The Little Mermaid

Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the bluest cornflower and as clear as glass, it is so deep that no anchor rope could ever reach the bottom. Down there live the sea folk, in a world of swaying plants and drifting fish, and at the very deepest place stands the palace of the Sea King, its walls built of coral, its windows of clear amber, its roof made of shells that open and close with the water and shine with pearls.

The Sea King had been alone for many years, since the death of his queen, and his wise old mother kept house for him and cared for his six granddaughters, the little sea princesses. All were lovely, but the youngest was the loveliest of all, with skin like a rose petal and eyes as blue as the deep sea. Like her sisters, she had no feet, only a graceful fish's tail.

The princesses played in the great coral halls and tended gardens of flame-colored flowers on the sea floor. Each sister shaped her garden bed as she liked, but the youngest made hers round like the sun, and grew flowers as red as sunlight. She kept there, too, a beautiful marble statue of a boy that had sunk from a wrecked ship, and planted a willow beside it whose branches hung down like a soft curtain.

More than anything, the little mermaid loved to hear about the world above the waves — of ships and towns, forests and people. Her grandmother told her that when each princess turned fifteen, she would be allowed to rise to the surface and see it all for herself. The youngest had the longest to wait, and she longed for it more than any of her sisters.

One by one, as they came of age, the sisters rose up and returned with wonderful stories — of a great lit city and its bells, of a golden sunset, of green hills and singing birds, of the wide open sea, of icebergs glittering like diamonds in a storm. But each admitted that after a while, home below the sea felt best of all.

At last it was the youngest's turn. Her grandmother dressed her in a wreath of white lilies and clasped eight oysters to her tail to show her rank, though they pinched.

"One must suffer to be grand," said the old queen.

The little mermaid said her farewells and rose, light as a bubble, to the surface.

The sun had just set, and a great three-masted ship lay becalmed nearby, strung with lanterns, alive with music. Through a cabin window she saw a handsome young prince, no older than sixteen, whose birthday was being celebrated with fireworks that lit the sky like falling stars. She thought she had never seen anyone so wonderful.

But as the night wore on, a storm rose. The ship was tossed and broken apart, and the little mermaid watched in horror as the prince sank beneath the waves. She swam through the wreckage, found him, and held his head above water until the storm passed. By morning she had carried him to a sandy shore near a great white building with a garden of orange trees. She laid him gently on the sand and stayed hidden among the rocks, watching, until a young girl found him and raised the alarm. She saw the prince open his eyes and smile — but not at her, for he did not know who had saved him. Sorrowful, she returned home.

From then on she was quieter than ever. She could not stop thinking of the prince, and often rose alone to the shore where she had left him, though she never saw him there again. At last she told her sisters, and one of them knew where his palace stood — so together they went to see it, a splendid building of pale stone with marble stairs leading down into the sea. After that, the little mermaid often lingered near it in the moonlight, watching him from the water, unseen.

The more she loved him, the more she longed to be human. She asked her grandmother whether people lived forever.

"No," said the old queen. "Their lives are shorter than ours. But they have an immortal soul that lives on after they die, that rises to a bright world we shall never see. We mermaids live three hundred years, but when our time ends we become foam on the sea, with nothing left of us at all."

"Is there truly no way to win a soul?" asked the little mermaid.

"Only if a man loved you above everyone else, and married you before God," said her grandmother. "Then his soul would share itself with yours. But that could never happen — they think our tails ugly. Up there, one must have legs to be thought beautiful."

The little mermaid sighed and looked at her tail. That night, while her sisters danced at a court ball, she slipped away instead to find the sea witch, who lived beyond the roaring whirlpools, in a strange forest of grasping polyps. Trembling but determined, she made her way through it to the witch's house of bone.

"I know what you want," said the witch, with a terrible laugh. "You wish to trade your tail for human legs, so you may win your prince and an immortal soul. It is a foolish wish, but I will help you — for a price."

She brewed a potion and warned the little mermaid: once she drank it and took human form, she could never become a mermaid again. Every step on her new legs would feel like walking on knives, though she would move more gracefully than any dancer alive. And if the prince did not come to love her above all else and marry her, she would never gain a soul — instead, on the morning after his wedding to another, her heart would break and she would turn to sea foam.

"I will do it," said the little mermaid.

"But you must pay," said the witch. "You have the loveliest voice in the sea. I will take it as my price."

"Then what will be left to me?" asked the little mermaid.

"Your beauty, your grace, your speaking eyes," said the witch. "That will be enough to win a human heart."

So it was done, and the little mermaid lost her voice and could never sing or speak again. She swam home in silence, kissed her sleeping family farewell without a word, and rose to the surface near the prince's palace just as dawn was breaking.

She drank the potion. Pain swept through her like a blade, and she fainted. When she woke, the prince stood before her, and she saw that her tail was gone — in its place, two slender legs. She had no clothes, so she wrapped herself in her long hair. The prince, charmed by her, though she could not tell him who she was or how she came to be there, led her into the palace.

She became his favorite companion. Though every step pained her as if she walked on knives, she danced for him more beautifully than anyone had ever danced, and he called her his little foundling and kept her ever near him — but he never thought to make her his wife. He told her once of a girl who had saved his life on a beach near a temple, whom he had glimpsed only twice and could never forget, though he said the little mermaid reminded him of her and was dear to his heart. She knew, of course, that she herself had been that girl — but she had no voice to tell him so.

Then word came that the prince was to marry the neighboring king's daughter. He told the little mermaid he did not wish it, that his heart still belonged to the girl from the temple whom she resembled — but when the princess arrived, he cried out in joy, for she was the very girl who had found him on the shore. Within days, the wedding was arranged, and the little mermaid held the bride's train at the ceremony, her heart breaking silently, for she knew what the morning after his wedding would mean for her.

That evening the newlyweds boarded a ship bound for the prince's homeland, and the little mermaid danced once more among the sailors, hiding her sorrow, for it was to be her last night in the world.

Near dawn, her sisters rose from the sea to meet her. Their beautiful long hair had been cut off.

"We gave our hair to the witch," they told her, "so that she would help you. She has given us a knife. Before the sun rises, you must plunge it into the prince's heart. When his blood touches your feet, they will join again into a tail, and you will be a mermaid once more, and may come home to us and live out your years. Hurry — before the sun rises!"

The little mermaid took the knife and went to the tent where the prince lay sleeping, his young bride's head resting against him. She bent and kissed his brow. She looked at the knife, and then at him once more. But she could not do it. She flung the knife far out into the sea, cast one last look at him, and threw herself from the ship into the water.

She felt her body dissolve into foam — yet she did not feel as though she were dying. The warm sun rose over the sea, and around her floated hundreds of bright, transparent beings, light as air.

"Where am I going?" she asked, and found she had a voice again, soft and clear.

"To the daughters of the air," they answered. "A mermaid has no immortal soul of her own, unless she wins the love of a human heart. We too have no soul, but through three hundred years of good deeds — bringing cool breezes to weary lands, carrying the scent of flowers, giving comfort where we can — we earn one for ourselves. You have suffered with your whole heart and done all that love could ask; now you may join us, and in time, earn a soul of your own."

The little mermaid looked up at the sun with new eyes, and for the first time in her life, felt tears — tears of gladness. Below her, on the ship, the prince and his bride searched the water sadly, sensing she was gone. Unseen, she kissed the bride's forehead, and breathed a cool, gentle wind across the prince, then rose with the other daughters of the air into the bright, drifting clouds — carried onward, gently, toward three hundred years of kindness, and the soul that waited for her at the end of them.