7-Little Mermaid: Cry with the Saints

Before this episode, I just want to give a bit of a disclaimer. This is not Disney's Little Mermaid, and the original story contains much more violence and death, as usual I'm not graphic about anything, but please be aware before putting this on for your kids based on the title alone, and then leaving the room. This week on Myths and Legends, it's the original story of the Little Mermaid. You'll see that you too can find love if you're willing to painfully and irrevocably change everything about yourself on a fundamental level. Also, you'll see why it's nearly never a good idea to let your unsupervised children visit a sea witch, because that eel-clothed sorcerer will give them dangerous weapons and take their hair and tongues. Amoldive headfirst and in the complex theology regarding whether or not mermaids have eternal souls, something I'm sure you've always wondered. On the creature of the week, it's another creepy mountain dweller who will eat you, or just get bored and wander off, depending on your reaction. This is Myths and Legends, episode 7. Cry with the Saints. This is a podcast where I tell stories that have shaped cultures throughout history. Some are incredibly popular stories you think you know, but with surprising origins. Others are stories you probably haven't heard, but really should. I'm going to be honest, I started this podcast with the nighthards making fun of these old stories. I enjoyed them, but most of them read more like Monty Python than Game of Thrones. Yeah, I wanted to get to the root of some of the more popular interpretations out there, and share some of the more bizarre folklore pieces I could find. But at the root of it, I was looking to mock, not understand. Somewhere towards the end of Yvain, around the start of Aladdin, I sought to try to make sense of these stories. And in doing so, I discovered something. These stories all contain a kernel of humanity in them. Sure, that kernel can be wrapped up in people befriending the lion, biting the tongues out of wolves, stupid odon showing up every 10 minutes, or a ridiculous sorcerer kidnapping princesses for no good reason, and hiding his soul in an egg. Yeah, these stories can get really, really stupid at times, and I haven't shied away from showing their ridiculousness. However, for every lion fight, you have a night trying to come to terms with this selfishness. For every over the top wish in the Aladdin story, you have a young man seeking his place in the world. For every shape-shifting Norse warrior, talking bird, and cycle over revenge, you have a person trying to reconcile their family's past with their own personal future. For Cauchy's whorobleness, I saw a man seeking love. For Merlin, I saw a walking contradiction trying to carve out a country for his people. I hope I've communicated to that I've grown to appreciate the deep humanity present in these stories. They've survived the modern day, in part, I believe, because in some small way they tell us more about ourselves. In each one, there's been something meaningful. I may give them a ruby net times, but I do respect them. Not so with today's story. It is single-handedly the worst fairy tale I've ever read, and deserves no such respect or veneration. How it survived through to the modern day, when much more interesting, much more internally consistent stories like Cauchy's, or that of the volsongs, languishing obscurity, is beyond me. It's not like it's some ancient tale that has come to us from a time when people lived in the socially unrecognizable world. No, it comes to us from 1836. Twenty years after Pride and Prejudice was published, and twenty years before Moby Dick. It's not like people weren't expected to construct a sound narrative. From the perspective of thousands of years of writing, this is almost modern day. Anyway, I'll save my rant for this story, but this is put down in the paper by Hans Christian Anderson. He is responsible for this as well as the Emperor's new clothes, the ugly duckling, Thumbelina, and the Snow Queen, which Disney turned into Frozen. As far as I can tell, this story was created completely by Anderson. We start in the realm of the Seeking. Presumably a Merman, Dad. Merman. He's a widower, and this is relevant for some reason, and he's raising five daughters. They live on the seafloor, which is said to be many church steeples down. For no fact, we actually still measure the depth of the ocean in church steeple lengths. The Marianist trench is actually about 1200 steeples down. This story focuses way too much on worldbuilding, and we apparently need to know all about the houses, like how they're quarrel and they have large, gothic windows, and that the Dowager Grandma Made gets to have more oysters clipped onto her tail because she's more respected in the society or something, and that's something they do. Even how the fish are like birds down there, and that's what Grandma calls birds to the girls, because they have no concept of birds because they never go to the surface and if thus, they're never seen birds. It just keeps going like this. The story starts with a little Mermaid, as a 10-year-old, pining away for her 15th birthday, because then she can visit the surface, based