The Little Mermaid lives in an underwater kingdom with her widowed father (The Sea-King), her dowager grandmother, and her five older sisters, each of whom had been born one year apart.
When a mermaid turns fifteen, she is permitted to swim to the surface for the first time to catch a glimpse of the world above. When the sisters become old enough, each of them visits the upper world one at a time every 365 days. As each returns, the Little Mermaid listens longingly to their various descriptions of the world inhabited by human beings.
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. Then 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, the Little Mermaid waits until a young woman from the temple and her ladies-in-waiting find him. To her dismay, the prince never sees the Little Mermaid or even realizes that it was she who had originally saved his life.
Comments