The Little Mermaid

Far out at sea the water is as blue as the loveliest cornflower and as clear as glass, and so deep that no anchor rope could reach the bottom; you would have to stack many church steeples one on top of another to climb from the seabed to the surface. That is where the Sea King and his people live.

Don’t imagine the sea floor is nothing but bare yellow sand. Strange flowers and plants grow there, with stems and leaves so supple that the faintest movement of the water sets them stirring as if they were alive, and fish large and small slip between their branches the way birds flit among trees on land. In the very deepest place stands the Sea King’s castle. Its walls are coral, its tall pointed windows are the clearest amber, and its roof is made of shells that open and close as the current flows over them. Each shell holds a shining pearl fit for a queen’s crown.

The Sea King’s wife had died many years before, and his old mother kept house for him. She was a wise woman, though very proud of her noble birth; to show it she wore twelve oysters on her tail, while other high-born folk were allowed only six. Still, she deserved great credit for the care she took of her granddaughters, the six little sea princesses. All six were beautiful, but the youngest was the loveliest of all. Her skin was as clear and fine as a rose petal and her eyes as blue as the deepest sea, but like her sisters she had no feet; her body ended in a fish’s tail.

All day the princesses played in the great halls of the castle or among the living flowers that grew out of its walls. When the big amber windows stood open, fish swam inside, just as swallows fly into our houses, except that the fish swam right up to the princesses, ate from their hands, and let themselves be petted. Outside the castle lay a beautiful garden of fiery red and deep blue flowers, with fruit that glittered like gold and leaves and stems that swayed back and forth without rest. The ground was the finest sand, blue as a sulphur flame, and over everything lay a strange blue glow, as though the garden stood high in the open air with sky all around instead of the dark depths of the sea. On calm days the sun could be seen from below, like a purple flower with light pouring from its cup.

Each princess had her own small plot in the garden to dig and plant as she liked. One shaped her bed like a whale; another preferred the figure of a little mermaid; but the youngest made hers round like the sun and filled it with flowers as red as his rays at sunset. She was an unusual child, quiet and thoughtful. Her sisters were thrilled by the curious things they gathered from shipwrecks, but she cared only for her sun-red flowers and for one beautiful marble statue: a handsome boy carved from pure white stone, which had sunk to the sea floor from a wreck. Beside it she planted a rose-colored weeping willow. It grew wonderfully and soon draped its fresh branches over the statue nearly to the blue sand. Its violet shadow swayed with the branches, so that the treetop and the roots seemed to be playing and trying to kiss each other.

Nothing pleased her more than hearing about the world above the sea. She made her old grandmother tell her everything she knew about ships and towns, people and animals. It seemed marvelous to her that flowers on land had a scent, when flowers under the sea had none, that forest trees were green, and that the “fishes” among the trees sang so sweetly it was a joy to hear them. Her grandmother called the little birds fishes; otherwise the princess, who had never seen a bird, would not have understood.

“When you turn fifteen,” her grandmother said, “you will be allowed to rise out of the sea and sit on the rocks in the moonlight while the great ships sail past. Then you will see forests and towns.”

The next year the eldest sister would be fifteen, but the sisters were each a year apart, so the youngest had five years to wait before she could rise from the ocean floor and see our world. Each sister promised to tell the others what she saw on her first visit and what she found most beautiful, for their grandmother could never tell them enough; there was so much they wanted to know.

None of them longed for her turn as much as the youngest, who had the longest to wait and was so quiet and thoughtful. Many nights she stood at the open window gazing up through the dark blue water, watching the fish flick their fins and tails. She could see the moon and stars shining faintly, though through the water they looked bigger than they do to us. When something like a black cloud slid between her and the sky, she knew it was a whale swimming overhead, or a ship full of people who never dreamed that a pretty little mermaid stood far beneath them, stretching her white hands up toward their keel.

As soon as the eldest turned fifteen, she was allowed to rise to the surface. When she came back she had hundreds of things to tell, but the most beautiful, she said, was lying on a sandbank in the moonlight in the calm sea near the coast, gazing at a large town where lights twinkled like hundreds of stars. She had listened to music, the rumble of carriages, and human voices, and then to the merry bells ringing from the church towers. Because she could not go near all those wonderful things, she longed for them more than ever. How eagerly the youngest listened! Afterward, standing at her window and looking up through the dark blue water, she thought of the great city with all its bustle and noise, and even imagined she could hear the church bells ringing down in the depths of the sea.

