to the famous literary mermaid tale, Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, "The Little Mermaid". During the Romanesque period, mermaids were often associated with lust.Teodolinda Barolini, La Commedia senza Dio: Dante e la creazione di una realtà, 2003, p.150 Byzantine and Ottoman Greek folklore The conception of the siren as both a mermaid-like creature and part bird-like persisted in Byzantine Greece for some time. The Physiologus began switching the illustration of the siren as that a mermaid, as in a version dated to the 9th century. The 10th century Byzantine Greek dictionary Suda still favored the avian description. There is a modern Greek legend that Alexander the Great's sister Thessalonike turned into a mermaid () after her death, living in the Aegean. She would ask the sailors on any ship she encountered only one question: "Is King Alexander alive?",() to which the correct answer was: "He lives and reigns and conquers the world" (Greek: "Ζει και βασιλεύει και τον κόσμον κυριεύει"). This answer would please her, and she would accordingly calm the waters and bid the ship farewell. Any other answer would enrage her, and she would stir up a terrible storm, dooming the ship and every sailor on board. This legend derives from an Alexander romance entitled the Phylláda tou Megaléxandrou (Φυλλάδα του Μεγαλέξανδρου) dating to the Ottoman Greece period, first printed in 1680. Eastern Europe Rusalkas are the Slavic counterpart of the Greek sirens and naiads, often seducing sailors to their doom. The nature of rusalkas varies among folk traditions, but according to ethnologist D.K. Zelenin they all share a common element: they are the restless spirits of the unclean dead. They are usually the ghosts of young women who died a violent or untimely death, either by murder or suicide, before their wedding, especially by drowning. Rusalkas are said to inhabit lakes and rivers. They appear as beautiful young women with long pale green hair and pale skin, suggesting a connection with floating weeds and days spent underwater in faint sunlight. They can be seen after dark, dancing together under the moon and calling out to young men by name, luring them to the water and drowning them. The characterization of rusalkas as both desirable and treacherous is prevalent in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and was emphasized by 19th-century Russian authors. The best-known of the great Czech nationalist composer Antonín Dvořák's operas is Rusalka. In Sadko (), an