"'Den Lille Havfrue,'" repeated Greta. "'The Little Ocean Lady.' I still
don't understand, Anna. Who can this be?"
"Just keep on walking, and I'll show you," answered Anna in her most
mysterious manner.
In a few minutes the girls had gone around the bay.
"Oh, Anna, how beautiful she is!" said the delighted Greta. Sitting on a
rock at the edge of the water was the statue of a lovely mermaid--"the
little ocean lady."
"She looks like a real live person," went on Greta, "except for her
fish's tail instead of feet. Is there really such a person as a mermaid,
Anna?"
[Illustration: A SIDE VIEW OF THE GEFION FOUNTAIN]
"I'm not sure, Greta, whether there is or not. But if there really is a
Nisse, then maybe there are mermaids, too. This Little Mermaid is the
most beautiful statue in Copenhagen. Some people think it is the
loveliest one in all Europe."
"How large is Copenhagen, Anna?"
[Illustration: THE GEFION FOUNTAIN]
"It has about a million people. That's a third of the whole population
of Denmark."
After a short walk the girls came to a large fountain, the largest that
Greta had ever seen. At the top of the fountain there was a statue of
four oxen, hitched to a plow and driven by a woman.
"This is called the Gefion Fountain, and it shows how the island of
Zealand was made," explained Anna. "There is an old, old story that says
that Denmark was given permission to take as much of Sweden as one could
plow around in a day. So the ruler of Denmark changed her four sons into
oxen and with them she plowed out the island on which Copenhagen stands.
This statue shows how she had to whip them and urge them on in order to
plow out this large island before night came."
"Oh, I wish we had brought Chouse along," said Greta. "He would love to
play in this fountain."
"Chouse likes to play in lots of places where he shouldn't. I think it's
a good thing that we left him home. He was very naughty at Tivoli the
other night."
"He didn't mean to be naughty, Anna. Don't you think we can take him
with us sometime?"
"Maybe; sometime," said Anna.
As the girls walked along they stopped now and then to look in the shop
windows. Whenever Greta saw a window full of beautiful silverware or
china she wanted to stop and buy a gift for her mother. This china,
decorated with figures in a soft blue color, was called Royal Copenhagen
Porcelain, and it was famous all over the world. The silverware was
designed by a Danish artist named Georg Jensen, and it was also very
famous.
"You will have lots of time to buy a gift for your mother, Greta. Don't
stop now. I hope you aren't tired, for we have a hard climb ahead of
us."
"A climb? Why, there isn't a hill in all Copenhagen."
"Do you see that church with the dome-shaped roof that's all green and
shiny? Well, that's what we are going to climb."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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