A year later the second sister was allowed to rise and swim wherever she liked. She came up just as the sun was setting, and that, she said, was the most beautiful sight of all. The whole sky looked golden, violet and rose clouds she could not describe floated above her, and faster than the clouds a great flock of wild swans flew toward the setting sun like a long white veil stretched over the sea. She swam toward the sun too, but it sank into the waves, and the rosy colors faded from the clouds and the water.

Then came the third sister, the boldest of them all. She swam up a broad river that flowed into the sea. On its banks she saw green hills covered with lovely vines, and palaces and castles peeping out from among the stately forest trees. She heard birds singing, and the sun was so hot that she often had to dive under the water to cool her burning face. In a narrow creek she found a whole crowd of little human children splashing about without any clothes. She wanted to play with them, but they ran away in terror. Then a little black animal came down to the water. It was a dog, though she did not know it, never having seen one, and it barked at her so fiercely that she took fright and fled back to the open sea. But she said she would always remember the beautiful forest, the green hills, and the sweet little children who could swim although they had no fish’s tails.

The fourth sister was shyer. She stayed out in the middle of the sea, but she said it was every bit as beautiful there as near the land. She could see for miles around, and the sky overhead looked like a great glass bell. She had seen ships, but so far away that they looked like seagulls. Dolphins played in the waves, and huge whales spouted water from their blowholes until it seemed as if a hundred fountains were playing all around her.

The fifth sister’s birthday came in winter, so on her first visit she saw what none of the others had seen. The sea looked quite green, and great icebergs drifted about. Each one looked like a pearl, she said, only far bigger and taller than the churches people build, and they came in the strangest shapes and sparkled like diamonds. She sat on one of the largest and let the wind play with her long hair, and she noticed that every ship sped past and steered as far from the iceberg as it could, as if afraid of it. Toward evening, as the sun went down, dark clouds covered the sky, thunder rolled, and lightning flashed, and red light gleamed on the icebergs as they rocked on the heaving sea. On every ship the frightened sailors took in the sails, while she sat calmly on her floating iceberg watching the blue lightning strike the sea in forked flashes.

The first time each sister rose to the surface she was enchanted by all the new and beautiful sights. But now that they were grown and could go up whenever they liked, they lost interest. They wished themselves back in the water, and after a month they all said it was much more beautiful down below and nicer to be at home. Yet often in the evening the five sisters would link arms and rise to the surface in a row. Their voices were lovelier than any human voice. When a storm was coming and they expected a ship to be lost, they swam in front of it and sang sweetly about the delights of the deep, telling the sailors not to be afraid of sinking to the bottom. But the sailors could not understand the song and took it for the howling of the storm. Nor would they ever see those beautiful things, for if a ship went down, its men drowned, and only their dead bodies reached the Sea King’s palace.

When her sisters rose arm in arm through the water like this, the youngest stood alone, watching them go and wanting to cry. But mermaids have no tears, and so they suffer all the more. “Oh, if only I were fifteen!” she said. “I know I shall love the world up there and all the people who live in it.”

At last she turned fifteen. “Well, now you are grown up,” said the old dowager, her grandmother, “so you must let me dress you up like your sisters.” She set a wreath of white lilies in the girl’s hair, each petal half a pearl, and ordered eight large oysters to fasten themselves to the princess’s tail to show her high rank.

“But they hurt so much,” said the little mermaid.

“Pride must suffer pain,” replied the old lady. How gladly the princess would have shaken off all this finery and taken off the heavy wreath! The red flowers from her own garden would have suited her far better, but there was nothing she could do. So she said goodbye and rose through the water as lightly as a bubble.

The sun had just set as she lifted her head above the waves, but the clouds were still glowing crimson and gold, and the evening star shone beautifully through the shimmering twilight. The sea was calm and the air mild and fresh. A large three-masted ship lay becalmed on the water with only one sail up, for there was not a breath of wind, and the sailors sat idle on deck and in the rigging. There was music and singing on board, and as darkness fell a hundred colored lanterns were lit, as though the flags of every nation were waving in the air.

The little mermaid swam close to the cabin windows, and whenever a wave lifted her she could look through the clear glass at the many finely dressed people inside. The handsomest of all was a young prince with large black eyes. He was sixteen, and his birthday was being celebrated with great rejoicing. The sailors were dancing on deck, and when the prince stepped out of the cabin, more than a hundred rockets shot into the sky and made the night as bright as day. The little mermaid was so startled that she ducked under the water. When she raised her head again, it looked as if all the stars of heaven were falling around her; she had never seen fireworks before. Great suns whirled out sparks, glorious fireflies darted into the blue air, and everything was mirrored in the clear, calm sea. The ship was so brightly lit that every person and even the thinnest rope could be seen clearly. And how handsome the young prince looked as he shook everyone’s hand and smiled at them while the music rang out through the clear night!

