like human beings on earth, so that the young prince may fall in love with
you, and that you may have an immortal soul.” And then the witch laughed
so loud and disgustingly, that the toad and the snakes fell to the ground, and
lay there wriggling about. “You are but just in time,” said the witch; “for
after sunrise to-morrow I should not be able to help you till the end of
another year. I will prepare a draught for you, with which you must swim to
land tomorrow before sunrise, and sit down on the shore and drink it. Your
tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs, and you
will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you. But all who see
you will say that you are the prettiest little human being they ever saw. You
will still have the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer
will ever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as if you
were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow. If you will
bear all this, I will help you.”
“Yes, I will,” said the little princess in a trembling voice, as she thought
of the prince and the immortal soul.
“But think again,” said the witch; “for when once your shape has become
like a human being, you can no more be a mermaid. You will never return
through the water to your sisters, or to your father’s palace again; and if you
do not win the love of the prince, so that he is willing to forget his father
and mother for your sake, and to love you with his whole soul, and allow
the priest to join your hands that you may be man and wife, then you will
never have an immortal soul. The first morning after he marries another
your heart will break, and you will become foam on the crest of the waves.”
“I will do it,” said the little mermaid, and she became pale as death.
“But I must be paid also,” said the witch, “and it is not a trifle that I ask.
You have the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in the depths of the sea,
and you believe that you will be able to charm the prince with it also, but
this voice you must give to me; the best thing you possess will I have for
the price of my draught. My own blood must be mixed with it, that it may
be as sharp as a two-edged sword.”
