“Far out in the ocean the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower, and as clear as the purest glass.” 

So begins Hans Christian Andersen’s beloved fairy tale, “The Little Mermaid.” Published in 1837, the original story is far darker and sadder than later, popular versions such as Disney’s 1989 animated film. There are no talking crabs or ditzy seagulls. And there is definitely no happy ending. A quiet, thoughtful and curious young mermaid longs to explore the world above the waves—and gives her heart to a prince who, sadly, does not want it. There’s no wedding for her, no feast. Just a brokenhearted girl turning to sea foam on the waves at dusk. The tale is filled with imagery both dark and bleak. The mermaid, desperate to leave the sea behind, allows a treacherous sea-witch to cut out her tongue, willingly exchanging it for a pair of dainty, though incredibly painful, feet. 

Dark, and sad. Beautiful, too. 

I had been thinking about writing a retelling of it for quite some time. Back in 2015, I began by writing these words on the first page of a crisp, new notebook: “It will be a dark, salty tale about sea-magic, loss, unrequited love, family, betrayal, self-discovery, and revenge.” Of course, you can’t have darkness without some light, too, and it soon became clear that I needed another tale to work into the story. Something sparkly and romantic. Something with enough softness, warmth and wonder to balance out the strange, haunting bitterness of “The Little Mermaid.” That tale, I decided, was “Cinderella.”

Although there are thousands of variants of this story from cultures all over the world, I focused on the French iteration penned by Charles Perrault in 1697. It’s the most recognizable version, and was the first to include the pumpkin, fairy godmother and those mesmerizing glass slippers.  

Closer analysis of the two tales revealed interesting connections. Both Cinderella and the little mermaid have a wealthy or powerful father; sisters (the mermaid’s are far kinder); are motherless and feel trapped; seek help from an aged, wisewoman figure (like the sisters, the sea-witch and the fairy godmother are quite different); and fall for a prince. Both tales also focus on shoes or feet. Mermaids are liminal creatures, half one shape and half the other. In many folktales, they are shape-shifters, able to change their tails into legs on a whim. Cinderella, too, is a shape-shifter, appearing in different forms, hiding her true identity from the people around her. 

These similarities (and differences) seemed strong enough to become the foundation of an entirely new story. One that was enchanting and romantic, and dark and sad. Maybe, just maybe, it would be a little terrifying, too—not unlike mermaids themselves.

Perrault’s “Cinderella,” being French, led me to set the story on the shores of Brittany in the mid-18th century, a time when the fabulously wealthy ship owners and dashing corsairs of Saint-Malo dominated the seas, decadent balls lasted till the early hours of the morning, ladies’ shoes were dainty and their gowns—ridiculously wide and sweeping out from their hips—changed their shapes dramatically from the waist down. England and France were at each other’s throats (again), science had not yet ousted superstition and the people of Brittany still visited sacred springs and standing stones. They left bread out for the faeries. And they believed in magic.

It seemed the perfect backdrop for the tale—a seaside “kingdom,” an “aristocracy” of shipowners, a king-like merchant and his daughters. Sea-witches roamed the shore and sailed in witch-boats, and smugglers plied their trade across the English Channel, each of them living according to the will of the sea. The sea that—I’m sure Hans Christian Andersen would agree—was as blue as the petals of the bluest cornflower and as sparkly as a slipper made of the purest glass.

Photo of Kell Woods by Follow The Sun Photography.

I wanted to write about motherhood. 

I set pen to white paper and brainstormed around the circled word “MOTHER.” What were my word associations and allusions? The Queen of Coins. Marmee March and Cersei Lannister. Josephine Rabbit. The Capitoline wolf. 

A she-wolf nursing infant twins is an unforgettable image. Strange, certainly. Unnatural, perhaps. It is the emblem of Rome itself, found on coins and football club jerseys, and has traversed the world as its empire once did—to Parisian parks and U.S. city squares. The mother wolf has become an established part of our communal iconography. 

This trope persists in other mythologies, too. Atalanta raised by bear cubs. Enkidu. Mowgli and Tarzan. These feral children prevail as symbols of hope and survival. Of life, against all odds, finding a way. And yet, while our oral tradition and literature may love the babies, we think and talk and write much less about their mothers. 

Most people with a grasp of European history know Romulus and Remus, but before there was a wolf, there was a woman, breaking herself in birth. Who was she? Why was she separated from her children? The answer is Rhea Silvia, princess turned pregnant priestess, who lost her babies because she lived in a time when nefarious powers governed what she could and couldn’t do with her body.  

I scoured the primary sources for Rhea, finding the clearest narrative in book one of the Roman Antiquities by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. I thought I knew Rome because I was raised on sword and sandal epics, Ben-Hur and Spartacus. But Latium is something else entirely. It’s a confederation, a league of small cities under the loose rule of Alba Longa—a site that no longer exists. It may have been where the pope’s summer residence, Castel del Gandolfo, is located, but there are no remaining pillars or foundations to visit. Rhea and her sons are one of the old myths, occurring outside the cultural assumptions of Roman Empire, the stock images of Coliseum and Caesar. 

I read of the kings that descended from Aeneas, a lineage almost Shakespearean in nature, so reminiscent of the Bard’s best tragedies, so rife with rivalry and revenge. King Numitor’s daughter, a Vestal Virgin, is impregnated by the god of war, and delivers Romulus and Remus in an almost biblical narrative: babes sent down the river to escape death, fulfilling a prophecy. Afterward, however, Rhea Silvia fades from the record like the brightest colors in an ancient fresco. She’s not even in the background; she’s gone. 

In SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, Mary Beard raises the question: What does Rome’s founding myth reveal about its values and character?

A redundant brother. A divine birth. Patriarchal values. Male protagonists. 

Retelling is a trendy word, but these stories are more than a reimagining, they are also a resurrection. In Mother of Rome, Rhea gets restored to the scene—rising out from under the classical author’s omission or neglect and into the game of thrones. In the novel, I write: “’This is the first lesson, Rhea. Men think they create the empires, but both are born of women.” 

Mother of Rome is my ode to Rhea Silvia, to a mother’s life-giving love, but it is also a reminder: There is always a before. Before the city. Before the kings. This is that origin story, and it’s hers.

Photo of Lauren J.A. Bear by Heidi Leonard.