THE MERMAID'S PAGE'S COSTUME / RIDING SUIT

THE LITTLE (MER)MAID'S PAGE'S COSTUME / RIDING SUIT / MAN'S OUTFIT

Andersen's original has "en mandsdragt" to describe the Little maid's (on land) horse-riding suit. The Swedish translation at my grandmother's has "en karladräkt," while the majority of Spanish translations in my Andersen collection opt for "un traje de hombre", and even Josep Carner has "un vestit d'home" (one has "un traje de caballero", while a Catalan one has "uns pantalons"; Adriana Matons, who translates from the German, has "unos pantalones de montar"). The official German translation has "eine Knabentracht." Dumas has "un costume d'homme," while David Soldi has "un costume d'amazone", Louis Moland has "des habits d'homme", and Étienne Avenard translates "des vêtements d'homme". Definitely, the seventh and youngest of the mermaid princess bunch surpasses even the third sister in birth order (described as "the boldest of them all," she was the only one who dared to swim a river upstream, into freshwater and deeper into land, during her baptism of air upon turning 16, than any of her sisters) when it comes to tomboyishness, once the seventh mermaid sister is on terra firma. Riding on horseback straddling the horse (riding astride) and wearing trousers, just like Queen Christina!
Consider the SurLaLune annotation for H.P. Paull:
34. He had a page’s dress made for her, that she might accompany him on horseback: While Mrs. Paull chose the word page's dress to describe the page's costume, the outfit ("mandsdragt") is really a uniform for a male page. The little maid is crossing gender lines by wearing men's clothing and going horseback riding with him (Tatar 2002, 302).
Maria Tatar's own translation has "a page's costume," echoing H.P. Paull, and she provides the following annotation:
47. The prince had a page's costume made for her. Critics who bemoan the self-effacing nature of the mermaid often neglect to note that she is also more adventurous, spirited, and curious than most fairy-tale heroines. Cross-dressing is a sign of willingness to cross boundaries and to take risks in order to see the world.
While the FutureLearn course, which has "a man's costume" in the John Irons translation, states the following:
"He brings her home and is not insensible to her beauty. He does notice that her eyes are eloquent, but [···] then he has a man’s costume sewn for her [···]  We might say that in (the second of) three different ways he tries to protect himself from her. The prince loves a girl who looks like her, (but who is sworn to chastity)."
A Literary Translation course, that employs the Erik Haugaard translation which uses "men's clothes," has the following remark, on the same line: 
the man's outfit created for her: desexualize the maid, friend zoned (however, since the "-dragt" is rendered as "outfit" - I think another source would have been Marte Hvam Hult, who renders "a man's outfit" in her translation.)
Definitely, as a feminist, I rather agree with Maria Tatar.

On the third mermaid sister's baptism of air, Maria Tatar writes:
20. beautiful green hills covered with grapevines. Andersen's landscapes are filled with vivid sights, sounds, and aromas. The third sister sees nature's beauty and also discovers how humans have entered it to cultivate it (with grapevines), build residences (castles and manors), and produce children. The mutual animosity (based on fear driven by lack of familiarity) between the two worlds becomes evident when the mermaid terrifies the children.


PS. Brian Alderson translates this "mandsdragt" with the entirely gender-neutral "a suit of a companion of the royal household" (He had a suit of a companion of the royal household made for her so that she could go with him on horseback. They would ride through the springtime woodland with the green branches sweeping their shoulders and the little birdies singing from the fresh new foliage. She climbed with the prince into the high hills, ... and followed him up till the clouds lay below them ...) Interestingly, both the words "suit" and "companion" are gender-neutral, compared to the masculine term "mandsdragt" in Andersen's text (consider also "uns pantalons" or Matons "unos pantalones de montar"; both translations written at a time when European women were claiming trousers for themselves). Why has Alderson made this decision?

PS. While H.P. Paull (Victorian canon) has the slightly epicene "a page's costume" (to translate "en mandsdragt"), Marte Hvam Hult has "a man's outfit" (He had a man’s outfit sewed for her so she could go horseback riding with him.)