through the water they looked much bigger than to our eyes; and if it seemed like a dark cloud slipped under them, she knew that either a whale was swimming above her, or it was a ship with many people on-board. Little did they know that there was a lovely little mermaid standing below them, reaching her white hands up towards the ship.
Then the eldest princess turned fifteen and was permitted to go above the surface.
When she came back, she had hundreds of things to tell, but the most lovely thing, she said, was to lie in the moonlight on a sand bank in the calm sea, and see the big city right by the coast, where lights were twinkling like hundreds of stars; to hear the music, and the noise and commotion of carts and people; to see the many church towers and spires, and hear how the bells rang. Just because she couldn’t get there, she longed the most for all these things.
Oh, how intently the youngest sister listened to all this, and afterwards, when she stood by the open window in the evenings and looked up through the dark blue water, she thought about the big city with its noise, and then she thought she could hear the church bells ringing all the way down to where she was.
The next year the second sister was allowed to rise to the surface of the water and swim wherever she wanted. She broke the surface just as the sun set, and that was the sight she found the most beautiful. The whole sky had looked like gold, she said, and she couldn’t describe how wonderful the clouds were. They had sailed over her, red and violet, but even more quickly than the clouds, a flock of wild swans had flown like a long white ribbon over the water towards the setting sun, and she swam towards it, but it sank, and the rosy hue faded from the sea and the clouds.
The following year the third sister ascended. She was the boldest of them all, so she swam up a wide river that ran out to sea. She saw splendid green hills with grapevines; castles and farms peeked out from magnificent forests. She heard how all the birds were singing, and the sun was so warm that she often had to dive under the water to cool her burning face. In a little inlet she met a group of small human children who were quite naked, and they were running and playing in the water. She wanted to play with them, but they ran away frightened, and a little black animal came and barked terribly at her. It was a dog, but since she had never seen a dog before she became frightened and swam out to the open sea, but she never forgot the magnificent forests, the green hills, and the beautiful children who could swim in the water, even though they didn’t have a fish tail.
The fourth sister was not so bold. She stayed out in the wild sea and explained how that was the most beautiful sight. You could see around for many miles, and the sky above was like a huge glass bell jar. She saw ships, but they were so far away that they looked like seagulls. The amusing dolphins had turned somersaults, and the big whales had sprayed water from their blow holes so that it looked like a hundred fountains all around.
Then it was the fifth sister’s turn. Her birthday was during the winter, and so she saw what the others had not seen the first time. The sea appeared quite green, and there were big icebergs floating around. Each one looked like a pearl, she said, and they were even bigger than the church steeples that people built. They had the most fantastic shapes and glittered like diamonds. She had sat on one of the biggest ones, and all the sailing ships gave her a wide berth where she sat with the wind blowing her long hair, but later in the evening it became overcast, and there was lightning and thunder while the black sea lifted the icebergs so high up that they shone red in the strong flashes of lightning. All the ships took in sail, and there was fear and dread, but she sat calmly on her floating iceberg and watched the blue bolts of lightning zigzag into the shining sea.
The first time each of the sisters came up to the surface, she was enthusiastic about all the new and lovely things she saw, but when they now were grown up and could go up there whenever they wanted, they became indifferent to it. They longed for home, and at the end of a month they said that it was, after all, most beautiful down there, and that’s where you felt at home.
On many evenings the five sisters took each other’s arms and rose up over the water in a row. They had lovely voices, more beautiful than any person, and when a storm was brewing so that they thought ships could be lost, they swam in front of the ships and sang so soulfully about how lovely it was on the floor of the ocean and told the sailors not to be afraid to come down there. Of course, the sailors could not understand their words. They thought it was the storm, and they also did not see the wonders of the sea, because when the ship sank, the people drowned and only came as dead men to the sea king’s castle.
When the sisters rose up in the evenings, arm in arm, to the surface of the sea, the little sister stood quite alone and looked after them, and she felt that she was going to cry, but mermaids have no tears, and so she suffered even more.
“Oh, if only I were fifteen!” she said. “I know that I’ll love that world up there and the people who live in it.”
Finally she turned fifteen.
“Now we’re getting you off our hands,” said her grandmother, the old widowed queen. “Come and let me dress you up, like your sisters,” and she placed a wreath of white lilies on her head, but every petal of the flower was half a pearl, and the old queen let eight big oysters clamp onto the princess’ tail to indicate her high rank.
“That really hurts!” said the little mermaid.
“No pain, no gain,” her grandmother said.
Oh, how she wanted to throw off all the finery and take off the heavy wreath! The red flowers in her garden suited her much better, but she didn’t dare change anything. “Good bye,” she said, and floated so easily and lightly, like a bubble, up through the water.
The sun had just gone down as she lifted her head over the sea, but all the clouds were still shining red and gold, and in the middle of the pale pink sky the evening star shone clearly and beautifully. The air was mild and fresh, and the sea was dead calm. There was a large ship with three masts on the sea, but only one sail was up because there wasn’t a breath of wind, and sailors were sitting in the rigging and on the yardarms. There was music and singing, and as the evening grew darker, hundreds of multi-colored lanterns were lit. It looked as if the flags of all nations were waving in the air. The little mermaid swam right up to the cabin porthole, and every time the waves lifted her up, she could see in through the clear panes where she saw many people in evening dress, but the most beautiful was a young prince with big black eyes. He could not have been much over sixteen years old. It was his birthday, and that was the reason for all the festivities. The sailors danced on the deck, and when the young prince appeared, over a hundred rockets were fired into the air and lit up the sky like daylight, so the little mermaid became frightened and dove down into the water. But she soon stuck her head up again, and it seemed as if all the stars in the sky fell down to her. She had never seen such fireworks. Big suns swirled around; magnificent fire-fish were swaying in the blue air; and everything was reflected in the clear, calm sea. It was so light on the ship itself that you could see each little rope, let alone the people. Oh, how gorgeous the little prince was! And he shook hands with people and laughed and smiled, while the music played through the lovely night.
It grew late, but the little mermaid couldn’t take her eyes from the ship and the wonderful prince. The colorful lanterns were extinguished. There were no more rockets shooting into the air, and the cannons were silent, but deep in the sea there was humming and buzzing. She floated on the water and rocked up and down, so she could
