The Decapitation of the Little Mermaid

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2017

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1998 someone cut the head off the most famous statue in Denmark. Inspired by a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, it's a bronze figure of a girl sitting on a rock in Copenhagen harbour. After a police search to find the head, it was Peter Jensen's job to reattach it to the mermaid's body.

Photo: The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbour. Credit: Reuters/Bob Strong.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
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0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds just before this
0:30.3	BBC podcast gets underway here's something you may not know.
0:34.4	My name's Linda Davies and I commission podcast for BBC Sounds.
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0:46.0	engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:54.2	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories.
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1:02.6	Find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
1:05.8	Hello and thank you for downloading Witness from the BBC World Service with me Ashley Byrne.
1:11.2	Today we're taking you back to 1998 and an act of
1:14.9	vandalism in Copenhagen which shocked an entire nation. I've been speaking to
1:20.0	Danish bronze caster Peter Jensen about his role in the reattachment of the head of the
1:26.2	Little Mermaid.
1:27.2	Denmark's top tourist attraction.
	...

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