It grew very late, but the little mermaid could not take her eyes off the ship or the beautiful prince. The colored lanterns were put out, no more rockets flew up, and the cannon fell silent, but the sea grew restless, and a moaning, grumbling sound rose from beneath the waves. Still the little mermaid stayed by the cabin window, rocking up and down on the water so she could look inside. After a while the sails were quickly spread and the ship went on her way. Soon, though, the waves rose higher, heavy clouds darkened the sky, and lightning flickered in the distance. A terrible storm was coming. The sails were taken in, and the great ship raced over the wild sea. The waves rose like mountains as if to tower over the mast, but the ship dived like a swan between them and then rose again on their high, foaming crests. To the little mermaid this seemed great fun, but not to the sailors.

At last the ship groaned and creaked. The thick planks gave way under the pounding sea that broke over the deck, the mainmast snapped like a reed, the ship heeled over on her side, and the water rushed in. Now the little mermaid saw that the crew were in danger. Even she had to watch out for the beams and planks of the wreck scattered on the water. One moment it was so pitch dark that she could see nothing at all; the next, a flash of lightning lit up the whole scene, and she could see everyone who had been on board except the prince. When the ship broke apart, she had seen him sink into the deep waves. At first she was glad, for she thought he would now come down to her. Then she remembered that humans cannot live in water, and that he would be dead by the time he reached her father’s palace. No, he must not die!

So she swam among the beams and planks littering the sea, forgetting that they could crush her, and dived deep under the dark water, rising and falling with the waves, until at last she reached the young prince. He could hardly swim any longer in that stormy sea; his arms and legs were failing, his beautiful eyes were closed, and he would have died if the little mermaid had not come to help him. She held his head above the water and let the waves carry them wherever they would.

By morning the storm was over, and not a scrap of the ship could be seen. The sun rose red and glowing out of the water, and its rays brought color back to the prince’s cheeks, but his eyes stayed shut. The mermaid kissed his high, smooth forehead and stroked back his wet hair. He looked to her like the marble statue in her little garden, and she kissed him again and wished with all her heart that he would live.

Soon they came in sight of land. She saw high blue mountains with white snow resting on their tops like a flock of swans. Near the shore were lovely green woods, and close by stood a large building—a church or a convent, she could not tell which—with orange and lemon trees in its garden and tall palms before its door. Here the sea made a little bay where the water was perfectly still but very deep. She swam with the handsome prince to the beach of fine white sand and laid him in the warm sunshine, careful to keep his head higher than his body.

Then bells rang in the large white building, and a group of young girls came out into the garden. The little mermaid swam farther out and hid among some tall rocks that rose from the water. She covered her hair and shoulders with sea foam so no one would see her little face, and she watched to see what would happen to the poor prince. Before long a young girl came to the spot where he lay. She seemed startled, but only for a moment; then she went for help, and the mermaid saw the prince come back to life and smile at everyone standing around him. But he sent no smile out to her; he did not know she had saved him. That made her very sad, and when he was led into the great building, she dived sorrowfully into the water and went home to her father’s castle.

She had always been quiet and thoughtful, and now she was more so than ever. Her sisters asked what she had seen on her first visit to the surface, but she would tell them nothing. Many evenings and mornings she rose to the place where she had left the prince. She watched the fruit in the garden ripen and be picked, and the snow melt from the mountaintops, but she did not see the prince, and each time she went home sadder than before. Her only comfort was to sit in her little garden with her arm around the beautiful marble statue that looked like him. She stopped caring for her flowers, and they grew wild over the paths, winding their long leaves and stems around the branches of the trees until the whole place was dark and gloomy.

At last she could bear it no longer and told one of her sisters everything. Soon the others knew the secret too, and before long it reached two mermaids whose close friend happened to know who the prince was. She too had seen the party on the ship, and she told them where he came from and where his palace stood.

“Come, little sister,” said the other princesses. Arm in arm they rose in a long row to the surface near the prince’s palace. It was built of bright, shining yellow stone, with long flights of marble steps, one of which ran right down into the sea. Splendid gilded domes rose above the roof, and lifelike marble statues stood between the pillars all around the building. Through the clear, tall windows could be seen noble rooms with costly silk curtains and tapestries, and walls hung with beautiful paintings. In the middle of the largest hall a fountain threw its sparkling jets high up toward the glass dome in the ceiling, through which the sun shone down on the water and the lovely plants around the basin.

