✝ Urban Legends ✝

Scary Fairytales : The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid lives in an underwater kingdom with her father the sea king, her grandmother and her five older sisters. When a mermaid turns fifteen they are allowed to visit the surface, and as she hears her sisters' stories of the world above she longs to be able to go there herself.

On her fifteenth birthday she does so, sees a ship carrying a handsome prince and immediately falls in love with him. When a storm hits, she saves him from drowning and delivers him safely to a temple, waiting unseen until a girl from the temple finds him. He never sees her.

The Little Mermaid's grandmother explains to her that humans have a much shorter lifespan than mermaids, but when they die they go to heaven as they have an eternal soul. Mermaids, who don't have souls, turn into sea foam and cease to exist.

Longing both for the prince and an eternal soul, the Little Mermaid visits the Sea Witch, who gives her legs in exchange for her tongue (as the Little Mermaid has an incredibly intoxicating voice). She gets her legs, however she cannot walk without feeling stabbing pains in the soles of her feet, as though she is walking on swords. Furthermore, she'll only get a soul if the prince falls in love with her and marries her. If he marries anybody else, she'll dissolve into seafoam and die soulless.

The prince is initially attracted to her, and loves to watch her dance (presumably not knowing how much pain it causes her to do so). Unfortunately, he's betrothed to another princess. But he says he'll refuse to marry her, because he does not love her - indeed, he cannot love anybody except the girl who rescued him from drowning.

But what do you know, his betrothed turns out to be that very girl from the temple who found him on the shore - the girl he thinks saved his life.

The prince and princess marry and the Little Mermaid's heart breaks. However, her sisters have made another deal with the Sea Witch - they've sold their hair to her in exchange for a knife. If the Little Mermaid kills the prince with the knife and lets the blood drip on her feet, she will become a mermaid again and will live out a full life.

But she can't do it. She can't bring herself to kill the man she loves. Instead, she throws herself into the sea and dissolves into seafoam - but instead of ceasing to exist, she becomes a spirit, a daughter of the air, because she strove so hard to gain an eternal soul. By doing good deeds, she now has the chance to attain that soul and eventually rise to heaven.