The
Little Mermaid
Hans
Christian Anderson
Once
Upon a time, far out at sea where the water was as clear as crystal
and very, very deep, there lived the Sea King. He had six beautiful
daughters. The youngest was the most beautiful of them all.
When
a mermaid turned 15, she was allowed to rise to the surface from the
sanctuary of the kingdom to observe the realm of the two-legged
people, where the flowers were fragrant and the forests green. As
soon as the eldest was of age, she rose to the surface of the ocean.
She had hundreds of things to tell her sisters when she returned, as
did each other sisters. Finally, it was the Little Mermaid’s turn.
One of the first things she saw was a ship with a handsome prince on
board. A party was being held in the prince’s honor as it was his
16th
birthday. The Little Mermaid fell in love with the prince and watched
him from a distance. Then a great storm hit and the vessel cracked.
The Little Mermaid saw the prince sink into the treacherous waters.
She remembered that human beings, unlike her, couldn’t breathe
under water and would drown. She saved the prince from drowning and
delivered him unconscious to shore near a temple. She waited until he
was found by a young girl from the temple and disappeared into the
waves as quietly as she arrived.
The
Little Mermaid asked her grandmother whether humans could live
forever if they did not drown. She was told that humans had a shorter
lifespan than the merfolks’ 300 years, but when mermaids died they
turned to sea foam and ceased to exist. Humans had an eternal soul
that lived on in Heaven. Her longing to be with the prince and to
possess an eternal soul overwhelmed her, and she visited the Sea
Witch who sold her a potion that would give her legs in exchange for
her tongue as the Little Mermaid had the most enchanting voice world.
The Little Mermaid agreed despite the warnings of the Sea Witch that
she could never return to the sea, that drinking the potion would
make her feel as if a sword had pierced her, that each step she took
on her legs would feel like she was walking on sharp swords. The
witch told her that she would only get a soul if the prince loved her
and married her, for then a part of his soul would flow into her.
Otherwise, at dawn on the first day of his marriage to another, the
Little Mermaid would die of a broken heart and turn into sea foam.
The Little Mermaid drank the potion and met the prince, who is
mesmerized by her beauty and grace even though she is mute. Most of
all he liked to see her dance not knowing the terrible pain she
suffered to do so for him. The prince’s father then arranged a
marriage between him and a princess of a neighbouring kingdom. The
prince told the Little Mermaid he could only marry the young woman
from the temple, who he believed rescued him from drowning. It turned
out that the princess was the temple girl, who had been sent there to
be educated. The wedding was announced.
The
Little Mermaid’s heart broke. But before dawn, her sisters rose
from the ocean with a knife from the Sea Witch in exchange for their
long, flowing hair. If the Little Mermaid slayed the prince with the
knife and let his blood drip on her feet, she would become a mermaid
again.
However,
the Little Mermaid could not kill the sleeping prince. As dawn broke,
she threw herself into the sea and became foam. But instead of
ceasing to exist, she felt the warmth of the sun. She had turned into
a spirit, a daughter of the air. She was told by the spirits in the
air that she had become like them because she strove with all her
heart to gain an eternal soul. She would earn her own soul by doing
good deeds for 300 years. For each good child she found, a year would
be taken from her sentence, and she would eventually rise up into the
kingdom of God.
-The
End-
No comments:
Post a Comment