Now that she knew where he lived, she spent many evenings and many nights on the water near the palace. She swam much closer to shore than any of the others dared; once she even went right up the narrow channel beneath the marble balcony, which cast a broad shadow on the water. There she would sit and watch the young prince, who thought he was alone in the bright moonlight. Many evenings she saw him sailing in a fine boat with music playing and flags flying. She peeped out from among the green rushes, and if the wind lifted her long silvery-white veil, people who saw it thought it was a swan spreading its wings.

On many nights, too, when fishermen were out at sea with their torches, she heard them say so many good things about the young prince that she was glad she had saved his life when he was tossed half-dead on the waves. She remembered how his head had rested against her and how warmly she had kissed him, but he knew nothing of it and could not even dream of her.

She grew fonder and fonder of human beings and wished more and more that she could wander among them, for their world seemed so much bigger than hers. They could fly across the sea in ships and climb high mountains above the clouds, and their lands, with woods and fields, stretched farther than she could see. There was so much she wanted to know that her sisters could not answer all her questions. So she went to her old grandmother, who knew all about the upper world, which she rightly called “the lands above the sea.”

“If people don’t drown,” asked the little mermaid, “do they live forever? Don’t they die, as we do down here?”

“Yes,” said the old lady, “they must die too, and their lives are even shorter than ours. We sometimes live for three hundred years, but when we come to an end we only turn into foam on the water; we don’t even have graves down here for those we love. We have no immortal souls, and we do not live a second life. We are like the green seaweed, which can never grow again once it has been cut. But human beings have a soul that lives forever, even after the body has turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the shining stars. Just as we rise out of the water and see the lands of the earth, they rise to unknown, glorious places that we shall never see.”

“Why don’t we have an immortal soul?” asked the little mermaid sadly. “I would gladly give all the hundreds of years I have to live to be human for just one day and to hope for a share in that glorious world above the stars.”

“You must not think about that,” said the old woman. “We feel we are much happier and better off than human beings.”

“So I shall die,” said the little mermaid, “and drift about as sea foam, and not hear the music of the waves or see the pretty flowers and the red sun ever after. Is there nothing I can do to win an immortal soul?”

“No,” said the old woman, “unless a man loved you so much that you meant more to him than his father and mother—if all his thoughts and all his love were fixed on you, and the priest put his right hand in yours, and he promised to be faithful to you now and forever. Then his soul would flow into your body, and you would share in the future happiness of mankind. He would give you a soul and keep his own as well. But that can never happen. Your fish’s tail, which we think so beautiful down here, is considered ugly on earth. They don’t know any better; they think you need two clumsy props called legs to be handsome.”

The little mermaid sighed and looked sadly at her tail. “Let us be happy,” said the old lady, “and dart and leap about for the three hundred years we have to live. That is really long enough, and afterward we can rest all the better. This evening we are having a court ball.”

It was one of those splendid sights we can never see on earth. The walls and ceiling of the great ballroom were thick but transparent crystal. Hundreds of enormous shells, some deep red and some grass green, stood in rows along each side, filled with blue fire that lit the whole hall and shone through the walls, so that the sea outside was lit up too. Countless fish, big and small, swam past the crystal walls, some with scales glowing purple, others shining like silver and gold. A broad stream flowed through the halls, and in it the mermen and mermaids danced to their own sweet singing. No one on earth has such lovely voices.

The little mermaid sang more sweetly than any of them. The whole court applauded with hands and tails, and for a moment her heart felt light, for she knew she had the most beautiful voice on land or sea. But soon she thought again of the world above. She could not forget the charming prince or her grief that she had no immortal soul like his. So she slipped quietly out of her father’s palace, and while everyone inside was singing and merry, she sat alone and sad in her little garden. Then she heard a bugle sounding through the water and thought, “He must be sailing up there, the one I love more than my father and mother, the one I would trust with all my happiness. I will risk everything for him and to win an immortal soul. While my sisters are dancing in my father’s palace, I will go to the sea witch. I have always been so afraid of her, but she can advise me and help me.”

So the little mermaid left her garden and set off toward the foaming whirlpools beyond which the witch lived. She had never been that way before. No flowers or grass grew there, only bare gray sand stretching out to the whirlpools, where the water spun like roaring mill wheels and dragged everything it caught down into the bottomless deep. She had to pass right between those crushing whirlpools to reach the witch’s realm, and then for a long way the only path led across warm, bubbling mud that the witch called her peat bog.

