THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
92
106 THE LITTLE MERMAID Signed with initials Inscribed with story title below mount Pen and ink on board, 5 3⁄4 x 4 1⁄4 inches Illustrated: page 67, ‘The Little Mermaid’
107 HOW DID YOU COME BY ALL THAT QUANTITY OF MONEY! Signed with initials Inscribed with story title below mount Pen and ink on board, 5 x 5 inches Illustrated: page 81, ‘Little Klaus and Big Klaus’
The Little Mermaid A young mermaid is willing to relinquish her identity and way of life in order to gain a human soul and the love of a human prince. She visits the Sea Witch who, in exchange for her voice and tongue, gives her a potion that transforms her tail into legs, though she always finds walking painful. She is found by the prince, and becomes his favourite companion, but he loves and marries a princess from a neighbouring country. While despairing and thinking of death, her sisters rise out of the water and bring her a knife with which to kill the prince. If she lets his blood drip on her feet, she will become a mermaid once again. Instead, she throws the knife and herself into the water and, because she strove with all her heart to obtain an immortal soul, turns into a daughter of the air with the hope that she may rise up into the Kingdom of God.
Little Klaus and Big Klaus Little Klaus is bullied by Big Klaus, his richer, more powerful neighbour, but, in turn, repeatedly makes a fool of him and, in the process, gains in wealth. His last trick is to make Big Klaus believe that he has gained a herd of cattle from the bottom of a river. Big Klaus so wants a herd of his own that he begs Little Klaus to put him in a weighted sack and throw him into the water, which he does, leaving Little Klaus as the only Klaus in the village.