A Copy In Copenhagen

When we made our trip to get our visas in Copenhagen a week ago, our hotel was very conveniently located in an area with some prominent tourist sites. So, even though we only had a few hours of tourist-time, we were able to see more than I expected.

Just up the shoreline from our hotel was one of the most famous attractions in Copenhagen: Den lille havfrue, or the Statue of the Little Mermaid. Perhaps unfortunately for some, the real fairy tale behind the Little Mermaid and the history of the statue aren't the happy little stories we might expect.


First, the fairy tale goes like this: The mermaid falls in love with a human prince. The mermaid goes to an evil witch and exchanges her tongue for a potion that will give her legs. Drinking the potion feels like being skewered with a sword. She drinks it and gets some legs, but they aren't the best legs, since it feels like she is walking on swords and her feet bleed (ew) as she moves. Oh and about mermaids: they don't have souls but humans do. The only way the mermaid can get a soul is if the prince marries her. But in the end, he doesn't. So, then the witch gives the mermaid a knife and if she kills the prince and lets his blood run on her cursed feet, she will be made a normal mermaid again. She can't do it and dies -- at this point it is believed Hans Christian Andersen, the author and one of Denmark's most prominent historical figures, later revised the story. Instead of her simply just dying like a mermaid and turning to sea foam, she becomes some ghostly 'daughter of the air' and can gain a soul by doing good deeds and will eventually rise into the Kingdom of God.

The statue, then, was inspired by a rich guy (Carl Jacobson of the Carlsberg brewing family) watching a ballet about the fairy tale. He was so taken with the ballet and its primabella that in 1909 he asked her to model for the statue, created by sculptor Edvard Eriksen. The ballerina wasn't keen on the whole nakedness of the statue and the final statue only has a face inspired by her -- the rest is the sculptor's wife.


From the time of its unveiling in 1913, the statue has had a rough life. There have been three attempts (2 successful) to remove the statue's head. It was returned once and lost once and had to be replaced with a new head. The statue has also had its arm sawed off. The severed arm was returned 2 days later. The statue was blown off its rock in 2003, probably with dynamite. In 2006, a dildo was put in the statue's hand. On several occasions, the statue was painted red or pink.

To top off all that, the statue you get to see is a copy and the real one is at an undisclosed location. Good for you yanks, though, is that if you have statue-envy, you can make a short trip to either Solvang, California or Kimballton, Iowa to see other copies. If you decide to decorate your local copy with a sexy accessory, please send me a picture. The copy in Copenhagen is taking a trip to Shanghai, China for the 2010 World Expo.

Skål!