Beyond it stood the witch’s house, in the middle of a strange forest where every tree and bush was a polyp, half animal and half plant. They looked like hundred-headed snakes growing out of the ground. Their branches were long slimy arms with fingers like wriggling worms, and they moved joint by joint from root to tip. Whatever they could reach in the sea they seized and held so tightly that it could not escape. The little mermaid was so frightened that she stopped with her heart pounding and almost turned back. But she thought of the prince and of the human soul she longed for, and her courage returned. She wound her long flowing hair tightly around her head so the polyps could not grab it, crossed her hands over her breast, and shot forward like a fish through the water, between the supple arms and fingers reaching out on either side. She saw that each polyp clutched something in its many little arms, held as tightly as with iron bands: white skeletons of people who had drowned at sea and sunk to the depths, skeletons of land animals, oars, rudders, and sea chests—and even a little mermaid they had caught and strangled. That seemed the most horrible of all to the little princess.

Next she came to a marshy clearing in the forest where big, fat water snakes rolled in the mud, showing their ugly yellowish bellies. In the middle of it stood a house built from the bones of shipwrecked people. There sat the sea witch, letting a toad eat out of her mouth the way people sometimes feed a canary a lump of sugar. She called the ugly water snakes her little chicks and let them crawl all over her.

“I know what you want,” said the sea witch. “It is very foolish of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you sorrow, my pretty princess. You want to get rid of your fish’s tail and have two stumps to walk on like people on land, so that the young prince will fall in love with you and you can win an immortal soul.” And the witch laughed so loudly and horribly that the toad and the snakes fell to the ground and lay there wriggling.

“You have come just in time,” the witch went on, “for after sunrise tomorrow I could not help you until another year had passed. I will make you a potion. You must swim to land with it before sunrise tomorrow, sit on the shore, and drink it. Then your tail will split apart and shrink into what people call legs, and it will hurt as if a sword were passing through you. But everyone who sees you will say you are the loveliest human child they have ever seen. You will keep your gliding grace, and no dancer will ever move so lightly. Yet every step you take will feel as though you were treading on sharp knives, enough to make your feet bleed. If you can bear all this, I will help you.”

“Yes, I will,” said the little princess in a trembling voice, thinking of the prince and the immortal soul.

“But think carefully,” said the witch. “Once you have taken human shape, you can never be a mermaid again. You can never swim down through the water to your sisters or your father’s palace. And if you do not win the prince’s love, so that he forgets his father and mother for your sake and loves you with his whole soul and lets the priest join your hands as husband and wife, you will never have an immortal soul. On the first morning after he marries someone else, your heart will break and you will become foam on the crest of the waves.”

“I will do it,” said the little mermaid, and she turned as pale as death.

“But I must be paid, too,” said the witch, “and I don’t ask for a trifle. You have the sweetest voice of anyone in the depths of the sea, and you think you will charm the prince with it. That voice you must give to me. I will have the best thing you own in exchange for my potion, for I must mix my own blood into it so that it will be as sharp as a two-edged sword.”

“But if you take my voice,” said the little mermaid, “what will I have left?”

“Your lovely figure, your graceful walk, and your speaking eyes. Surely with those you can capture a man’s heart. Well, have you lost your nerve? Stick out your little tongue so I can cut it off as my fee, and you shall have the powerful potion.”

“So be it,” said the little mermaid.

The witch set her cauldron on the fire to brew the magic drink. “Cleanliness is a good thing,” she said, scouring the pot with snakes she had tied into a big knot. Then she pricked her own breast and let black blood drip into it. The steam that rose twisted itself into shapes so dreadful that no one could look at them without terror. Every moment the witch threw something new into the pot, and when it boiled, it sounded like a crocodile weeping. When at last the potion was ready, it looked like the clearest water.

“There it is,” said the witch, and she cut off the little mermaid’s tongue, so that she was mute and could neither speak nor sing. “If the polyps grab you on your way back through the forest,” said the witch, “just sprinkle a few drops of the potion on them, and their fingers will burst into a thousand pieces.” But the little mermaid did not need to, for the polyps shrank back in terror at the sight of the glittering potion, which shone in her hand like a twinkling star.

So she passed quickly through the forest and the marsh and between the roaring whirlpools. She could see that the torches in her father’s ballroom had been put out and that everyone inside was asleep. But she did not dare go in to them, for now that she was mute and leaving them forever, she felt as if her heart would break.

She crept into the garden, picked one flower from each of her sisters’ flowerbeds, blew a thousand kisses toward the palace, and rose up through the dark blue water. The sun had not yet risen when she reached the prince’s palace and came to the beautiful marble steps, but the moon was shining clear and bright. There the little mermaid drank the magic potion. It felt as if a two-edged sword went through her delicate body, and she fainted and lay as if dead.

