Sea Ghosts - A Version of 'The Little Mermaid' by Hans Christian Andersen

A version of 'The Little Mermaid' by Hans Christian Andersen

The Polyp, the jaws of the disgusting serpent’s head, gripped the back of the Sailor’s neck. Its tentacles fastened themselves greedily about his wrists and ankles. The more the man struggled the harder the creature squeezed.

The Sea Witch’s beaded eyes flickered open, their lustre had faded but they were alert.  She had been slumbering underneath a bed of Sea Worms, which were as sentient to her as plucked clamshells, even though they gave her their warmth against the winter currents.  She pulled her fins in tight and shot up through the mass of their writhing bodies; now she sniffed him, taking in what measure she could. His deep eyes, his defiant look.  He fought against his inevitable drowning though death was moments away.  The old witch danced the head of a limp dead mackerel on her tongue a moment before snapping it clean off behind the gills.

‘Don’t fight it, let it come, let it come.’ The sound of the Witch’s voice helped the Sailor find some final drop of vitality, but when he screamed, only bubbles masked the sound of his muffled cries.

‘Relax, soon your words won’t matter anyway. Close your eyes - close your eyes - close your eyes, yes, yes . . . then there will be darkness and then nothing, your bloated flesh will float away and I may have your bones to adorn my house, I shall always remember how long it took you to die.’

The Sailor opened his mouth forming the dark shape of an empty scream.

The Witch took out a knife that was sealed in Sorcery, formed of bone and oyster shell.  She made three incisions upon the Sailor’s neck underneath the ear on either side.

‘Breathe, Sailor, let the water in, but cross me once and I can seal those up again before you can spit. Now speak.’

‘I beg you, help, get me free of these loathsome creatures.’

‘Don’t you like my forest?’

‘Let me go, Hag!

The Polyps screamed and bit into the Sailor’s flesh. The Witch looked on with her tail in hand and allowed herself to cackle.

‘Silence you Fool! You want them to rip your head off? They can hear you now’

The Sea Witch produced a powder from her corset and sprinkled it into the gasping mouths of the hungry Polyps that swayed with the current, leaving only the one which held the Sailor untouched, the others shrivelled up into rock.

‘There . . .’

‘I like that, leaving me bound like a lamb to the slaughter!’

‘My, how you complain. Would you prefer I leave you to your fate? The Sea cares for naught who it claims. Why did you awaken me from my slumber? The seas are freezing this time of year and food is scarce.’

A look of suspicion emerged upon the Sailor’s face.

‘What, you think because I am a Witch, I can magic a shell full of fish eyes and kelp, out of nothing?

The Witch saw how the Sailor still considered this a possibility,

 'Life doesn’t work that way, even for me. You Humans are all alike.’

‘The Cormorant’, our ship, caught a rogue wave. I was high up on the rigging . . . my friends will have rightly given me up for dead.'

‘You think, it was a rogue wave brought you here? That may be how it appears but I assure you, t’ was you who summoned me, the Sea responded to your hunger and carried you here.'

 ‘I don’t understand . . .’

The Sea Witch cut the tentacle free of the man’s right wrist, instinctively he brought his hand straight up to his brow.

‘You wish to bargain with me, everyone does. No one would travel these depths or dare to look upon this loathsome face if not to bargain.’

‘I seek no bargain with you, Crone. I did not surrender myself for your amusement.  You should spare my life as a kindness, nothing less if you truly intend to let me go. I will not buy my freedom with some forfeit I cannot pay. Even now, you toy with me. I see that if you mean to take my life, you will.'  

The crescent of the Witch’s eye arched a little higher, this one had a silver tongue.

‘Nothing to ask?’ The Witch all but uttered to herself but for a sideways flicker of the eyes in her captive’s direction ‘We shall see, come.’

The Witch sliced the tentacles free of his other wrist and legs, the dismembered Polyp screeched in agony. Ignoring its pain, she swam off in the direction of her cavern formed of abalone and covered in bone and weed.  Inside was filled with discarded fish skeletons and glowing coral. There was a statue stood in one corner and though the lines of its form were much encrusted with barnacles and obscured by algae, one could still discern the subject to be a young man with his head angled towards a sun which never reached him now. The Sailor gasped when he felt an Eel buffet his side and dash underneath his arm.

‘Sit you down, Sailor. No creature will harm you whilst you are in my presence.’   

The Witch went over to a large pot that was positioned over a stream of hot gas, she ladled out some steamed fish and pods into a shell.

‘Here’, she thrust the dish in the Sailor’s direction. ‘Never let it be said, I don’t know how to treat a guest.’ The Sailor carefully took the dish from his host. ‘Go and sit upon those rocks over there, so that you might position your head above the water, and I will join you.’ The Witch filled herself a shell whilst the Sailor sat himself down upon the rock as he’d been advised, he was relieved to be out of the water again

‘You know a lot about our ways and customs,’ the Sailor said, ‘and yet I would never have conceived that a world such as this existed under the sea, oh there were always stories, but a Sorcerer . . .

