“She threw her arms round his neck, and drew him down beside her.” Huldbrand let her, “embracing the beautiful girl and kissing her fervently.”[1]
“I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this” ~ 2 Samuel 6:21b-22a
Huldbrand rushes out to find Undine in the midst of the storm. Undine calls out to him, and coyly reveals herself on “a little island formed by the flood.” Huldbrand makes his way to her…and the quote above says it all.
But the fisherman finds them, rebukes them, and begs them to come to the “mainland” – which is now an island itself, cut off from the world.[3] Undine refuses, and sings of the stream going to the ocean. The old fisherman “wept bitterly at her song, but this did not seem to affect her.” It touches Huldbrand’s heart though, and he carries her back.[4]
Huldbrand’s Story
At this point, Huldbrand tells them how he came to them. He had been at a joust, where he met a “foster-daughter of one of the powerful dukes in the country.” Her name was Bertalda.[5]
At this, Undine “fastened her pearly teeth upon one of his fingers, appearing at the same time very gloomy and angry. Suddenly, however, she looked up in his eyes with an expression of tender melancholy….Then she hid her face, and the knight, strangely confused and thoughtful, continued his narrative.”[6]
Huldbrand changes his tune. He describes Bertalda as “a haughty, wayward girl,” and he only asked for one of her gloves (a sign of a lady’s favor) as a joke. But when Bertalda said she’d give it to him if he explored the haunted forest, he agreed in order to uphold his honor.[7] (That’s his story, at least.)
He then tells of his adventures in the woods – about talking demon-bears and imps (taken from Paracelsus, it seems!)…And a dangerous specter who seemed to alternate between a stream and an old man.[8]
At the end of his tale, the fisherman tells him how to get past the spirits when he leaves, but Undine triumphantly says it is impossible for him to leave – the flood has stranded him with them…[9]
The Wildness of Lovely Undine
Before, the wildness of Undine was only hinted at; here, it screams from every action. A woman in that day and age would never have pulled a knight so enticingly toward her – although a true knight would have upheld the lady’s honor, which Huldbrand did not.
I included the part about her singing to show how heartless she was. The old man was clearly remembering his lost daughter, who went into the stream and would have been carried to the ocean. I think it would move most people to see an old man weep, and yet Undine doesn’t care. It’s shameful, really.
And then…she bites Huldbrand. Fouqué has officially made his point. Undine is an intelligent, beautiful beast.
She is wild through and through…and yet, it is not a wildness we are used to. Worldly “mermaids” have souls – they have compassion, and (most) do not bite.
But Undine knows enough to realize her wildness is wrong; our worldly “mermaids” are deceived into thinking their wildness is right…
The Wildness of the World
Confession: I used to watch Jersey Shore. I was going through a rebellious stage, and I wanted to be wonderfully wild – which is what those girls on the show seemed to be. They dressed in sexy clothes and did whatever they wanted. Sure, I’d never do ALL the things they did; I just wanted to be as confident and free as they seemed.
And yet, there were cracks in their facade. The girls often dissolved into tears because their men were…well, cruel. As cruel and heartless as Undine was to the fisherman. But the women kept up their behavior, showing how no one could truly hurt them.
They were ensnared in destructive behaviors because they bought the lie that wild and free looked like hooking up, getting drunk, and not caring what people thought.
As Christians, we’re taught to turn away from such things. This is right and proper. Those things do not glorify Christ in any way.
But when we turn away, we tend to do so in judgement. The wildness of the world reveals a deeper yearning – a yearning to find themselves, a yearning to be accepted…a yearning to fill the holes in their hearts.
Godly Wildness
And now we are back at our lesson: how do we save the mermaid? How do we tell them their yearnings are all God-given! They’re just looking for meaning in the wrong places. Many of us have tried…and been silenced. They don’t want to be judged. Our religion is fine for us, but they don’t want it. They love everyone and are good people, and that’s enough for them.
So we stop trying…And then two tragedy happens. First, we turn away in judgement; second, we shun wildness itself.
I won’t go into the judgement part – we all know it’s God who judges. But God created us to be wild in Him, too! Look at David – he cockily told Goliath he would cut off his head (1 Sam. 17:45-46), and danced in “undignified” ways (2 Sam. 6:20-22 NIV). He was passionately following after God in a reckless, wild manner.
And he was a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22, NIV).
God created us to run with wolves and dance with fireflies, to defy evil and be undignified in pursuit of Him. But Christians have lost this. In turning from the wildness of the world, we’ve lost the wildness of Christ.
What would happen if we started living “wildly” for Christ? With abandon, not caring what people thought about us, and with passion…Perhaps then the worldly mermaids would be drawn to us. Perhaps then we could save the mermaid…
Sources
[1] Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué in Heidi Anne Heiner’s Mermaid and Other Water Spirit Tales from Around the World (Nashville, TN: SurLaLune Press, 2011) 547-548.
[2] Ibid., 552.
[3] Undine, 547-548.
[4] Ibid., 548.
[5] Undine, 549.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Undine, 549-550.
[8] Ibid., 550-552.
[9] Undine, 552.