Open Features: The Little Mermaid
Miriam McAtee tells the tale of a little mermaid who sought the help of one spell too many.
She was a very beautiful mermaid and her home was deep in the ocean. She would sit night after night on a rock when the moon was full. One night she met a handsome fisherman and fell in love with him, and he with her. They spent several hours together under the stars but when the dawn came, they had to part. He had to go home and she had to return to the sea. They were very sad at having to part this way.
One day she swam deep down where the Old Man of the Sea lived and asked for his help. He was full of sympathy, but wasn’t sure what to do. Then he had an idea. He told her he knew of a potion that would enable her to live on the shore for three or four nights as a human, but he warned her it was dangerous. The potion could make her old and haggard once the spell wore off, but the mermaid was deeply in love and did not care. All she wanted was a few short hours of happiness with her fisherman.
The Old Man of the Sea reluctantly gave her the potion, and the mermaid happily returned to her fisherman with it that night. When he appeared, she drank the potion. Immediately she was transformed into a very beautiful woman and for a couple of nights she and her fisherman had a wonderful time frolicking together on the beach among the rocks and under the stars. Then the fisherman had to return home and she had to return to the sea.
The mermaid remembered the warning but she was too much in love to care and she found that the two wonderful nights were not enough for her after all. She wanted the spell to last forever. So she swam to the bottom of the sea where a sea-witch lived and asked for her help.
The sea-witch told her she had the very thing for her and produced a potion. This time the potion was not for her but for her fisherman. It would turn him into a handsome merman and the spell would last him all his life. The mermaid was ecstatic and left with the spell.
That night under the full moon, she met her fisherman and coaxed him to drink the potion. The fisherman was in love and was unable to resist her, so he obeyed her. As the witch promised, he turned into a very handsome merman. They were very happy swimming together for several hours. Then the dawn came.
The mermaid had forgotten that her own spell would soon end, and as she was warned, at the waning of the moon, she gradually became old and ugly. Her fisherman, however, now a handsome merman, roamed happily in the sea and fell in love with other beautiful mermaids and in the end forgot all about her.
The once beautiful mermaid, now old and ugly, in the end lived a sad and lonely life. She sang sad and woeful songs…… and if you listen very carefully perhaps some night you might hear her if you happen to be on a deserted beach on a beautiful moonlit night .
