A little more background about the mermaid stories in this book-I think most people rightly identified that The Little Mermaid is a direct reference, particular the illustrated edition with Edmund Dulac, but there are actually two mermaid stories in that last segment.

I own a first edition of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's novella, Undine, which serves as the basis for most of the characters in the Little Mermaid segment. The book is super fragile, and I've got a plastic sleeve on it and I need to use gloves to handle it ?

The characters are named for the characters in the novella, which predates Andersen's story, The Little Mermaid, by around 25 years I think? Bertie is named for Bertalda, the competing love interest in the novella. Brandon, the prince stand-in, is named for Prince Huldebrand.

Even the Old Man of the Sea, the antagonist of the first segment, is modeled after Kuhleborn from Undine's story.

I didn't include all these little details in the author's note because I want readers to discover it for themselves. My hope is that folks will get curious, spend some time in libraries investigating older books, and find that the stories we love have deeper roots than we know.