The Difference Between Two Tails People often forget that Walt Disney drew many of his film ideas from earlier fairy tales and folklore. Ever since I was young, my favorite Disney movie has been The Little Mermaid. However, as I grew up, it hardly crossed my mind that there was a different story that contradicted almost everything in the film. Despite some similarities, the striking differences between Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid tales and Walt Disney's have only increased my love for the Disney version. Andersen's fairy tale of “The Little Mermaid,” originally published in 1837, features an unnamed mermaid who is referred to simply as the Little Mermaid. He is ten years old at the beginning of the story. In this adaptation, she is sixteen years old at the beginning of the film and is the youngest of King Triton's (The Sea King) seven daughters. In this film, Ariel is portrayed very differently than Andersen depicted his Little Mermaid. Ariel is a very joyful character who has an adventurous and vibrant personality. He has a mind of his own and does a lot of what he wants, whether it's against his father's rules or not. Demonstrating her independence, Ariel often says things like "I'm not a child anymore!" to his father, the Sea King, and his mentor figure, Sebastian Readers know that he is sixteen years old and that the mermaid is infatuated with him (and much of humanity in general). The Prince does not know that he has been saved by the Little Mermaid, but instead thinks that the girl from the convent who found him on the shoreline saved his life. After finding the Little Mermaid, he treats her like a little girl. He says to the Little Mermaid “Yes, you are dear to me… because you have the best heart and are the most devoted to me… [but] she is the only one in the world I could love; but you are like her and you have driven her image from my mind. (Andersen 10) By telling her this, the Prince expresses to the Little Mermaid that he has taken so much care of her, as she is devoted to him, that he has almost forgotten the girl he saw outside the convent. In this light, it seems that the Prince is simply using the