to flee and the rain subsided. The man was seen years later without his wife and refused to speak of the events.
The portrayal of Sirens as white-skinned reportedly predates the arrival of Europeans.

So, its a climb, on the west coast of Ireland, but more than that, much more, an epiphany. Rising sharply out of the waves, a seaboard of of limestone, steady, steep. always kept clean by the Atlantic washing machine. And there majestic, is the line of siren. Dreamt about by every climber in Ireland since its picture made the cover of some guidebook. It takes no less a place in my imagination. A year of doubt, that last fall too bad, and do I really still want to climb again? It had been a year since I had nearly cracked my head open, as if it had been opened it was polluted with doubt and fear and then I found myself on siren. The wall drops away beneath me, no gear for the crux and suspended between heaven and hell, time still the waves calling me and my fingertips keeping me, my weight talking to them through gravity. I make one move, another, the top. I can climb again. Siren is fear overcome, is climbing regained, timlessness and redemption and a chunk of limestone on the west coast of some small island.

In the Final Fantasy series of games, Siren is a beautiful sea nymph type, much like the Sirens of legend, who can be summoned to sing a song that will silence enemies and possibly hurt them. This can be quite handy when fighting spell-casters, as they cannot then use magic.

The daughters of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, the sirens stood for feminine beauty in its most beguiling and destructive form. Depicted as birds with women's heads, they possessed beautiful voices which, heard above the sighing of the sea, lured mariners to their doom.

( back to hybrid creatures...)

Transforms from fire chief car to robot and back!

AUTOBOT: SIREN

FUNCTION: INCENDIARY DAMAGE CONTROL
"Act first, ask questions later."

Raised in the deafening Sonic Canyons of southern Cybertron. Loud, somewhat overbearing. Screams orders at his Autobot subordinates. Dominates any conversation because he's louder than everyone else. Binary-bonded to the Nebulan, Quig, a soft-spoken librarian who jumps whenever Siren starts bellowing. Armed with sawed-off CO2 shotgun that shoots bursts of high-impact frozen gas. Also armed with two armor-piercing, sonic-screamer pistols.

• Strength: 6
• Intelligence: 7
• Speed: 6
• Endurance: 7
• Rank: 7
• Courage: 9
• Firepower: 6
• Skill: 6

Transformers Tech Specs

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No more or less attractive than the other second-year Headmaster Autobots, which isn't a compliment. Transformation-wise, he was pretty much identical to Nightbeat.

In the Japanese cartoon "Transformers: Masterforce", Siren was one of the "Junior Headmasters" named Shooter (or Shuta).

These were malicious sea nymphs in the legends of ancient Greece and Rome.

Variations on the name are: Sireen, Sirene, or Syrene.
They were the offspring of Phorcys.
They appeared as half bird, half woman and they congregated on the rocks of Sicily where they sung melodiously to attract and beguile and sometimes devour(!) passing sailors.

Their individual names were: Aglaopheme, Leucosia, Ligia, Parthenope, Pisinoe and Thelxiepia.

Legend has it that Odysseus was able to pass by their island successfully by filling the ears of his men with wax and tying himself to the mast of his ship.

Jason and the Argonauts were said to have caused the demise of the sirens when they heard Orpheus singing more sweetly than they did.

In the northwestern Spanish coastal area there is a type of mermaid called "La Sirena", which seems to be a derivative of the Siren.
However this creature is not malevolent.

Si"ren (?), n. [L., fr. Gr. : cf. F. sirene.]

1. Class. Myth.

One of three sea nymphs, -- or, according to some writers, of two, -- said to frequent an island near the coast of Italy, and to sing with such sweetness that they lured mariners to destruction.

Next where the sirens dwell you plow the seas; Their song is death, and makes destruction please. Pope.

2.

An enticing, dangerous woman.

Shak.

3.

Something which is insidious or deceptive.

Consumption is a siren. W. Irving.

4.

A mermaid.

[Obs.]

Shak.

5. Zool.

Any long, slender amphibian of the genus Siren or family Sirenidae, destitute of hind legs and pelvis, and having permanent external gills as well as lungs. They inhabit the swamps, lagoons, and ditches of the Southern United States. The more common species (Siren lacertina) is dull lead-gray in color, and becames two feet long.

6. [F. sirene, properly, a siren in sense 1.] Acoustics

An instrument for producing musical tones and for ascertaining the number of sound waves or vibrations per second which produce a note of a given pitch. The sounds are produced by a perforated rotating disk or disks. A form with two disks operated by steam or highly compressed air is used sounding an alarm to vessels in fog.

[Written also sirene, and syren.]

 

© Webster 1913.

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Si"ren, a.

Of or pertaining to a siren; bewitching, like a siren; fascinating; alluring; as, a siren song.

 

© Webster 1913.