'What stories were told to thee, Sailor?’   

‘Fairytales mostly, I heard what every Sailor hears, that monstrous creatures adorned with the features of beautiful women would lure us Sailors away from our boats toward certain death in order to . . .’

The Witch laughed so loudly the sailor left off the telling of his tale.

‘What? What’s so funny?’

‘The Mermaids? You think they are Monsters and Murderers?’

‘Then they are real? I heard they lured men to their deaths so that they might suck the marrow from their bones and drink their blood.’

‘And why would they do that?’

‘So that they would know and feel mortal sorrow.’

The Witch snorted.

‘You Humans think your suffering is of a higher order than the rest of us? Are we allowed to feel mortal happiness too, or just sorrow?

‘I don’t know,’ all former confidence now abandoned the young Sailor, I just . . . I-I don’t know, I’m sorry,’

‘Humans . . .’

‘You asked me about the stories and I answered. I never actually imagined I might offend any real Mermaids.’

‘That is fair enough, Sailor. As it is, I have not seen any Mermaids in these parts for a hundred years or more.'

‘A hundred years?’ The Sailor gasped.

‘Tell me, Sailor, these stories, do they interest you?’

The young man thought a moment before he spoke, ‘Everyone loves a story, they’re rare fun, when there’s a fire lit in the barrel above deck and the accordion has pushed its last for the evening, when everyone has set their minds to quiet contemplation and rest before sleep, but I’ve always liked to know the truth of things above a fantasy.’

‘I used to be a human once, I lived, worked, and yes even walked among your folk. I know your ways, your mortal sorrows, with all your poems and songs. I even knew kindness and pity. I was well-liked, I could be depended upon to perform my duties.’

The Sailor stared with his mouth agape.

‘Oh, there’s no need to look like that, I didn’t look like this then.’

The Sailor smiled politely.

‘No, that won’t do,’ said the Sea Witch, ’Look harder,’ the man lent closer to her now, he caught a waft of half-digested fish guts on her heavy breath, he saw the gelatinous white sockets around her eyes. He saw something else as well, something other than ugliness, but he could scarce believe his own mind when faced with such hideousness. 

‘You want to know what I see, Sailor, when I look at you?’ The Witch moved in closer to him, he pulled away but found he could not avoid looking all the same.

‘I see a man whose heart yearns for one he cannot have, a proud woman, a rich woman, look into my eyes Sailor and you will see yourself . . . and you say you are not here to bargain, yet you would risk your life, you would never have boarded 'The Cormorant’ if not for her, and she does not care a jot, but how your heart bleeds as would a freshly slaughtered lamb at the neck. Seems thou hast direst need of some pact with nature’s darker designs.’

‘You know my secret . . .’

‘I know your secret, look closer, Sailor, are you sure you cannot see it reflected in my face? Your secret is my own. What would you plead for I wonder?  What piece of yourself would you surrender, for her to give one sniff of acknowledgement in your direction? With you humans it is always the same, it’s a disease, all the wanting.’  

‘I meant it when I said I do not wish to bargain, but please tell me, what would have won her heart?’

The Witch shook her head ‘You know already. Setting sail aboard the ‘The Cormorant’ was a needless venture. You told yourself your journey would make you a man of consequence in her eyes. Then you saw her in the marketplace, she had taken a lover, the very Captain of your vessel. You joined his crew anyway, but one night you just let go the rigging, you let go.’

The Sailor was silent a good while.

‘Aye’, he said.

The Witch marked his meaningful look.

‘I didn’t care whether I lived or died.'

‘That is not what I saw. You must return to the surface, there is life yet to be lived.’

‘No! Seal up these gills and have done with me. Adorn this cave with my bones as you are want . . .  proud and rich?  That is not all she was . . . I used to see her giving away her coin, she was not so proud she couldn’t see another’s suffering. Tell me, Witch, how came you to walk among us?’       

The Sea Witch slowly let out a breath, ‘You know how it is, when you feel yourself at odds with the place you call home, at odds, even with your own family?’

‘And you can’t quite name the reason but there’s a sense of restlessness or sadness sitting in the pit of your stomach,’ added the Sailor, a note of excitement had risen in his voice.

‘Indeed, I was not so happy as we Mermaids are supposed to be, even as a child . . . there is always more than what we know. Yet, even in that knowledge, I was still a foolish girl, Sailor and that became my undoing. I fell in love with a man from the world above, a Prince, I saved him from a storm and brought him to safety. He never knew it was I who had done so, I was careful to remain hidden from his sight. My Grandmother always told me that human men find our fishtails ugly, despite the great beauty of myself and my sisters. I took this to heart. I felt so sure that I must meet my Prince again, you understand? I would become the agent of his love and care as no other could. The thought of his seeing my true self and despising me . . . it was more than I could bear. I made a pact with the Sea Witch, she gave me legs in exchange for my tongue, she considered my singing voice to be my greatest gift.  She cut out my tongue with a flick. She used this very knife I hold now. I still wonder about the potions she made with it, the fates she bound together, the other lives she destroyed!’

