Mermaid Tales

Andersen’s Influence on Mermaid Stories

Review by Rebecca Bingaman

            Hans Christian Andersen, the author of the original fairy tale, “The Little Mermaid,” captivates readers of all ages with this famous tale of a young girl who longs to be a part of something greater than herself.  What attracts the reader so much to mermaid stories like Andersen’s?  What is so enticing about a half-human, half-fish?  Perhaps it is the beauty and mystery of this wondrous creature that captivates the reader.  Perhaps it is the love story that is at the center of the tale—a prince who is unobtainable and the mermaid’s longing to be with him.  Perhaps it is the desire of the mermaid to reach something that is unreachable—immortality, a soul.  These elements, along with Andersen’s depiction of the tender spirit and innocence of his mermaid, charm and delight other writers enough to write their own versions of mermaid stories. While Andersen did not invent the myth of the mermaid, it is mostly because of his story that mermaids are so famous today and his influence on other writers that has evolved the story of “The Little Mermaid” into the many mermaid stories that are now available to readers around the world.  What started as a simple story of a young, innocent mermaid has sparked the imaginations of writers all over, and still continues to inspire writers to include this magical creature in their fantasy and fairy tales stories.      

            Andersen’s story of “The Little Mermaid” is about a mermaid who falls in love with a human prince and makes a deal with the sea witch to give her voice if she can become human.  However, she can never return to the sea as a mermaid and if the prince does not marry her she will die and “become mere foam upon the billows” (Anderson 44) because mermaids do not have souls.  She does not win the heart of the prince, but is saved from becoming sea foam by the “daughters of the air” (Anderson 50), and the mermaid can “win for [herself] a soul after three hundred years of good deeds” (Anderson 51).  While the story does not end entirely on a happy note, since the mermaid does not marry the prince, she does eventually earn herself a soul.  The reader grows to love the mermaid for her good heart and hopes for a happy ending for her.  It is Andersen’s ability to capture the pure spirit of the mermaid and her sad tale on paper that one grows to love the story and continues sharing their affection for it by passing the story on to others, or creating their own versions of it.              

Oscar Wilde’s mermaid tale is “The Fisherman and His Soul.”  The similarities between his story and Andersen’s are quite obvious.  The main similarity is that “'the Sea-folk have no souls'” (Wilde).  In fact, this point is the main subject of the story since the mermaid refuses to be the bride of the fisherman for the fact that he has a soul and she does not.  The fisherman is then eager to get rid of his soul to be with his beautiful mermaid because, after all, he thinks “Of what use is my soul to me? I cannot see it. I may not touch it. I do not know it” (Wilde).  Both Andersen’s version of the story and Wilde’s has a witch who helps the characters in their journey to get the person they desire.  In Andersen’s case, it is the sea witch who turns the mermaid into a human, and Wilde’s fisherman learns from the red-headed witch how to cut off his soul so he can be with the mermaid he falls in love with.  Also, like Andersen’s story, Wilde’s version does not have a “happily ever after” ending; both the mermaid and the fisherman die in the end.  The main difference between these two stories is that the mermaid in Andersen’s story looks to gain a soul, while the fisherman seeks to be rid of his.  The main themes in both stories—finding and losing one’s soul, or immortality, longing for and losing of love, and the enchantment of witchcraft—often appeal to audiences, so it is easy to see why Oscar Wilde chose these themes from Andersen’s fairy tale to incorporate into his own.  While Wilde’s mermaid tale is its own story and not just a different version of Andersen’s story, the similarities between them clearly show that Andersen’s story had some influence on Wilde’s tale.

            “The Lady of Gollerus” is a mermaid tale by W. B. Yeats.  It is similar to Wilde’s “The Fisherman and His Soul” in that there is a man who marries a mermaid princess and like both “The Little Mermaid” and “The Fisherman and His Soul,” it also has a sad ending.  The mermaid, who is human for the many years she is married, finds the cohuleen driuth, a hat that makes her a mermaid once again when she puts in on, and “all her old ideas and feelings came flooding over her mind. Dick and her children were at the instant forgotten, and placing the cohuleen driuth on her head she plunged in” (Yeats). After having a happy life being married to Dick and having children, the mermaid forgets all of this when she returns to the sea.  Her husband waits for her to return, but she never does.  Like Andersen’s fairy tale, it is a love story between a human and a mermaid who come from two different worlds, and because of this their love is never meant to be; another example of how Andersen’s storytelling influences other writers. 

More modern versions of Andersen’s story can be seen, not only in literature, but also in movies.  The most well known movie version of “The Little Mermaid” is probably the Disney movie, released in 1989.  This family friendly cartoon has little in common with the original tale though; from the fact that Ariel is raised by her father, not her grandmother, to the happy ending where she marries Prince Eric, the story is completely rewritten to fulfill the desires of the Disney company to appeal to children and families, perhaps because “the original version seems overly dark and dismal for what we share with our children these days” (“Symbolism and Folklore”). Still, with all of the differences, the movie still shares with Andersen’s original story the charm and good heart of the innocent little mermaid with a love story at the core.  Based on Andersen’s original story, it is probably the most well known mermaid story today.

            These are only a few of examples of mermaid tales influenced by Andersen’s creation.  There are many other stories all around the world about mermaids that have been spawned by Andersen’s influence.  Even modern day stories, such as J. K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” contain a form of mermaid, although it has been transformed slightly from what most would expect mermaids to look like: “The merpeople had grayish skin and long, wild, dark green hair. Their eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth, and they wore thick ropes of pebbles around their necks” (Rowling 497).  Would the stories mentioned above exist for children and adults alike to enjoy today if Andersen had not written the original fairy tale?  Although mermaids are often transformed into a different form to fit the needs of the author (like Rowling’s version) judging from the similarities that still exist between them, one can conclude that the most likely answer to this questions would be no.    

Although, “mermaids and other female water spirits have appeared in folklore and religions around the world for many centuries” (Psychology of Mermaids), it is Andersen’s version that is most often thought of at the mention of mermaid stories.    His original story has not only influenced fairy tales and fantasy stories in many countries and cultures in the past, but also continues to be an influence to writers all over the world today.     

           

                  

Works Cited

Andersen, Hans Christian.  “The Little Mermaid.” Andersen’s Fairy Tales. 1837. Introduction

            William T. Atwood. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1961. Print.

The Little Mermaid. Dir. Ron Clements & John Musker. Perf. Jodi Benson, Samuel E. Wright,

Jason Marin, Pat Carroll, Kenneth Mars, Buddy Hackett, and Christopher Daniel Barnes. DVD. Walt Disney Pictures, Buena Vista Distribution, 1989.

The Psychology of Mermaids. 2003. Wellesley College. Web. 13 Sep. 2009.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. New York: Scholastic Press, 2000. Print.

“Symbolism and Folklore in the Little Mermaid.” The-Little-Mermaid.com. 2008.

            Web. 13 Sep. 2009.    

Wilde, Oscar. “The Fisherman and His Soul.” Oscar Wilde Online: The Life and Works of Oscar

Wilde. 2009. Web. 13 Sep. 2009.

Yeats, W. B. “The Lady of Gollerus.” Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland. New York:

Gallahad Books, 1996. Humanity.org. 2009. Web. 13 Sep. 2009.