on some arbitrary restriction from her father. She must be incredibly obedient, because despite the surface being constantly open to her by simply swimming up, she waits. Her four sisters go up one at a time, and the surface world is described in as much detail as the underwater world, despite the fact that we as readers live in the surface world, and already know crazy things like how people don't have fins and yet swim, or what trees look like. One funny thing, though, occurs the year before the little mermaid goes up. It's a storm at sea, and four of the sisters swim up to comfort the sailors as they're drowning, saying that it's okay. They're going to visit the realm of the sea king. Unfortunately, the sailors both can't understand the mermaids, and just hear shrieking, and they can't breathe underwater, so they drown. It's said that their corpses eventually make their way down to the sea kingdom. Somehow these little princesses are not traumatized by bloated, rotting corpses littering their streets, although I can't imagine that they have streets. And despite the huge amount of world building for such a short story, Anderson really neglects to cover the removal of the corpses. Well, the day comes when the little mermaid can visit the surface, and she gets all of her necklaces and whatnot on, and actually gets eight oysters for her tale, for those of you keeping track at home, to designate her high rank as daughter of the king. The Dowager grandmother gets to wear 12 oysters, and everyone else only gets to wear six. Guys, this really matters. She swam up as the sun was setting, and sees a large ship sitting on the water, and hears people singing and laughing. She swam over, and sees that it's the birthday party for a young prince, who's turned in 16. A scene as the only humans she's seen are bloated corpses that sunk down to her father's kingdom. She thinks that this kid looks pretty good, and sits there watching the party for like six hours. No joke. Eventually, everyone goes to bed, and they unfurl the sails, and leave in the middle of the night. Since she doesn't have anything going on, she follows them for a ways, until lightning cracks off in the distance, and they pull up the sails. A storm ensues, and it's a bad one. The little mermaid watches the ship ride the massive waves, thinking it looks like fun because she's still forgetting people can't breathe underwater. It's so bad that pieces of the ship are breaking off, and she can see everyone scrambling on the ship, ducking down and keep from being swept overboard. A flash of lightning, and she could see everyone on board. Another flash of lightning, and she could see everyone but the prince. She knows what she must do. She swims around for hours, dodging falling pieces of the ship, until she sees the boy tridding water. She sees him pass out from its ocean, and dip under the surface. She's briefly excited, because she thinks that he's choosing to come down and live in her father's kingdom, but finally remembers in the nick of time that humans need air to live. She catches him before he disappears further into the darkness, and keeps his unconscious body above the water all night. When Rosie finger dawn appears, the little mermaid looks around and sees nothing except pieces of the wood ship floating on the surface of the water. The ship and the crew were lost. It would be raining men, or more accurately, rotting corpses this morning in her father's kingdom. Despite literally having never been above the waterline, she knows what the shore is, and swims there with all haste. She slides him on the sand in front of a church or convent sitting at the foothills of snowy mountains. As she kisses him on the forehead, she hears church bells, and sees young women walking out. She flees to the sea, and hides beneath the foam, watching the prince regain consciousness and meet all the girls. She's angry that he'll never know what she did for him, and he'll never know that she loves him. Yes, she loves him, because why not? She flees down to her father's kingdom, and months past where she's wallowing in sadness. She tries going back to the shore where she dropped him off, but doesn't see him there again. Finally, one of her sisters takes notice, and the little mermaid tells her about the prince who doesn't even remember her. The sister says him? Oh yeah, I know him. Apparently, the prince takes a lot of these boat trip parties, and this sister enjoys creeping on him as well. She actually follows him home one day. He lives in a great palace on the coast. She'd be happy to show the little mermaid where it is, so she can continue this insane obsession with the boy she met once. The palace is not only on the coast, but it's basically on the water, so the mermaid can get really, really close to the guy. Her whole life becomes about him, and she starts to envy the humans above her own kind. She goes to her grandma to tell her this, and it's basically an info dump of exposition, as the grandma basically gives her a theological dissertation on the spiritual differences between the humans and the mermaid. Mermaid. years, but they don't possess an eternal soul, so once they die, they become seafoam and cease to exist. Humans, as we all know, don't