When the sun rose and shone over the sea, she woke and felt a sharp pain. But there, right in front of her, stood the handsome young prince. He gazed at her so intently with his coal-black eyes that she lowered her own, and then she saw that her fish’s tail was gone and she had the prettiest pair of white legs and tiny feet any girl could wish for. She had no clothes, so she wrapped herself in her long, thick hair. The prince asked who she was and where she came from, and she looked at him gently and sadly with her deep blue eyes, but she could not speak.

Every step she took was just as the witch had warned: it felt like treading on needle points or sharp knives. But she bore it gladly and moved at the prince’s side as lightly as a soap bubble, so that he and everyone who saw her marveled at her graceful, swaying walk. Soon she was dressed in costly silks and muslins and was the most beautiful creature in the palace, but she was mute and could neither speak nor sing.

Lovely slave girls dressed in silk and gold came forward and sang for the prince and his royal parents. One sang better than all the rest, and the prince clapped and smiled at her. That grieved the little mermaid, for she knew she had once sung far more sweetly. “Oh, if only he knew,” she thought, “that I gave away my voice forever to be with him!”

Next the slave girls danced graceful, fairy-like dances to beautiful music. Then the little mermaid lifted her lovely white arms, rose onto the tips of her toes, and glided across the floor, dancing as no one had ever danced. With every movement her beauty showed more clearly, and her eyes spoke more directly to the heart than the slave girls’ songs. Everyone was enchanted, the prince most of all. He called her his little foundling, and she danced on and on to please him, though every time her foot touched the floor it felt like stepping on sharp knives.

The prince said she must stay with him always, and she was allowed to sleep outside his door on a velvet cushion. He had a page’s outfit made for her so she could ride with him. Together they rode through sweet-smelling woods where green branches brushed their shoulders and little birds sang among the fresh leaves. She climbed high mountains with the prince, and though her tender feet bled so that others could see her footprints, she only laughed and followed him until they could look down on the clouds below, like a flock of birds flying off to distant lands.

At the palace, when the whole household was asleep, she would go and sit on the broad marble steps, for it soothed her burning feet to bathe them in the cold sea water, and then she thought of everyone down in the deep. One night her sisters came up arm in arm, singing sadly as they floated on the water. She waved to them; they knew her, and told her how much she had grieved them. After that they came to the same place every night. Once, far off, she even saw her old grandmother, who had not been to the surface for many years, and the old Sea King, her father, with his crown on his head. They stretched out their hands to her but did not dare come as close to land as her sisters did.

As the days went by, she loved the prince more and more dearly, and he loved her the way one loves a little child. But it never entered his head to make her his wife. Yet unless he married her, she could not gain an immortal soul, and on the morning after he married another, she would dissolve into sea foam.

“Don’t you love me best of all?” the little mermaid’s eyes seemed to ask when he took her in his arms and kissed her fair forehead.

“Yes, you are dear to me,” said the prince, “for you have the kindest heart and you are the most devoted to me. And you are like a young girl I saw once and shall probably not see a second time. I was on a ship that was wrecked, and the waves cast me ashore near a holy temple where several young girls served. The youngest of them found me on the beach and saved my life. I saw her only twice. She is the only one in the world I could love, but you look like her, and you have almost driven her picture out of my mind. She belongs to the holy temple, so my good luck has sent you to me in her place, and we shall not part.”

“Ah, he does not know that it was I who saved his life,” thought the little mermaid. “I carried him over the sea to the wood where the temple stands. I sat hidden under the foam and watched until people came to help him. I saw the pretty girl he loves more than me.” She sighed deeply, but she could not cry. “He says she belongs to the holy temple, so she will not come out into the world, and they will not meet. But I am by his side and see him every day. I will take care of him and love him and give my life for him.”

Soon people began to say that the prince was to marry the beautiful daughter of a neighboring king, for a splendid ship was being made ready. The prince announced that he was only going to visit the king, but everyone assumed he was really going to see the daughter, and a great company was to go with him. The little mermaid smiled and shook her head, for she knew the prince’s thoughts better than anyone.

“I must make the journey,” he had told her. “I must see this beautiful princess; my parents want me to. But they won’t force me to bring her home as my bride. I cannot love her. She is not like the beautiful girl in the temple, whom you resemble. If I had to choose a bride, I would sooner choose you, my mute foundling with the speaking eyes.” And he kissed her rosy mouth, played with her long, flowing hair, and laid his head against her heart, while she dreamed of human happiness and an immortal soul.

“You aren’t afraid of the sea, are you, my silent child?” he said as they stood on the deck of the fine ship that was to carry them to the neighboring kingdom. He told her about storms and calms, about the strange fish in the depths below them, and about what divers had seen there, and she smiled at his descriptions, for she knew better than anyone what wonders lay at the bottom of the sea.

