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The Little Mermaid, written by Hans Christian Andersen (1837), is my most favourite fairy tale.
As the original tale is very different from the Disney retelling, let me tell you what the real Little Mermaid is about.
It is a story about six sisters, mermaid princesses, living at the bottom of the sea. The youngest one is different from her siblings, more quiet and thoughtful, more intrigued by the world beyond the sea.
The sisters are looked after by their grandmother who tells them that when a mermaid reaches the age of fifteen, she can rise to the surface and explore the world above. In turn, each princess turns fifteen and goes to the surface, coming back to tell her sisters what she has seen.
When it is finally the turn of the youngest one, the Little Mermaid, she notices a ship. The people on board are celebrating the birthday of a handsome Prince. The Little Mermaid feels instantly attracted to him.
Soon, there is a storm and the ship sinks. The Little Mermaid is delighted at first, thinking that the Prince could join her beneath the water, but then she remembers that humans cannot live underwater. She takes him to the shore, leaving him at a temple and staying hidden nearby until some girls appear and one of them brings him back to consciousness. The Little Mermaid sinks back into the sea, and the Prince has no idea that it was her who saved him.
The Little Mermaid asks her grandmother about humans and finds out that they don't live as long as the mermen, but, unlike them, have immortal souls which float up to heaven when they die.
The Little Mermaid says that she would trade her long life for a human soul, and her grandmother tells her that the only way to gain an eternal soul would be if a human loved her so much that his soul would merge with her.
The Little Mermaid realises that she loves her Prince so much that she would give anything to be with him and gain a soul. So, she visits the only person who might help her-- the sea witch.
The sea witch offers her a potion which will make her tail turn into human legs, and she will never be able to transform back. It will hurt when she walks. If the prince won't marry her, she will not gain an immortal soul but she will die and become a foam on the surface of the sea, like all mermen, the day when the Prince marries another.
The Little Mermaid loves the Prince so much that she agrees, and pays for the potion with her beautiful singing voice.
She floats to the surface and drinks the potion, becoming a woman, but mute.
The Prince finds her but she can't answer any of his questions. He takes her to his palace where everyone admires her beauty. She grows closer to the Prince, but at nights she strolls to the shore where she meets her sisters who ask her to come back, telling her how they and their grandmother miss her.
The Little Mermaid soon realises that the Prince is very fond of her, but he has fallen in love with the girl at the temple who, according to him, saved his life. Being mute, the Little Mermaid cannot tell him that it was her who brought him to the shore.
The Prince is sent by his parents on a voyage to a neighbouring kingdom where he is supposed to pick up his bride, the king's daughter, to forge an alliance. The Little Mermaid comes with him. When the princess appears, they both see that it is the very girl who 'saved' him.
The Prince declares his love to her immediately and they travel back home to be married. The Little Mermaid knows that having failed to gain his love, she will die the next morning.
Heartbroken, she stands on the deck of the Prince's ship alone that night, when her sisters appear, their beautiful hair cut off. They tell her that they sacrificed their hair to the sea witch in exchange for a dagger which they give her. She must stab the Prince into the heart with it, so his blood spills on her feet and merges them again into a tail. Then she can return home.
But when the Little Mermaid sees the Prince sleeping next to his bride, she can't do it. She throws the dagger into the sea and dives, dispersing into foam.
Her spirit floats up into the air joining other mermaid spirits, daughters of the air, who tell her that they have a chance to gain an immortal soul by helping people-- bringing cool breezes into the warmest parts of the globe. At the end of their three centuries of service, they will gain a soul.
It is a tragic tale with a happy ending. The Little Mermaid cannot make the Prince love her, but by being kind, understanding and forgiving, she gains a chance at an eternal soul-- the thing she desires just as much, if not more, than the Prince's love.
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~~~I hope my retelling doesn't spoil the original too much~~~