live 300 years, but they do have an eternal soul, so they keep existing long after their bodies are dead and buried. The little mermaid says that having an eternal soul sounds great. Where can she get one? Gremel says that there's one way to get one. She would need to win the love of a human man. She would need to be all he thought about, and he would need to love her above all else, even his own father and mother. If a priest was to marry them, then part of his soul would fly into her, and she would be human. That's the only way. That would never happen, Gremel told her. Humans are all about legs, and that they would prefer their significant others to have legs instead of the lower half of a fish. One half fish is really ugly to humans, Gremel tells her, and he'll never love her. As an aside, really, think about the message that this story sends to young girls. If you're worried about your soul, just put all your effort in finding a husband, and once you get married, you'll get a chunk of his soul, so you're good. Also, he can't think you're ugly, or you might not get a soul. As you'll see, you can put yourself through an excruciating level of pain to try to look pretty for him, and maybe you'll get his love. Seriously, the story is the worst. Gremel ends the conversation, saying that because the little mermaid will be so ugly to him, she'll never have a soul. She might as well enjoy the 300 gear she has on Earth, or under the ocean. Then the author unnecessarily describes an elegant under the sea ball. Do you know that the walls were thick, transparent crystal, and that the roof opens and closes with the sea tides? It's not that I don't love worldbuilding. I really do, but I think there's a time and place for it. And then it might be more important, too. I don't know. Name your characters, before describing every detail of their houses and social structure. It's enchantment under the sea, but the little mermaid isn't feeling any of it. She slips out and goes to sit in her garden alone. She hears a bugle ring through the water, and feels that it must be the prince. And she decides that she wants to have a soul, and more importantly, a boyfriend. She then swims up to the prince, and after they spend some time together, he learns to love her for who she is, tailing all. They get married in a beautiful ceremony, and she turns completely human, and earns her soul, and they live happily ever after, and are equal in each other's eyes. Just kidding. She decides that she needs to visit the sea, which, in order to irreversibly change who she is on a fundamental level, in order to have a shot with a guy who doesn't even know who she is. She takes the sea road to the witch's region. Hans Christian Anderson, having built a complex merpeople society, but neglecting to remember the their fishes who can take advantage of what is, for all intents and purposes, infinite three-dimensional space in the water, and wouldn't have any use for roads. I was trying to shoehorn a second back to the future illusion in here, by saying where she's going, she doesn't need roads, but I just couldn't make it work. She passes into the scary, tropy land of the sea witch, and she sees a field of serpent-like polyps that are kind of like more ailes with arms, and will grab anyone who comes through and eat them. Still forgetting that the little mermaid could just swim up 30 meters and bypass the whole field, Anderson has her dart through the field, risking her life. She comes to the house of the sea witch, which is made out of human bones from the copious shipwrecks. Yeah, it's gruesome, but it's also kind of smart, if you think about it. There are dead bodies regularly found from the sky, and you might as well put them to good use. The little mermaid swims into the lair, and sees giant eels swimming all over the witch, who's eating a frog because she's a witch and gross. I guess. The little mermaid tells her what she wants, and, not wasting any time, she tells the little mermaid the rules of the deal. She will give the little mermaid a potion, and she should swim up, sit on the beach, and drink it. When she did, she'll have legs, after she experiences a great pain. Like a sword is repeatedly passing through her. Everyone will say she's very pretty, the prettiest of all humans, and she'll be a wonderful dancer, retaining the weightlessness and grace of someone in the water. Of course, every time she puts any weight on her feet, it will be like she's walking on knives, and that her feet were being cut to pieces. The witch asks if the mermaid was still okay with the deal, and the mermaid, still thinking about souls and boyfriends, said absolutely. The witch, despite saying she was finished, wasn't finished. She tells the mermaid that she'll never be able to return to her mermaid form. If she didn't get married, she wouldn't get a soul. And for some reason, as soon as the prince married someone else, the mermaid's heart would break, and she would die, and become seafoam. The mermaid says that "wow, that's kind of a big caveat to add to the deal," but she still wants to marry this teenager she's never met. She still wants to do it. The mermaid says the witch, but the witch isn't going to do it for free. The mermaid has a