In the moonlight, when everyone on board was asleep except the helmsman at the wheel, she sat on deck gazing down through the clear water. She thought she could make out her father’s castle, and her old grandmother on top of it with her silver crown, looking up through the rushing current at the ship’s keel. Then her sisters rose to the surface and gazed at her sorrowfully, wringing their white hands. She waved and smiled and wanted to tell them how happy and well she was, but the cabin boy came near, and when her sisters dived down, he thought he had only seen sea foam.

The next morning the ship sailed into the harbor of the neighboring king’s beautiful city. Church bells were ringing, trumpets sounded from the high towers, and soldiers with flying banners and gleaming bayonets lined the way. Every day brought a new festival, with balls and parties one after another. But the princess had not yet appeared. People said she was being brought up in a religious house far away, where she was learning every royal virtue.

At last she arrived. The little mermaid was eager to see whether she was really beautiful, and she had to admit she had never seen anyone lovelier. The princess’s skin was fine and fair, and behind her long dark lashes her smiling blue eyes shone with truth and goodness.

“It was you,” cried the prince, “who saved my life when I lay as if dead on the beach!” And he took his blushing bride in his arms. “Oh, I am too happy,” he said to the little mermaid. “My dearest wish has come true. You will be glad for me, because you care for me more than anyone.”

The little mermaid kissed his hand and felt as though her heart had already broken. His wedding morning would bring her death, and she would turn into sea foam.

All the church bells rang, and heralds rode through the city proclaiming the engagement. Fragrant oil burned in precious silver lamps on every altar. The priests swung their censers, and the bride and groom joined hands and received the bishop’s blessing. The little mermaid, dressed in silk and gold, carried the bride’s train, but her ears heard none of the festive music and her eyes saw nothing of the holy ceremony. She thought only of the night of death that was coming and of everything she had lost in this world.

That same evening the bride and groom went aboard the ship. Cannons boomed and flags waved, and in the middle of the deck stood a magnificent tent of purple and gold with soft couches where the couple would rest that night. With full sails and a fair wind, the ship slid smoothly and lightly over the calm sea. When darkness fell, colored lamps were lit and the sailors danced merrily on deck. The little mermaid could not help thinking of the first time she rose from the sea and saw such celebrations. She joined the dance, swooping like a swallow chasing its prey, and everyone cheered in amazement; she had never danced so beautifully. Her tender feet felt slashed by sharp knives, but she did not care, for a sharper pain had pierced her heart.

She knew this was the last evening she would see the prince, for whom she had left her family and her home, given up her beautiful voice, and suffered terrible pain every day, while he knew nothing of it. It was the last night she would breathe the same air as he, or look at the starry sky and the deep sea. An endless night without thoughts or dreams awaited her, for she had no soul and now could never win one. There was joy and merriment on board until long after midnight, and she laughed and danced with the rest, with thoughts of death in her heart. The prince kissed his lovely bride, and she played with his black hair, until they went arm in arm to rest in the splendid tent.

Then the ship grew still. Only the helmsman stood awake at the wheel. The little mermaid leaned her white arms on the rail and looked east for the first pink of morning, the first ray of dawn that would bring her death. Then she saw her sisters rise from the water. They were as pale as she was, and their long, beautiful hair no longer streamed in the wind. It had been cut off.

“We have given our hair to the witch so she would help you, and you need not die tonight,” they said. “She gave us a knife—here it is. See how sharp it is! Before the sun rises you must drive it into the prince’s heart. When his warm blood splashes on your feet, they will grow together into a fish’s tail, and you will be a mermaid and can come down to us and live out your three hundred years before you turn into salty sea foam. Hurry! He or you must die before sunrise. Our old grandmother mourns for you so much that her white hair is falling out from grief, just as ours fell under the witch’s scissors. Kill the prince and come home! Hurry—don’t you see the red streaks in the sky? In a few minutes the sun will rise, and you must die.” Then they gave a deep, mournful sigh and sank beneath the waves.

The little mermaid drew back the crimson curtain of the tent and saw the lovely bride asleep with her head on the prince’s chest. She bent down and kissed his fair brow, looked at the sky where the rosy dawn was growing brighter and brighter, glanced at the sharp knife, and looked at the prince, who murmured his bride’s name in his sleep. The bride alone filled his thoughts. The knife trembled in the little mermaid’s hand. Then she flung it far out into the waves. The water turned red where it fell, and the drops that splashed up looked like blood. She gave the prince one last long, half-fainting look, threw herself from the ship into the sea, and felt her body dissolving into foam.

