The REAL Story Behind Disney Movie

Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid

In the Hans Christian Andersen story that Disney based their movie on, the little mermaid's tongue is cut out. She has to live in horrific pain and her feet bleed ceaselessly, then the prince marries another woman anyway. The little mermaid has a choice; she can kill the prince and turn back into a mermaid, or throw herself into the ocean and die. Unable to kill the prince, she commits suicide. So then the prince marry his personal wife.

Though The Little Mermaid is an Andersen original, he took inspiration from a tale called Undine, by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. In Undine, a knight marries a water spirit and she gets a human soul. Undine's spirit relatives are mischievous and at times quite evil, and they begin to complicate the marriage. It doesn't help that Undine lets her husband's ex-girlfriend, Bertilda, who is also Undines half-sister, live with them at the castle. The knight falls in love with Bertilda, and they both begin to treat Undine badly which makes her uncle, a powerful water spirit, very angry.

Undine commits suicide by throwing herself into a raging river to save her husband and Bertilda from the wrath of her uncle. She loses her human soul and becomes a spirit again. The knight believes she is dead and marries Bertilda, but this is a big no-no if you have previously been married to a water spirit. Undine is forced by spirit protocol to return in her water nixie form and kill her ex-husband! After he is buried, a tiny stream appears and circles his grave; thus, Undine and the knight remain together forever in death. Well now that's a true happy ending!