The Little Mermaid

Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it, and many church steeples would have to be placed one on top of another to reach from the surface to the bottom. Down there lived the Sea King with his mother and six beautiful mermaid daughters. The Sea King's palace was built of coral and polished shells, with great amber windows that opened and closed with the current. Each princess had her own garden plot where red flowers grew like flames and fishes glided in through the windows.

The youngest princess was the most beautiful of all, with skin as clear and delicate as a rose petal and eyes as blue as the deepest sea. She was a quiet, thoughtful child who loved to hear her grandmother's tales of the world above. The mermaids were not allowed to rise to the surface until they turned fifteen, and the youngest sister counted the days.

At last her fifteenth birthday arrived. She rose through the water as lightly as a bubble and beheld the most glorious sight: a handsome prince on the deck of a splendid ship, celebrating his birthday with music and fireworks. The little mermaid watched him all evening, entranced. Then a terrible storm arose. The waves crashed over the ship, the masts snapped like twigs, and the vessel foundered. The prince sank beneath the waves. The mermaid dove after him, held his head above water, and swam through the raging storm until she reached the shore near a holy temple. She laid him gently on the sand and kissed his pale brow, then hid behind the rocks as a young girl from the temple discovered him.

She returned home but could not forget the prince. She told her sisters about him and grew ever more curious about the human world and its immortal souls. Mermaids, she learned, live for three hundred years and then turn to sea foam, their existence ended forever. Humans, however, possess souls that live on in heaven for all eternity. This seemed to her the greatest gift of all.

Determined to win the prince's love and gain an immortal soul, she visited the sea witch in her lair among the bubbling hot springs. The witch agreed to brew a potion that would give her human legs, but the price was terrible: the mermaid must surrender her tongue and her beautiful voice. Furthermore, every step on her new legs would feel as though she were treading on sharp knives. And if the prince married another woman, the mermaid would die the very next morning and turn to sea foam.

The little mermaid accepted the bargain without hesitation. She drank the potion and felt a searing pain as her tail split into two human legs. She was found on the shore by the prince himself, who was enchanted by her grace and beauty. He took her to the palace and gave her fine clothes and jewels. She danced for him, though every step brought agony, and he admired her more than any other. Yet he never thought of marrying her, for his heart belonged to the temple girl who he believed had saved his life.

One day the prince announced his wedding to a princess from a neighboring kingdom. The little mermaid's heart broke, for she knew her fate was sealed. At the wedding feast aboard a ship, she danced one last time, though her feet bled. That night, her sisters appeared on the waves, their long hair shorn. They had traded their hair to the sea witch for a enchanted knife. If the mermaid would plunge the knife into the prince's heart and let his blood fall upon her feet, she would become a mermaid again and return to the sea.

She crept into the prince's chamber and stood over his sleeping form. But she could not do it. She loved him too much to harm him. At dawn, she threw herself into the sea. But instead of dissolving into foam, she felt herself rising. She had become a daughter of the air, one of the unseen spirits who, through three hundred years of good deeds, could at last earn what she had always longed for: an immortal soul.