1/5.TheLittleMermaid. The plaintive story of a mermaid who becomes human but walks in agony - is it an ode to love, a Christian message or a depiction of its creator Hans Christian Andersen , himself? On the 200th anniversary of his birth, poet Ruth Padel finds out why Andersen's tales still speak to us and what they tell us about the man who wrote them. Producer Emma Kingsley