The Little Mermaid
written by Hans Christian Andersen

"Thumbelina" (Danish: Tommelise) is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. "Thumbelina" is about a tiny girl and her adventures with appearance- and marriage-minded toads, moles, and cockchafers. She successfully avoids their intentions before falling in love with a flower-fairy prince just her size.

The story tells of a prince who wants to marry a princess, but is having difficulty finding a suitable wife. Something is always wrong with those he meets, and he cannot be certain they are real princesses because they have bad table manners or they are too fat or thin or not beautiful. One stormy night a young woman drenched with rain seeks shelter in the prince's castle. She claims to be a princess, so the prince's mother decides to test their unexpected, unwitting guest by placing a pea in the bed she is offered for the night, covered by 20 mattresses and 20 feather-beds. In the morning, the guest tells her hosts that she endured a sleepless night, kept awake by something hard in the bed that she is certain has bruised her. The prince rejoices. Only a real princess would have the sensitivity to feel a pea through such a quantity of bedding, so the two are married.

The Little Mermaid is a 1989 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation.

The Little Mermaid is a stage musical produced by Disney Theatrical, based on the animated 1989 Disney film of the same name and the classic story of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. The musical's book is by Doug Wright, music by Alan Menken and lyrics by the late Howard Ashman (written for the film) and new lyrics by Glenn Slater. The musical had a pre-Broadway tryout in Denver, Colorado in September 2007, with Broadway previews beginning in November 2007 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, previously the home of Disney Theatrical's Beauty and the Beast, which closed in July 2007 to make way for the new production. The Little Mermaid opened on January 10, 2008.