A fishy tale

Tue 3 Oct 2017

With Northern Ballet bringing us their stunning new version of The Little Mermaid in November, we take a look at the original tale - and the man behind it.

In terms of famous things to come out of Denmark, the story of The Little Mermaid is right up there with bacon and breakfast pastries – it’s so iconic that the famous statue of the Mermaid in Copenhagen harbour was transported to China to be the centre piece of the Danish pavilion at the Shanghai Expo in 2010.

However, if your image of the story comes from the Disney version, you may need to have a re-think. While Disney gave the story a happy ending, the original tale is rather darker. They both start from the same premise. A mermaid falls in love with a human man, and makes a deal with a sea witch, which gives her human legs, but takes away her voice. In the Hans Christian Andersen original, she has to marry the prince or die. As if that wasn’t enough, every step she takes on her new legs leaves her in agonising pain, as if she’s walking on knives. As you may have guessed from this start, there is not a happy ending to this tale – she fails to win the prince’s hand in marriage, and is thus condemned to death. Cheerful, no – but you can certainly see how it will provide plenty of drama for Northern Ballet’s new production.

So, who was the man behind this frankly rather disturbing tale? Hans Christian Andersen was born in Denmark in 1805. Although his father claimed to have be descended from nobility, his family was poor, and young Hans’ education came via charity. He had to work from an early age, and was apprenticed first to a weaver, and then later to a tailor. His luck changed when he went to Copenhagen to seek work as an actor. He joined the Royal Danish Theatre, where his talent as a writer was discovered. The theatre’s director arranged for him to complete his education.

Andersen’s first great success as a writer was a novel, titled The Improvisatore, published in 1835. The first part of his Fairy Tales was also published, followed by another instalment in 1837. Although they’re now what he’s best known for, when first published, they sold poorly. They only began to attain greater popularity after they were translated into English.

Andersen’s personal life was not a fairytale. He never married, and seems to have remained celibate all his life, despite a series of infatuations with members of both sexes. He died, probably of liver cancer, in 1875.

 Northern Ballet’s The Little Mermaid: Tuesday 14 to Saturday 18 November 2017