Editing Mermaid (section)

=== Literature ===
The best-known example of mermaids in literature is probably Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, "[[The Little Mermaid]]", first published in 1837.<ref name="jarvis"/> The title character, youngest of the Merman-king's daughters, falls in love with a human prince{{Efn|The prince remains unacquainted with her, despite being saved by her from a shipwreck. The mermaid had brought him ashore unconscious and then hid behind rocks and covered herself in foam to hide.}} and also longs for an eternal [[soul]] like humans, despite the shorter lifespan. The two cravings are intertwined: only by achieving true love will her soul bind with a human's and become everlasting. But the mermaid's fish-tail poses an insurmountable obstacle for enticing humans, and a sea-witch offers a potion to transform into human form, at a price (the mermaid's tongue and beautiful voice). The mermaid endures the excruciating pain of having human legs, and despite her inability to speak, almost succeeds in wedding the prince, but for a twist of fate.{{Efn|The prince is betrothed to a princess, who turns out to be the girl he mistakenly believed to be his rescuer (due to the mermaid's concealment).}} The mermaid is doomed unless she stabs the prince with a magic knife on his wedding night. She refuses to harm him and dies the mermaid way, dissolving into foam. However, her selflessness has earned her a second chance at salvation, and she is resurrected as an air spirit.<ref>{{cite book|first=Hans Christian |last=Andersen |author-link=Hans Christian Andersen
 |translator=Robert Nisbet Bain |translator-link=Robert Nisbet Bain |others=Illustrated by [[John Reinhard Weguelin]] |chapter=The Little Mermaid |title=The Little Mermaid and Other Stories |publisher=Lawrence and Bullen |location=London |date=1893 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ezZDAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1 |pages=1–36}}</ref>

Andersen's works has been translated into over 100 languages.<ref>{{cite book|title=Biographical dictionary of literary influences: the nineteenth century, 1800–1914|year=2001|publisher=Greenwood Press | location =Westport, CT| isbn= 978-0-313-30422-4|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=3N3uj_wo-_kC&pg=PA20| editor-first =John | editor-last = Powell |page= 20}}</ref> One of the main literary influences for Andersen's mermaid was ''[[Undine (novella)|Undine]]'', an earlier German novella about a water nymph who could only obtain an immortal soul by marrying a human.<ref>{{cite book| last= Brandes|first= George Morris Cohen|title= The Romantic School in Germany (1873) | year =1902|publisher=The Macmillan Co |location=New York|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=UUbZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA301|page=301}}</ref> Andersen's heroine inspired a bronze sculpture in [[Copenhagen]] harbour and influenced Western literary works such as [[Oscar Wilde]]'s ''[[The Fisherman and His Soul]]'' and [[H. G. Wells]]' ''[[The Sea Lady]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wullschläger |first=Jackie |author-link=Jackie Wullschläger |url=https://archive.org/details/hanschristianand0000wull |title=Hans Christian Andersen: the life of a storyteller |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-226-91747-4 |location=Chicago, IL |page=[https://archive.org/details/hanschristianand0000wull/page/176 176] |url-access=registration}}</ref>

[[Sue Monk Kidd]] wrote a book called ''[[The Mermaid Chair]]'' loosely based on the legends of Saint Senara and the [[mermaid of Zennor]].