Mermaid gets her prince

COPENHAGEN - Agence France-Presse

The young male sculpture will be in front of the ‘Kulturvaerftet’ culture house. AFP photo

For almost a century, Copenhagen’s iconic Little Mermaid statue has perched alone on a rock in the harbor, wistfully pining for the prince she has been promised, and now she will finally get her man.

The city of Helsingoer, or Elsinore as Shakespeare wrote, will on June 2 unveil a suitable companion to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale mermaid, in the shape and form of Han (HIM, in Danish).

The stainless steel young male figure, made by sculptors Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, is to perch on his own steel rock in a similar pose in Helsingoer harbor, watching the fleets of luxury liners that pass through the Oeresund Strait on their way to the Little Mermaid.