The Witch hissed and then turned to see the look of confusion upon the Sailor’s face.

‘You wonder at how I am able to sit and talk with you now? Fear ye not, I will hasten toward that part of my tale. The Witch charged me with the task of making the Prince love me without having the means to win him. I could dance, I could serve him, amuse him with a look. I still possessed a Mermaid’s beauty to bewitch and make him wonder, but it was not the same . . . not the same thing at all. He would never know the quality of my heart and mind, he would never hear my song.  The extent of the Witch’s curse did not end there, if the Prince were to marry another, I would return to the sea and dissolve into foam on the crest of the waves, that is what happens to all Mer-People when they die, the extent of my folly would come full circle. Oh, as I watched the Prince dance on his wedding night and considered all that I had surrendered of myself, I knew I was prepared to die that night. I had loved, but had I truly hoped to gain reward?   

In time for the first new dawn of his marriage, I took myself down to the edge of the Ocean, I looked at my large, rather ugly, human feet, that felt as though they were being slowly scored underfoot or sharply stabbed with a knife's blade. Every step was the same, such was the character of the Witch’s cruelty, I was about to take my last step into the Sea and what relief it would have been to my constant agony, when my sisters appeared in the water with their beautiful hair all hacked to the scalp, brandishing the Witch’s knife.  They told me that if I was to use it to kill the Prince before dawn, his blood would cause my legs to reform into the shape of a tail. I went into his tent and watched him sleeping peacefully in the arms of his lover, I don’t need to tell you, Sailor, I thought about stabbing him then, such anger … I had felt that my love had been so misused by the Witch, against me. The knife trembled in my hand as I raised it above my head. Still, how could I hurt someone I loved so very deeply, how could I begrudge him his happiness?

Even with this sad and tender thought to subdue me, my anger would not abate. I plunged the Sorcerer’s knife into my side, I cried out in great pain. My Prince awoke and looked on in horror. Aye, it was a look of horror and then confusion, that was all. I turned and ran out of his life forever, and wondered in that moment whether my burden was not a little lighter. I made my way quickly back down to the Sea. My own blood ran from my own wound down onto my wretched feet. In the water, my fin began to reform as I swam deeper and deeper, down toward the Sea Witch’s lair. I fought against her curse which ate away at my flesh, flakes of skin fell from my arms and face, parasites bored their way into my fin. I would make the creature pay for what she had done, before I left the world for good.

The Sea Witch had seen me approach before I had chance to act, she threw a Lionfish barb in my direction, I managed to dodge out of the way but I had not realised that my sister, Reyla had followed in my wake. The barb pierced her in the heart, she called to me, though to do so was a great exertion on her waning strength.         

‘Sister!’ She begged, ‘Do not harm her! For your family’s sake, for those whom you have caused so much pain, let the Old Witch be, she holds such power.  You may be assured that is curse enough in its own way. It is not for us to question. ‘

‘But what of her games? I replied, shocked at the sorcery that allowed me to hear my own voice once again ‘What of her bargains and curses? Life means nothing to her!’

‘You are wrong, Little Mermaid’, the loathsome woman uttered in my direction. ‘It is a question of balance, helping young fools to discover the things really ought to have known, helping destiny play out the way that it will. Am I to receive no payment for my pains?’

‘I loved the Prince! I came to understand that he could only love my true self or not at all, I would have lived and let live! But you wanted me to suffer! You found a way to cause me pain at every turn!’  

'You did that to yourself, Princess!' The Witch reached for the great narwhal horn that hung upon the cave wall.

‘Sister!’ Rayla cried.  ‘She means to destroy us!’

My sister died before I could answer her warning. ‘The rage I felt in that moment, Sailor . . . I charged at the old hag and plunged the enchanted knife into her breast over and over so that my tears soon ran into her blood. ‘No more bargains’ were the first words I uttered with my new voice. If you had not guessed, I became her, Sailor. Our bodies merged, the Sea Witch and I were now one. Her evil was now tempered with my goodness, and my goodness was forever spoiled.’

When the Little Mermaid’s father, the Sea King hastened to retrieve his daughters, he found the body of one half dissolved, and was doubly aggrieved to discover the other was nowhere to be seen. The Sea Witch would say nothing of what she knew. He was so angry he took his staff and pressed it deep into the fresh wound upon her side, from that time on it never closed, never healed.

The Sailor looked down at the Witch’s side and noticed for the first time that she indeed had a wound that was always open, always seeping black blood.

‘Will you look closer now, Sailor?’ The woman asked.

This time the Sailor looked harder and the more he looked, the less ugly the Sea Witch appeared. The Sailor never did return to the world above. In time, the Witch’s hair turned from grey to black, and the silver scales that covered her torso turned to fresh young skin. The Little Mermaid was restored to her true form and was a Sea Witch no more.   

By Robyn Hunt (C) 2018

Blog Images: Gavin Roberts

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In loving memory of Ruth Holloway and Sophie Partridge, two bright and beautiful women, forever in my heart.