The sun rose from the waves, and its warm rays fell on the cold sea foam, but the little mermaid did not feel as if she were dying. She saw the bright sun, and all around her floated hundreds of lovely, transparent beings. Through them she could see the ship’s white sails and the red clouds in the sky. Their speech was musical but too delicate for human ears to hear, just as they themselves were invisible to human eyes. The little mermaid saw that she had a body like theirs and that she was rising higher and higher out of the foam. “Where am I?” she asked, and her voice sounded as airy as theirs, sweeter than any earthly music.

“Among the daughters of the air,” one of them answered. “A mermaid has no immortal soul and cannot gain one unless she wins a human being’s love; her eternal fate depends on someone else. The daughters of the air have no immortal soul either, but they can earn one through good deeds. We fly to hot countries and cool the stifling air that brings deadly sickness to people. We carry the scent of flowers to spread health and healing. When we have done all the good we can for three hundred years, we receive an immortal soul and share in mankind’s eternal happiness. You, poor little mermaid, have tried with your whole heart to do what we do. You have suffered and endured and raised yourself into the world of spirits by your goodness, and now, if you strive in the same way for three hundred years, you can win an immortal soul.”

The little mermaid lifted her shining eyes toward the sun and, for the first time, felt them fill with tears. On the ship there was bustle and noise. She saw the prince and his beautiful bride looking for her, gazing sadly at the pearly foam as if they knew she had thrown herself into the waves. Unseen, she kissed the bride’s forehead, fanned the prince, and rose with the other children of the air onto a rosy cloud sailing through the sky.

“In three hundred years we shall float like this into the kingdom of heaven,” she said. “We may even get there sooner,” one of her companions said softly. “Unseen, we can enter people’s homes where there are children. For every day we find a good child who makes its parents happy and deserves their love, our time of trial grows shorter. The child does not know when we fly through the room that we are smiling with joy at its goodness, for then a year is taken from our three hundred. But when we see a naughty or wicked child, we weep with sorrow, and every tear adds a day to our time of trial.”

Where this tale comes from

“The Little Mermaid” is a literary fairy tale by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. This retelling follows the English text in Project Gutenberg’s Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen (ebook 27200), a large collection in which the story appears between “The Little Match Girl” and “Thumbelina”; the ebook does not name its translator.

Andersen does not end with a wedding for the mermaid. She refuses to kill the prince and becomes one of the “daughters of the air,” who can win a soul through three hundred years of kind deeds. The final words belong to her new companions, who explain how good and naughty children can shorten or lengthen their time of trial.

Read the original: Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen (Project Gutenberg)

Reading guidance: for mature readers or adult-guided study. This full version includes tongue-cutting, persistent bodily pain, drowned bodies, a demand to kill the prince, and the mermaid entering the sea expecting death.

A closer reading

The mermaid wants more than marriage. Long before meeting the prince, she grows sun-red flowers and listens to reports of cities, birds and mountains. Later, her wish for an immortal soul gives that curiosity a spiritual urgency. Reducing her journey to winning a man misses both the earlier longing and the different future opened by the daughters of the air.

The bargain removes precisely the gift that could let her explain herself. At court she can dance beautifully, but nobody hears what each step costs or learns that she rescued the prince. His account of the shipwreck therefore remains incomplete. His affection is real but paternal, and her suffering cannot oblige him to return romantic love. The court’s admiration of beauty also fails as a measure of how well she is being treated.

Her family keeps trying to reach her: the sisters appear at night and finally trade their own hair for a possible return. Yet the offered escape requires killing someone who does not know her bargain. Throwing away the knife rejects that harm. The ensuing transformation belongs to Andersen’s religious fantasy; it should not be taught as a promise that injuring oneself or dying for love brings a reward.

The final address to children introduces another troubling condition: their behavior supposedly changes the spirits’ waiting time. It also says a good child ‘deserves’ parental love. Readers can recognize the ending’s attempt to influence its audience while rejecting the idea that children must earn care or carry responsibility for another being’s suffering.

Try this with the story

Track the mermaid’s voice in four scenes: singing at the sea court, bargaining with the witch, hearing the prince’s mistaken rescue story, and speaking among the daughters of the air. For each scene, write what she can communicate and who can hear her. Then explain how the final change differs from simply getting the prince to understand her.

Talk about it

• What does each of the five older sisters see on her first trip to the surface?
• What does the little mermaid give up to have legs, and what does she hope to gain?
• Why do you think she throws the knife into the sea instead of using it?

Related stories

• The Selkie Wife — a Scottish tale of a sea creature and a human love
• The Sea Maiden — a Celtic tale with a powerful being from the sea
• The Flower-Elves — a Chinese tale of spirits who long for help from a human