Near The Roy­al Library once was a spot whe­re mer­maids were seen. The­se acco­unts gre­at­ly inspi­red H.C. Ander­sen. Read about this lost pie­ce of land here

Mer­maids And Monu­ments

Hav­frue­grund­en (“The Mer­maid Islet”), was a small patch of land once loca­ted in the pas­sa­geway betwe­en Slots­hol­men and Chri­sti­ans­havn. The waters aro­und Hav­frue­grund­en were very shal­low — only a few meters deep — so as a war­ning to pas­sing ships, a towe­ring and impres­si­ve monu­ment, “Leda And The Swan”, was rai­sed on it, back in the ear­ly 17th cen­tury. The bank toget­her with the sta­tue was rem­o­ved in the late 18th cen­tury, to make way for the increa­sing sea tra­de acti­vi­ty.

The now long gone ‘Leda og Sva­nen’ monu­ment

Hav­frue­grund­en ori­gi­nal­ly got its name becau­se mer­maids often were seen lying here, basking in the sun. Or was it per­haps just misi­den­ti­fied seals? The­re are qui­te a few seal spe­cies extant in the seas aro­und Den­mark, and from a long distan­ce seals can look rat­her human-like, espe­ci­al­ly seal mot­hers taking care of their pups. Regard­less, it was sigh­tings like the­se that inspi­red H.C. Ander­sen, not only to wri­te his famous fairy tale, but also other sto­ri­es about mer­maids.

Today, Anne Marie Carl Niel­sen’s mer­maid sta­tue from 1921 stands right aro­und whe­re Hav­frue­grund­en was once loca­ted (back then the har­bor inlet was much wider) as a memory of both the bank of land and the mer­maid sigh­tings con­nected to it. The sta­tue is vir­tu­al­ly unk­nown com­pa­red to The Litt­le Mer­maid at Lan­ge­li­nie, but it is actu­al­ly a much more fait­h­ful inter­pre­ta­tion of how mer­maids have been descri­bed throug­hout history. They were not always the­se beau­ti­ful and sani­tized cre­a­tu­res that we know from more recent depi­ctions. Even H. C. Ander­sen’s ori­gi­nal fairy tale is con­si­de­rably more otherwor­ld­ly than the belo­ved Dis­ney adap­ta­tion.

Anne Marie Carl Niel­sens Mer­maid sta­tue out­si­de the Roy­al Library, loca­ted approxi­ma­te­ly whe­re the Mer­maid Islet once was

The­re have been no known sigh­tings of mer­maids in the area for a very long time. But the legend says that for many years, fol­lowing the rem­oval of Hav­frue­grund­en, a ghost­ly mer­maid haun­ted the­se waters, lon­ging for her lost pie­ce of land.

 

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