"The Little Mermaid," by Hans Christian Andersen

In which the young mermaid from under the sea wishes to be part of our world, makes a bargain with a sea witch, and attempts to win the love of a young prince in order to... get an immortal soul, a part of the story that our narrator had rather forgotten about.



Since "Snow White and Rose Red" was a bit on the short side, we're going to double up on our short story interlude by returning to Mr. Hans Christian Andersen. "The Little Mermaid," one of Andersen's popular "suffering is totally good for you" stories, was originally published in Denmark in 1836 as "Den lille havfrue," which literally translates as... "The Little Mermaid." As with "The Snow Queen" I had to pick a translation. Now, rather than just go with the one in the Andersen collection I own, because it inexplicably doesn't include "The Little Mermaid," which, what? I went with the original English translation from 1872, by H.P. Paull. As with Alice "Mrs. Edgar" Lucas," this is alternatively credited to H.B. Paull, Mrs. H.B. Paull, Mrs. H.H.B. Paull or various combinations thereof, when it seems her name is, in fact, Susannah Mary Paull.

Also, I, um, may have gone a bit overboard with the illustrations on this one. I found one rather extensive set of illustrations I really liked by Helen Stratton from 1899. Those are most of them, and all but one of the black-and-white illustrations. The full-color illustrations are by our friend Edmund Dulac, from the same 1911 edition that our "Snow Queen" illustrations came from. Then there are two others I threw in from Harry Clarke, 1916, and Hans Tegner, largely because I thought the others didn't include nearly enough pictures of the sea witch, who is awesome.

Oh, and it should be noted that whilst the Victorian era was one of rather notorious prudery, they were still kind of okay with breasts in art and illustrations. So... mermaid boobs ahead, if that kind of thing bothers you.

By the way, I apologize that this is late and that I didn't put in any timestamps for the images, but I need to stop pretending I can get these things done on time during tech week for a show I'm in. The theater people in the audience know what I'm sayin'. If I get a chance, I'll add the timestamps in.

The "F" from the opening line: "Far out in the ocean..." (Stratton)

More illustrations after the jump!

"The Snow Queen," Fourth to Seventh Stories

In which our heroine is assisted by crows, royalty, a most delightful robber girl, a friendly reindeer, and a couple of mysterious ladies to achieve a happy ending, though several deaths are dealt with rather casually.



Couple of things I had to look up: the poor murdered "postilions" are drivers of horse-drawn carriages; the "lath" enclosing the robber girl's wood pigeons is just strips of wood, like that making latticework; the Snow Queen's castle is on Spitsbergen, a very-far-north island belonging to Norway, and to get there they must travel to Lapland, which is a cultural region defined as where the indigenous Sami people live (the Sami were formerly known, and are referred to in this story, as the Lapp people, which is now frowned upon), and ultimately end up in the Finnmark, a very northerly county in Norway. There, they meet the Finn woman, who naturally enough is a member of the ethnic group associated with Finland.

And then of course we have the rest of the Edmund Dulac illustrations from 1911:

2:20 - "She has read all the newspapers in the world, and forgotten them again, so clever is she."

 One of the things I love about this story is how Gerda gets mixed up in what seem to be someone else's fairy tale entirely, like this one about the clever princess looking for a husband who can prove his worth to her, and Gerda's all "Mmhmm, mmhmm, can we get back to my tragic search now?"

12:29 - "'It is gold, it is gold!' they cried."

Also, I just absolutely adore the little robber girl, like how she takes pity on Gerda and thus earnestly promises that she won't let anyone else kill her, but will do it herself, and how she tries to make Gerda kiss one of the pigeons, and how she casually mentions that the friendly, helpful crow is now dead. She's my favorite.

23:51 - "The reindeer did not dare to stop. It ran on till it came to the bush with the red berries. There
it put Gerda down, and kissed her on the mouth, while big shining tears trickled down its face."

I'm a little puzzled about the fact that the text specifically says that the reindeer — twice — kiss Gerda on the mouth, but hey, who am I to judge.

26:50 - "The Snow Queen sat in the very middle of it when she sat at home."

Funny thing, we actually don't see very much of the Snow Queen. Gerda doesn't even meet her. She sure is purty, though. Actually, all of the villains in this story — the hobgoblin, the Snow Queen, the robbers — all get away completely scot-free. And, of course, millions of other shards of that mirror still exist in the world. Ah well.

And that's it for another short story interlude, and Andersen has now taken his place on The Bookshelf. Tomorrow we'll start up a new book, and then we'll resume our regular schedule. Thanks for listening!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!

"The Snow Queen," First to Third Stories

In which a demon's mirror freezes a young boy's heart, allowing him to be abducted by the eponymous Snow Queen, at which point his young friend Gerda sets out to find him, only to be waylaid by a beautiful garden.



For this short story interlude, I thought that, in honor of the opening of Disney's Frozen, I would read the story that (very) loosely inspired it: "The Snow Queen," by Hans Christian Andersen. Originally published in Danish in 1845, this specific translation was done by Alice Lucas (aka "Mrs. Edgar Lucas," or "Mrs. E. V. Lucas") in approximately 1900. It's not necessarily the best or the most definitive translation, but it is the one I happen to own, and it's also in the public domain, so it's the one I'll be going with.

As one of Andersen's most highly regarded stories (as well as one of his longest), it's garnered quite a number of illustrations over the years. I'm going to go with those by Edmund Dulac, used in a 1911 collection of Andersen's works that used Mrs. Lucas's translation and which is available at Project Gutenberg.

1:31 - "One day he was in a high state of delight because he had invented a mirror with this
peculiarity, that every good and pretty thing reflected in it shrank away to almost nothing."

5:52 - "Many a winter's night she flies through the streets and peeps in at the windows,
and then the ice freezes on the panes into wonderful patterns like flowers."

16:57 - "Then an old, old woman came out of the house; she was leaning upon a big, hooked
stick, and she wore a big sun hat, which was covered with beautiful painted flowers."

A quick note about pronunciation, for those wondering: in most translations, the little boy's name is spelled "Kai," which is presumably pronounced to rhyme with "tie." Mrs. Lucas's translation, though, spells it "Kay," which I don't think I can make myself read in any other manner than to rhyme with "hay." So, sorry about that.

As it turns out, "The Snow Queen" is a rather long short story, so it will be broken up into two parts. The next one will go up tomorrow (a day early, to catch up on the days I missed recently, woo!)

Also, how's everyone like the new mic? Sexy, yeah? Or am I the only one who can hear a difference?


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!