The Little Mermaid

In Laos, many fables tell of serpents known as nagas that live at the bottom of the Mekong River. Some have one head; some have seven. Sometimes they use their magical powers to take human form and come up onto the land.

So Hans Christian Andersen's classic and romantic fairy tale of a mermaid with just a single head (usually) will not seem too strange to Lao readers, young and old, who can now enjoy it for the first time.