SHATTERED FABLES: BOY'S CLOTHES, PAGE'S COSTUME (MANDSDRAGT)

Let's return to that prince, that handsome, oblivious man. When the mermaid first arrives, he is delighted by his new toy. He has clothes made for her, a boy's clothes, a page's costume, so she can ride with him and attend him. She is desexualized, made into a companion, a mascot. He loves her, yes, but in the way a man loves his horse. He does not see her as a woman. He does not see the depths of her sacrifice. He sees a beautiful mute creature who dances for his pleasure.

(Shattered Fables sees the mandsdragt, here called "boy's clothes" and "page's costume," as a token of desexualization, a defense mechanism by which the prince, who is straight, ceases to see the Little Foundling --mermaid as a human-- as an erotic temptation. I will not cease to state, like Maria Tatar, that it would have given her much more freedom, Andersen describes the couple riding astride their horses and mountaineering, not to mention the controversy that would rise at a Victorian royal court that a girl, moreover a castaway/foundling who caught the prince's eye, would crossdress - this was intentional on the queer Andersen's part!)