Mermaid Bedtime Stories
The famous mermaid story is about wanting to be somewhere else. Legs, land, a life up there — it is a story that ends on yearning, and yearning is a poor note to leave a four-year-old on at half past seven.
The sea itself is the better subject, because the sea at night does exactly what a bedtime story is supposed to do. It gets darker the further down you go, and quieter, and slower, and the surface with all its noise and weather ends up a very long way above you. A mermaid going down at the end of the day is a wind-down with a shape you can feel. Below is a complete one, free to read aloud tonight.
The Mermaid Who Swam Down at Bedtime
A free story to read aloud tonight
At the top of the sea the evening was still going on — gulls arguing, the last of the light lying about on the surface in broken pieces, a boat somewhere being noisy about nothing.
Nerin turned over and went down, which is how her family had always ended the day, and the first thing that happens when you go down is that the arguing stops.
Ten fathoms, and the light went from gold to green. The weed leaned all one way, slowly, the way a crowd leans. A crab crossed the road in front of her and did not apologise.
Thirty fathoms, and the green went blue and then to a blue so dark it was really only a rumour of blue. It was properly cold now, the good kind, and there was no weather down here at all — whatever was happening up top had stopped being any of her business somewhere around twenty.
Fifty, and the little lights began: a jelly drifting past with its own lamp on, a shoal of something small going by like sparks blown off a fire, and far below, one steady glow that had been there every night of her life and had never once explained itself.
She found the ledge she always found, and folded her tail under her, and lay in the dark with the whole sea on top of her like six blankets. Somewhere above, the boat was still being noisy. It was a very long way up, and getting further, and then she was asleep.
Isn’t the classic mermaid story quite sad?
The original is, and versions of it still carry that ending — a mermaid who gives something up to be somewhere else. That is a fine story and a bad bedtime, because it finishes on longing. A mermaid story works at lights-out when it is about the sea rather than about escaping it, which is why the one above is simply a swim downwards.
What age are mermaid bedtime stories best for?
Roughly 3–8, with the strongest pull around 4–6. Personalized stories match sentence length to your child’s age, so a three-year-old gets short rhythmic lines about the dark and the cold water, and a seven-year-old gets the fathoms and the crab.
Can I make a personalized mermaid story with my child in it?
Yes — pick the Under the sea story world and your child is the one swimming, by name, with watercolor pictures and a narrator, in about thirty seconds. “My own…” lets you be more specific if they have strong opinions about the tail colour, which they usually do.