Jump to navigation Jump to search This article is about the fairy tale. Edmund Dulac – The Mermaid – The Prince. The tale was first published in 1837 and has been adapted to various media, including musical theatre, anime the russian bride ending a Disney animated film. The Little Mermaid found the prince’s statue in the under sea.

When a mermaid turns fifteen, she is permitted to swim to the surface for the first time to glimpse the world above, and when the sisters become old enough, each of them visits the upper world one at a time every year. When the Little Mermaid’s turn comes, she rises up to the surface, watches a birthday celebration being held on a ship in honor of a handsome prince, and falls in love with him from a safe distance. A violent storm hits, sinking the ship, and the Little Mermaid saves the prince from drowning. She delivers him unconscious to the shore near a temple.

Here, she waits until a young woman from the temple and her ladies in waiting find him. The Little Mermaid becomes melancholic and asks her grandmother if humans can live forever. The grandmother explains that humans have a much shorter lifespan than a mermaid’s 300 years, but that when mermaids die, they turn to sea foam and cease to exist, while humans have an eternal soul that lives on in heaven. The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, visits the Sea Witch in a dangerous part of the ocean.