The Harbour Elder
Merlion of Marina Bay · Keeper of the harbour
Singapore's Merlion is half lion and half fish. The lion recalls the island's name, Singapura, and the fish its old name, Temasek, or sea town.
The legend
Singapore's Merlion, half lion and half fish, was designed in 1964 as the emblem of its tourist board. The lion head recalls the prince who named the island Singapura, Lion City. The fish body stands for Temasek, sea town, the island's old name. Since 1972 a Merlion statue has spouted water by the river, now facing Marina Bay.
“I'd fly straight through one of his rings.”
Where it comes from
The Merlion was drawn by Alec Fraser-Brunner, curator of Singapore's Van Kleef Aquarium. Its lion goes back to a story in the Malay Annals. After a storm at sea, Sang Nila Utama threw his crown into the water to calm it and landed safely on Temasek. Hunting nearby, he saw a strange animal with a red body, a black head and a white breast, and his minister told him it was a lion. Lions have never lived in Singapore, so many think the animal was a Malayan tiger. The often-quoted year 1299 is not in the Annals: the scholar William Linehan proposed it in 1947, and his theory has since been discredited.
The statue was the idea of Kwan Sai Kheong, vice-chancellor of the University of Singapore. Lim Nang Seng sculpted it between November 1971 and August 1972. It is 8.6 metres tall and weighs 70 tonnes.
Where to see it
The statue stands in Merlion Park, in front of the Fullerton Hotel. It used to sit 120 metres away, but the Esplanade Bridge, finished in 1997, blocked the view of it from the bay. In April 2002 a barge carried it to its new home. Behind it sits a 2-metre Merlion cub covered in pieces of Chinese porcelain. In February 2009 lightning cracked the big statue's mane; it was repaired within three weeks. A smaller, 3-metre Merlion looks out from Faber Point on Mount Faber.
In the game
The Harbour Elder settles on his curled tail, strokes his long grey beard and smiles at the plane. The Elder's eyebrows shoot up, and his next ring of water comes out wobbly. The Elder chuckles, waves the plane past and blows one tiny ring for luck.
