“When the sisters gathered in the evening (...)

(...) arm in arm, and ascended through the sea, their little sister was left behind all on her own, and it was as if she would cry, but a mermaid has no tears and so she had to suffer all the more. ‘Ah, if only I was fifteen years old!’ she said, ‘I know that I will grow really fond of the world above us and of the people who build and live up there!’ “At last, she reached the age of fifteen. ‘Well, now you are grown up’, said her grandmother, the old queen mother, said. ‘Come here, let me adorn you like your other sisters!’ and she placed a garland of white lilies in her hair, but each petal in the flower was half a pearl; and the old lady had eight large oysters attach themselves to the princess’s tail to indicate her high rank."