They could fly over the sea in ships, and mount the high hills which
were far above the clouds; and the lands they possessed, their woods
and their fields, stretched far away beyond the reach of her sight.
There was so much that she wished to know, and her sisters were unable
to answer all her questions. Then she applied to her old
grandmother, who knew all about the upper world, which she very
rightly called the lands above the sea.

"If human beings are not drowned," asked the little mermaid,
"can they live forever? do they never die as we do here in the sea?"

"Yes," replied the old lady, "they must also die, and their term
of life is even shorter than ours. We sometimes live to three
hundred years, but when we cease to exist here we only become the foam
on the surface of the water, and we have not even a grave down here of
those we love. We have not immortal souls, we shall never live
again; but, like the green sea-weed, when once it has been cut off, we
can never flourish more. Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul
which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust.
It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars.
As we rise out of the water, and behold all the land of the earth,
so do they rise to unknown and glorious regions which we shall never
see."

"Why have not we an immortal soul?" asked the little mermaid
mournfully; "I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have
to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of
knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars."

"You must not think of that," said the old woman; "we feel
ourselves to be much happier and much better off than human beings."

"So I shall die," said the little mermaid, "and as the foam of the
sea I shall be driven about never again to hear the music of the
waves, or to see the pretty flowers nor the red sun. Is there anything
I can do to win an immortal soul?"

"No," said the old woman, "unless a man were to love you so much
that you were more to him than his father or mother; and if all his
thoughts and all his love were fixed upon you, and the priest placed
his right hand in yours, and he promised to be true to you here and
hereafter, then his soul would glide into your body and you would
obtain a share in the future happiness of mankind. He would give a
soul to you and retain his own as well; but this can never happen.
Your fish's tail, which amongs