“There were six lovely children, but the youngest one was the most beautiful of them..."

“There were six lovely children, but the youngest one was the most beautiful of them all, her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose petal, her eyes as blue as the deepest sea, but like the rest of them she had no feet, her body ended in a fish’s tail. All day long they could spend playing down in the palace, in the great halls where living flowers grew out of the walls. The great amber windows would be opened, and then the fishes would swim in to them, just as the swallows fly in to us when we open the windows, but the fishes swam right up to the small princesses, ate out of their hand and let themselves be stroked”