beautiful voice, right? Well, the witch can take that for payment. The mermaid says, "oh, and if I get a soul, I'll be able to talk again, right?" Nope, says the witch. This is permanent. And it's not like she's going to use magic and take a little mermaid's voice. No, she's going to cut out her tongue and keep it, because that's how voices work. The mermaid, I guess because she's already committed up to this point, just dug in and said yes. Go ahead, cut out her tongue so that she can gamble her life away, on a relationship that doesn't even exist yet. So the witch starts making the potion. Anderson makes a point to say that the witch puts her cauldron on the fire, I guess still forgetting that we're under Dessie. The little mermaid has her tongue cut out and taken, and she's mute from here on out. Also, it's not like the witch did it painlessly either, and it hurt just as much as it would hurt any human to have their tongue cut out. In fact, the little mermaid's life will be an increasing string of pain and heartbreak from here on out. She gets the potion and doesn't say goodbye to the witch because she can't say anything. She swims by her father's palace, as it's dark in the middle of the night, and feels a deep sadness that she won't be able to return here. I would hope that she'd have a deep pang of regret, but I can imagine that, having given up her tongue, she was in so deep that there's nothing she could do but continue on. She went to the surface and pulled herself up on the sand. She saw through the darkness toward the palace of the boy, on whom she had staked her whole life. Waking up the next morning, she could hear the seagulls and she had a hard wet sand shifting under her body. She opened her eyes and she could see the cloudless blue of the sky, unfiltered by the ocean. She shot up, saw her legs, and remember what happened last night. She had dragged herself up to the shore in the darkness, popped the seacork on the vial of the witchy-givener, and drank it. Immediately, she felt like her body was being sliced by a double-edged sword, but it just kept going as she could see, and only an outline in the darkness, her tail cracked and shriveled up into two legs. The pain was so unbearable that she passed out and slept through the night. She heard a voice behind her and spun around, using her extremely long, thick hair to cover her nakedness. It was him. If she hadn't sold her voice to a sea witch, she would have been dumbstruck. Definitely not because she was a beautiful naked girl sleeping on his beach, the prince was enchanted by her. The prince asked her who she was and what she was doing, but she couldn't answer. So he helped her up and they went back to his palace. He marveled at the grace at which she walked, but for her it was if she was walking on razor blades, with sharp, lingering pain with each step. Still, she bore it without screaming, mainly because she was tough, but also mainly because she had sold her voice and couldn't scream. Because the prince and his family were so generous, they took this woman in in a rager and costly robes. It's unclear whether or not she's in the household as a slave, though. She does everything the slaves do and serves the prince in the household, but it never explicitly says she's a slave. Still, it's kind of evil to "rescue" a mute woman from the beach and then basically enslave her. That night, all the slaves are singing one by one for the prince, and the one who sings especially well catches the eye of the prince. The mermaid is regarding giving up her voice, but she more than makes up for it than the dancing portion of the competition. But really, the slave's all dance for the prince next, and he sees the former mermaid as a wonderful dancer and favors her after that. She sleeps on a cushion outside of his door and becomes the prince's personal attendant. They go hiking through the mountains. That probably being the worst thing that she could do given her feet, but she apparently has no way to communicate that to him. Except, you know, writing things. But don't worry about that, because the story certainly doesn't. At night, she sneaks to the marble dock to rest her feet in the cool of the ocean. She eventually runs into one of her brave sisters, who comes to creep on the prince occasionally. She eventually brings the mermaids father, the king, and her grandmother, but the two are wary of humans, and will only come out of the water at a distance they feel is safe. The grandmother rubs her son's back as he looks at his daughter, heartbroken over her choice of this prince, over her own family, over him. He's lived long enough to know the power of humans, and he won't go any closer than this. Thus, he'll never really see his daughter again. More time passes, and the prince finds that he loves the little mermaid, who the people in the kingdom have taken to calling the little family. Unfortunately, he loves her as one would love a "little child" out. He confides in her and tells her that he vaguely remembers the day he was rescued after a shipwreck on his 16th birthday, and he was carried to a shore near a temple. He remembers a shadowy face of a girl, and fell in love with that face. "Hey, you know what, little family? You kind of look like