Since its unveiling in 1913, the Little Mermaid sculpture has become one of Copenhagen’s main tourist attractions. But Edvard Eriksen’s five-foot unassumingly perched homage to Christian Andersen’s fairy tale has also had its fair share of drama.
The first came in 1964, when the bronze sculpture became the victim of an abandoned lover’s rage and was beheaded with a hacksaw. Then, in 1998, it happened again; this time by an extremist feminist group. The list of survival events also includes a severed and stolen (but then returned) arm, being launched off her rock and into the water (explosives), stabbed in the neck and in 2015 — perhaps most brutal of all — getting banned from Facebook for breaching nudity guidelines.
Now, according to the Eriksen hiers, Den Lille Havfrue is now under fresh attack. In a letter to Mikael Klitgaard, mayor of the northern municipality of Brønderslev, the heirs claim that a more recent sculpture, put in place four years ago in Asaa Havn, bears too much resemblance to the original, and demanded that the copy be demolished.
It’s not the first time the heirs have taken legal action to protect their ancestors’ heritage. Several publications have been charged with copyright infringement after publishing pictures of the mermaid, there among daily Berlingske Tidende that was fined 285.000 Danish kroner ($45,000) last year for a caricature depiction of the Eriksen work.
While Brønderslev Mayor Mikael Klitgaard questions the heirs’ motives in claiming patent right “for a whole animal species,” the Little Mermaid’s century-long fight for survival has no doubt earned her a special place in Danish society. Many of the less violent attacks seem to be an outlet for locals’ expression, including spray paint and political messaging: For a while she wore a burqa — apparently a protest against Turkey joining the EU — and last year she had both “Free Hong Kong” and “Racist Fish” scrawled across her base.
Meanwhile, the defendant in the plagiarism case, Palle Mørk, dismisses the claim that his work isn’t original. Responding to the charge that his creation is perched in the same position, Mørk said to Danish TV2: “Well, how the hell else should a mermaid sit on a rock? She doesn’t have legs.”
