The world-famous fairy tale statue, The Little Mermaid – known from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale – is celebrating her 100th birthday. Denmark will celebrate with a special birthday party on 23rd August at the harbour in Copenhagen, where 100 live ‘mermaids’ will jump into the water and swim around the statue to form the number 100.
She has lost her head twice – most recently in 1998, and in 2010 The Little Mermaid was sent all the way from Scandinavia to the World’s Fair in Shanghai to be part of the Danish pavilion.
The statue was originally unveiled on 23rd August 1913. Hans Christian Andersen, who lived from 1805 to 1875, spent most of his life in Copenhagen, close by the spot where the mermaid statue sits today. The Little Mermaid sits by the quay – a stone’s throw from picturesque Nyhavn and the Danish royal palace, home to the oldest monarchy in the world, where the statue overlooks the busiest cruise port in Northern Europe.