that beautiful face." Huh, weird. Anyway, he believes that this person doesn't exist in this world, and is just some spirit that rescued him. Even more time passes, and there's talk that the prince needs to marry someone. As it turns out, there's supposedly a beautiful princess not too far away. But don't worry, he tells a little mermaid. He doesn't want to marry some stupid, fantastically beautiful, enriched princess. If he had his way, he'd rather marry his little family, and he'd kiss her and lays his head on her chest while playing with her hair. Absolutely sending her the wrong signals in the situation. But yeah, he doesn't want to marry this other princess. He's just going to go visit her kingdom, and take his whole court with him, and inspect the ship that they're building him as a dowry. They all sail for this kingdom, and there's a celebration in the street for the prince's arrival. The princess is unveiled, and he says, "Wow, yes, this is the image of the girl who rescued me from the shipwreck." God has sent her to me again. I will marry this princess after all, despite the princess not looking like the girl who actually saved him, and who is standing like ten feet behind him. There to be married, on the ship that he's given as a dowry, and the little mermaid is looking off into the water. She's heartbroken, of course, and more than a little terrified. She's going to die, and since she doesn't have an eternal soul, she'll, I guess, just cease to exist and become seafoam. Oh, and hear the writer changes the rules, she won't die at the moment they're married, but rather at the next day's sunrise, just so this next part makes sense. So they are wet on the ship, and we find a little mermaid, after the ceremony, and everyone has gone to bed, looking off into the ocean, debating mother to throw herself off now and drown herself, or just wait for the morning when she'll die anyway. Then her four sisters pop above the surface. She could hardly recognize them, though, because they were all bald. Yes, they too had brave to visit with the seawitch to bargain for their sister's life. They sold their hair for a dagger. The little mermaid needs to hurry, because the sun would be up soon. She looked at them in confusion. What are they talking about? What does she need to do? "It would be easy," her sister said. All she would need to do was go stab the prince. A lot. Because she would need to get his blood all over her legs. When his blood covered her legs, she would transform back into a mermaid, and be able to live out the rest of her 300 years with her friends and family, under a deceit, until she turned into soulless sea foam. No problem, right? She's hesitant, as she takes the dagger. She really doesn't want to turn into sea foam, yet. And since the prince is already married, this is really her only option to survive. She goes to their cabin on the ship, with each step feeling like a cut for her. Now she's in love with this guy, and she's walking into his bedroom where he and his wife were after their wedding night. So that has to be easy to see. The princess is asleep on the princess's chest, and he's murmuring his new wife's name in his sleep. The little mermaid's hand is trembling as she raises the dagger above her head. But of course, she can't bring herself to do it. In tears, she flings the dagger out of window, and it dissolves in a red sea foam. She takes one last look at the prince, who's happy with his new wife, and then she sees the sun coming out. She runs along the deck, and flings herself off the ship. Her body dissolves in a foam, and she dies. She didn't know what non-existence would feel like, but she didn't think it would feel like this. She was floating in the air, but she looked around, and saw hundreds of nearly transparent women floating in the air around her. She asked where she was, what she was. The voice that was like singing, but was not singing, says that the little mermaid is now what was called a daughter of the air. The daughters of the air, the voice makes clear, do not have souls, but they can obtain souls. They have to spend 300 years doing good deeds, and then they're granted an internal soul. While they are daughters of the air, they fly around to hot countries and blow on people, and their breath brings healing. Because the little mermaid has strived so hard for her soul, because of her good deeds, she was granted this opportunity to earn a soul. Said aside the fact that her motivation was at least equally to get the prince, and that the soul was like secondary gain, I have no idea what good deeds this person is referring to. Making a bad deal with the witch and not murdering somebody because they didn't marry you seems like a pretty low threshold. Regardless, little mermaid has tears of joy because she still exists, and kisses both the prince and his wife on their foreheads when they're searching the ship for her, despite them being pretty instrumental in causing off her problems. The story ends with her riding a rosy cloud, and floating off to do good deeds with the daughters of the air. Tacked on to the end is a little addendum to the deal, if you want a blackmail your kids into being good, though I would not tell them the story. The daughters of