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Editor: Terri Windling
WebWrangler: Anita Roy Dobbs
Book Reviews Editor: Helen Pilinovsky
Art: (above) From "A Mermaid"
by John William Waterhouse, 1900
(below) From Edmund Dulac's illustration for
"The Princess and the Pea"
by Hans Christian Andersen |
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A Letter from the Editor's Desk |
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The Reading Room
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The Mermaid
by Heinz Insu Fenkl
"The mermaid ultimately signifies the fundamental mystery of female
sexuality, particularly for men who, because they cannot comprehend it, are
simultaneously drawn to it and terrified by it. That is why the mermaid
becomes so easily conflated with the siren and her irresistible call that
leads men to their doom."
Hans Christian Andersen
by Terri Windling
"'My tales were just as much for older people as for children,' said Andersen, 'who only understood the outer trappings, and did not comprehend
and take in the whole work until they were mature—that naivety was only
part of my tales, that humor was really what gave them their flavor.'"
Shakespeare's Folklore
by Kristen McDermott
"Literally evoking tales told by the hearth, at a mother's knee, Shakespeare forged a link between the folkloric and the historic, between the personal and the political."
Miss Carstairs and the Merman
A Story by Delia Sherman
"Here, lying on a rock in her father's gold-fish pond, was a species never examined by Mr. Darwin or classified by Linneaus. Here was a biological anomaly, a scientific impossibility. Here, in short, was a mermaid . . ."
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The Gallery: Mythic Art
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A Tribute to Adrienne Ségur
by Terri Windling
". . . through Ségur's exquisite, rococo paintings, I was introduced to fairy tales in their thrilling pre-Disney (and pre-Victorian) forms—their darker themes toned down slightly for children, but only slightly."
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The Coffeehouse: Poetry
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The Mermaid Sets the Story Straight
by Debra Cash
The Pea Princess by Colleen Mills
Undine by Jane Yolen
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