Sea the Best in Others

A mermaid is a fictitious or mythical half-human creature with the head and trunk of a woman and the tail of a fish.  Most mermaids are depicted as beautiful and with long flowing golden hair.

Mermaids are seen as wise and in tune with the world around them. In some cultures, the mermaid signifies life and fertility in the ocean.  In other cultures she embodies the destructive nature of the water.  A mermaid lures sailors to their deaths and serves as an omen for storms, unruly seas and disaster.

The first mermaid story ever told is 3,000 years old.  The story is about Atagaris, an Assyrian goddess.  She accidentally killed her mortal lover Hadad.  She throws herself into a lake in distraught, but the gods saved her and turned her into a mermaid.  

The 1989 American animated musical fantasy film called The Little Mermaid was produced by Walt Disney Pictures. This film is loosely based on the 1837 Danish fairy tale The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. The Little Mermaid action takes place under the sea, in the Kingdom of Atlantica. This is supposedly located in Denmark, where Hans Christian Andersen is from.

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was born in Odense, near Copenhagen, Denmark.  His fairy tale stories achieved wide renown. He is also the author of plays, novels, poems, autobiographies, and travel books. His fairy tales are among the most frequently translated works in all of literary history.

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen is a fairytale about a mermaid who falls in love with a human when she visits the surface of the sea to observe life on land.  She sees a prince who she falls in love with and later rescues from a shipwreck.  The Little Mermaid sacrifices her comfortable life as a mermaid to transform into a human in an attempt to win the affection of the prince. 

The notable differences between Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ and Anderson’s original story include character names, the nature of life on land, the nature of the Little Mermaid’s transformation both to a human and back to a mermaid, and the marriage between the prince and his bride. 

The ending is the most obvious difference between Disney’s movie and Andersen’s fairytale. In the movie, the Prince kills the Sea Witch, rescues the Sea King, and marries the Little Mermaid. In Andersen’s fairytale, the Little Mermaid does not marry the Prince.  Instead she learns she must murder him to save herself.  She does not kill the Prince and dies.  The Little Mermaid is given a chance to gain an immortal soul by serving humanity for 300 years after her death.  Andersen’s story is one of love and self-sacrifice.

The mermaid statue in Copenhagen’s harbour was created in bronze by Edvard Eriksen.  Eriksen’s wife, Eline Eriksen, posed for the sculpture which was unveiled in August of 1913. The little mermaid has been the victim of vandalism several times. Twice she lost her head, once the arm was sawn off, and she has had paint poured on her several times. There are thirteen replicas of The Little Mermaid statue around the world. I had a chance to see the statue in the harbour on a trip to Denmark over 30 years ago.

There are the sayings on the bookmark called Advice from a Mermaid.

• Sea the Best in Others

• Be Enchanting

• Dive in

• Roll with the Tides

• Come Up for Air

• Sing Your Song

• Don’t Get Your Seaweed in a Bunch!

Here are my comments about each of these sayings.

• Sea the Best in Others - Seeing the good in others requires us to question our assumptions.  If you train yourself to find the good in others you will be a more positive and happy person. 

• Be Enchanting - If you are described as enchanting, it means you are very attractive, charming, or delightful. So be enchanting.  People will be drawn to you.

• Dive in - Be enthusiastically involved in something. 

• Roll with the Tides - The tide is a force that once it builds momentum, cannot be stopped.  So roll with the tides.  There is nothing on Earth that can stop it. 

• Come Up for Air - To come up for air means to stop what you are doing and do a different activity or take a break. 

• Sing Your Song - Sing your song not someone else’s.  Be yourself.

• Don’t Get Your Seaweed in a Bunch! - Seaweed is a plant that grows underwater. I think this is saying don’t get overly upset or emotional over something that is trivial or unimportant.  

Full of wonder and heart, The Little Mermaid is one of the most powerful fairy tales ever written. Have a great day everyone.  

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