In Greek mythology sirens were enchantresses portrayed as half women and half birds. In Hellenistic art and literature they are representative of music almost as much as the Muses.
They live on an island. Passing sailors, charmed by their songs, land and discover a meadow, strewn with decaying corpses. They then die horribly, as the apparently beautiful singers reveal their evil nature as birds of prey. In other stories the sirens themselves must die if a mortal resists their song, as Odysseus does in The Odyssey.
From very early times sirens are represented as accompanying the dead on their journey to the Otherworld. In poetry they sometimes grieve for the dead with mournful songs or still the winds at sea with their voices.