the air move invisibly through homes of people with children. Every time they see a good child, who is a joy to his or her parents, this causes the daughters of the air to smile at their conduct, and the daughters of the air get credit for one year off the 300 before they can earn a soul. Of course there's a downside, wicked, bad children cause the daughters of the air to cry, and for every tear they cry, one day's added to their penalty. If I were a gambling daughter of the air, I would take those odds, though that probably wouldn't help in the whole eternal soul thing. Sure, you could risk adding time, but you can't possibly shed 365 tears for a bad child, so I think it's an overall neck gain, depending on the population, definitions for good and naughty, the tolerance and opinions of the parents, etc. Still it's a little heavy-handed on the part of Hans Christian Anderson to include that. So that's the original story of the Little Mermaid, and I can absolutely see why I both hadn't heard that story before and why it's been changed to something much more palatable. The messages in the story are horrible, yes, but the story is so inconsistent, none even that at least they can't be communicated effectively. I mean, sure, I'll go along with Mermaid's not having souls and living for 300 years, but then he goes and completely undercuts it at the end by giving her a soul anyway. Or how about those shifting motivations, with her motivation in the first part of the story being her love for the prince, but the second part being her desire for a soul. So great, actually, that the daughters of the air, something completely made up by the author, by the way, give her credit for her great effort in seeking out a soul. Completely aside, from what it implies about the relationship between men and women, the stories and mess, and I have no idea how it survived. If you're wondering, yes, I do feel like a big tough guy for picking a part of fairy tale, called the Little Mermaid. Next week on the podcast, I'll be out. I've managed to record a short supplemental episode, though. We'll be going back to Merlin, briefly. I'm going to be telling one of the stories that inspired the character as he's known today. The story of Mirad in the Wild, the prophetic Welsh Warrior Bard. We'll see that all your problems can be solved by going crazy and running off into the woods. Naked. I want to thank Kenny Ransom, Kevin C. 2014, DB1552, Changpau Pau, Brahmaville, Big Yogi, Lavender Sage, Moxygenask, and Meg 019 for leaving reviews on iTunes. Really, thank you all so much. I really appreciate the feedback and encouragement. If you feel so inclined, please leave a review on iTunes. It's a quick and easy way to support the show, and it helps more people find it. You can find it on iTunes at iTunes.mithpodcast.com. Also you can let me know what you think on the site or on Twitter, links to everything are in the show notes. So before the creature of the week, I just want to make an announcement. I want to get into the realm of making posters and t-shirts available based on stuff from the show. The problem? I have very, very limited design talents. If anyone listening to this has a graphic design or illustration background, and would like to work with me on something, let me know. I'd love to make cool stuff with you. Links to my email and Twitter are in the show notes. The creature of this week is from Japanese mythology, and it's called the Satori. The Satori are large, eight men of the mountains of central Japan. Now I know you're probably thinking that an eight man isn't that noteworthy. It seems like pretty much every culture has one. So eights the size of men exist, so it's really not that big of a deal. Except this one can read your mind. It comes upon people walking mountain paths or camping out, and it surprises them by walking up and saying what they're going to say. Only faster than they can and before they're able to say it. They'll also wait just outside the door of your mountain home or hut in an attempt to catch you unaware. Then unless you're a worker in the mountains, they'll likely eat you. Once they can read your mind, it makes it extremely hard for you to get away from them. There are three ways to defend yourself though. The first is to try to be fast, fast in something that knows what you'll do next. If you can manage to hit it in any way, it'll get scared and run off. This presumably is because if it knows what you're going to do next and you still manage to hit it, it figures it really shouldn't mess with you. The next is to rely on something unexpected happening, like hoping a branch falls or a bird flies into its big, hairy head. Unexpected things spook them too, and they'll feel out of control with the situation. and run off. Third way is just to look at them, clear your mind, and think about nothing at all. They apparently have a short attention span, so if you aren't scared and just aren't thinking of anything, they'll just get bored and wander off. That's it for this week. The theme song is by the band, "Broke for Free," and the Creature of the Week music is by the unperturbed Steve Colms. Credit links to the other music I used during the show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.