, masculine noun, is also listed as cognate to "†mermin", as well as ON , modern Icelandic , and modern Norwegian marmæle. Merewif Old English is another related term, and appears once in reference not so much to a mermaid but a certain sea hag, and not well-attested later. Its MHG cognate , also defined as "" in modern German with perhaps "" a valid English definition. The word is attested, among other medieval epics, in the Nibelungenlied, and rendered "merwoman",, "mermaid", "water sprite", or other terms; the two in the story are translated as ON ("sea-women"). Origins The siren of Ancient Greek mythology became conflated with mermaids during the medieval period. Some European Romance languages still use cognate terms for siren to denote the mermaid, e.g., French and Spanish and Italian . Some commentators have sought to trace origins further back into § Ancient Middle Eastern mythology. Sirens In the early Greek period, the sirens were conceived of as human-headed birds, but by the classical period, the Greeks sporadically depicted the siren as part fish in art. Medieval sirens as mermaids The siren's part-fish appearance became increasingly popular during the Middle Ages. And the traits of the classical sirens, such as using their beautiful song as a lure as told by Homer, has often been transferred to mermaids. These change of the medieval siren from bird to fish were thought by some to be the influence of Teutonic myth, later expounded in literary legends of Lorelei and Undine; though a dissenting comment is that parallels are not limited to Teutonic culture. Textual attestations The earliest text describing the siren as fish-tailed occurs in the Liber Monstrorum de diversis generibus (7th–mid 8th cent.), which described sirens as "sea girls" () whose beauty in form and sweet song allure seafarers, but beneath the human head and torso, have the scaly tail-end of a fish with which they can navigate the sea. "Sirens are mermaids" (Old High German/Early ) is explicit in the aforementioned Old German Physiologus (11th century). The Middle English bestiary (mid-13th century) clearly means "mermaid" when it explains the siren to be a mereman, stating that she has a body and breast like that of a maiden but joined, at the navel, by a body part which is definitely fish, with fins growing out of her. Old French verse bestiaries (e.g. Philipp de Thaun's version, written c. 1121–1139) also