The Little Mermaid Gets No Wedding

Three days before Valentine's Day 1837, Hans Christian Andersen wrote to a friend about his new story, The Little Mermaid. Letting a mermaid win a soul through a man's love, he said, was "bestemt galt" (decidedly wrong). So he wrote one where the prince marries someone else, she is handed a knife to kill him, and she turns to foam instead.

The story as it is told

Most people remember it as a romance. A mermaid watches a ship break apart in a storm and pulls a drowning prince to shore. She cannot forget him, so she bargains with the sea witch and gives up her voice for a pair of legs. On land, with no words to say, she still wins his heart, and in the end they marry, and the story closes on the wedding.

What we can confirm

"Den lille Havfrue" was first published on April 7, 1837, in the third booklet of Andersen's Eventyr, fortalte for Børn (Fairy Tales Told for Children), according to the H.C. Andersen Centre's register of his works. The Royal Danish Library's text portal reproduces it from Erik Dal's critical edition, which follows the original booklets.

The price of legs is spelled out. The sea witch tells her every step will feel "som om du traadte paa en skarp Kniv, saa dit Blod maatte flyde" (as if you trod on a sharp knife, so that your blood must flow). Then "Hexen... skar Tungen af den lille Havfrue" (the witch cut out the little mermaid's tongue). The deal has a deadline: if the prince marries another, "den første Morgen efter... da maa dit Hjerte briste, og du bliver Skum paa Vandet" (the first morning after, your heart must break and you become foam on the water).

He does marry another, a neighbouring king's daughter he believes saved his life. That night the mermaid's sisters rise from the sea with their hair cut off. They traded it to the witch for a knife: "Før Sol staaer op, maa du stikke den i Prindsens Hjerte" (before the sun rises you must stab it into the prince's heart), and his blood on her feet will turn them back into a tail. She looks at the sleeping couple, throws the knife into the waves, which "skinnede røde" (shone red) where it fell, leaps overboard and feels her body dissolve into foam.

Andersen had already explained what he was doing. On February 11, 1837, two months before publication, he wrote to the poet B.S. Ingemann that the new booklet was coming and that "Den lille Havfrue" was "ganske min egen Opfindelse" (entirely my own invention) and the only one of his works besides one episode in his novel The Improvisatore "som har rørt mig selv, i det jeg nedskrev det" (that moved me as I wrote it). Then: he had not, like La Motte Fouqué in Undine, made the mermaid's immortal soul depend on "et fremmet Væsen, et Menneskes Kjærlighed" (an outside being, a human's love). "Det er bestemt galt! Det blev jo noget Tilfældigt" (That is decidedly wrong! It would be something accidental). "Jeg har ladet Havfruen gaae en naturligere, guddommeligere Vei" (I have let the mermaid go a more natural, more divine way).

That way is the ending. She rises among "Luftens Døttre" (the daughters of the air), who tell her a mermaid can win a soul only through human love, while they earn one through three hundred years of good deeds. The last paragraph turns to the reader's own house: each day they find a good child, a year comes off the three hundred, but "see vi et uartigt og ondt Barn" (if we see a naughty and wicked child), they weep, "og hver Taare lægger en Dag til vor Prøvetid" (and every tear adds a day to our time of trial).

The facts

• First published Apr 7, 1837, in Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Første Samling. Tredie Hefte. 1837; register no. 16 (BFN 304). H.C. Andersen Centre, register of works.
• Booklet "udkom 7.4.1837"; later edition "Andet Oplag... Forlagt af Universitets-Boghandler C. A. Reitzel. Trykt hos Bianco Luno. 1846." KB tekstportal, Dal critical edition (1990) apparatus.
• Knife-steps, the cut tongue, foam on the morning after his wedding, the sisters' knife, "skinnede røde", foam. KB tekstportal text of the 1837 booklet; matches Danish Wikisource.
• "Luftens Døttre"; 300 years; good child takes a year off; "hver Taare lægger en Dag til vor Prøvetid". same.
• Letter, Copenhagen, Feb 11, 1837, to B.S. Ingemann: "ganske min egen Opfindelse"; "Jeg har ikke, som La Motte-Fouque i Undine, ladet Havfruens Erhvervelse af en udødelig Sjæl, beroe paa et fremmet Væsen, et Menneskes Kjærlighed. Det er bestemt galt!"; "naturligere, guddommeligere Vei". Text from microfilm scan; addressed to Ingemann at Sorø. H.C. Andersen Centre letter database, bid=1017.
• The letter also says the third booklet is "vistnok det Bedste" (surely the best) and that Heiberg called the tales the best thing Andersen had written. same.
• English 1911: "Before the sun rises, you must plunge it into the prince's heart"; "every tear adds a day to the time of our probation." Hodder & Stoughton, London, illustrated by Edmund Dulac; translator not named in the eBook. Gutenberg #17860.

Related: What enters the public domain in 2027

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