“I’m Old Slipslide,” he introduced himself. “And I look forward to having you as my wife.”

“Old Slipslide? That sounds sort of dirty,” she said.

“Dirty? How so?” he asked.

“Nevermind,” she replied, “What’s all this wife business?”

And Old Slipslide explained, slowly and patiently, that by darting into his underwater home, the girl had consented to be his wife. And he was very glad she had, for she had the cutest little nose he ever did see. He assured her that there was no escape, and then shuffled off to prepare dinner.

At first, she scoffed at his promise, and made for the door, the window, and the interesting catapult device he used every day to go out and get the paper. But sure enough, everything was locked with a combination she had to admit, after many tries, she just could not figure out. And eventually, she got sort of comfortable living at the bottom of a wave pool. Old Slipslide turned out to be a pretty good cook, and his idea of marriage was apparently watching movies together while eating dinner.

But from time to time, she saw faces she recognized in the newspaper — her old sweetheart’s, or her father’s, and she realized she very much missed her old life. But how was she going to escape?

After ruling out any real escape plans, she tried something simple. She made comments, left notes, sang songs, all around the same general theme: I miss my dad, and this house is so stuffy, maybe we could open a window every once in a while? Finally, Old Slipslide obliged by opening a window, and the girl darted out and swam to the surface before he realized what was happening.

Back home, she was received warmly indeed by her father and her former sweetheart, whom she immediately agreed to marry even though she supposed she was technically still married to Old Slipslide. But she didn’t worry about it, because she was so very happy to have her old life back.

For a little while, anyway.

After a few months, she found that she was a little annoyed by her new fiancee, she missed having her own space, and she even sort of missed Old Slipslide. Her sweetheart was not a good cook, as it turned out, and loved to have romantic evenings dancing in the moonlight, which was nice at first, but had gotten old really fast. However, she was happy to be with her father again, and she did not really miss living underwater or being held captive.

The solution presented itself to her all at once. During a particularly bad bout of dancing atop the water slide, she asked her sweetheart to pause while she scribbled off a note: “Come see me if you’re ever on the outside”.

She taped the note to his jacket and immediately shoved him down the slide. He flew off in a spectacular manner and landed in the middle of the wave pool.

She smiled, and then she waited.

The End.

Source: Old Rinkrank, Brothers Grimm

Nine months later, she turned up at his door with a baby girl. He inquired, as politely as he could in his mostly shocked and somewhat suspicious state, but neither the mermaid nor the baby could provide a particularly helpful answer.

Left alone with the mermaid’s baby, the man did the only thing he could think of: he built a cottage to keep her in, and on top of it built a great plastic structure with water streaming down it. When the neighborhood kids begged to have a ride on it, he realized that the thing he had built to keep his daughter safe was, in fact, a water slide. And an excellent one, at that.

For years, the neighborhood children annoyed him. They always wanted to ride on the waterslide, or see the waterslide, or throw someone bothersome down the waterslide. But that was nothing, he realized later, compared to what they annoyed him about later.

You see, his daughter had grown to be very pretty indeed, and though she only rarely went out, she attracted more male attention than her father was comfortable with. Finally, he was forced to deal with the situation in the most logical way he could think of: he declared that no boy could date his daughter unless he managed to climb to the top of the water slide while the water was on.

For a while, the arrangement worked out quite nicely: any number of intrepid suitors declared at the foot of the slide how they intended to brave the slide and capture the heart of the girl, and then inevitably plunged to the ground after only a few steps.

It was a very good slide.

However, eventually, the thing he feared most happened: his daughter favored one of the young men, and arranged, behind her father’s back, to help him make his way up the water slide.

She reached out for his hand at the appointed time and place, and he very nearly made it. But when he finally managed to grab her hand, he slipped in the water and flew down the slide, dragging the girl with him. At some point, their hands broke apart, and she gained so much momentum that she flew into the air, over the water park and into the wave pool, where she disappeared in a giant gurgle.

Her father was none too pleased with the suitor who had done her in, however unintentionally.

Meanwhile, the girl sank further and deeper into the wave pool than she would have thought possible, and when she finally hit the bottom, she found herself face to face with an old man who seemed to have scales and the body of an octopus.

“Welcome home,” the creature said, and grinned.

The End. For now…

Source: Old Rinkrank, Brothers Grimm