Array The Brothers Grimm - Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm - A New English Version

Once upon a time there were a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a shack that was so filthy it might as well have been a pisspot. Every day the fisherman went out to fish, and he fished and he fished. One day he sat there looking down into the clear water, and he sat, and he sat, and his line went all the way down to the bottom of the sea. And when he pulled it out, there was a great big flounder on the hook.

The flounder said, ‘Now look, fisherman — what about letting me live, eh? I’m no ordinary flounder. I’m an enchanted prince. What good would it do you to kill me? I wouldn’t taste nice at all. Put me back in the water, there’s a good fellow.’

‘Fair enough,’ said the fisherman. ‘Say no more. The word of a talking fish is good enough for me.’

And he put the flounder back in the water, and down it swam to the bottom, leaving a long trail of blood behind it.

Then the fisherman went back to his wife in their filthy shack.

‘Didn’t you catch anything today?’ she said.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I caught a flounder. A great big ’un. But he told me he was an enchanted prince, so I let him go.’

‘Typical!’ said the wife. ‘Why didn’t you ask him for something?’

‘I dunno,’ said the fisherman. ‘What should I have asked for?’

‘Those enchanted princes can do anything,’ said the wife. ‘And look at this shack. It stinks, the rain comes in, the shelves keep falling off the walls; it’s a terrible place to live. Go back and call that flounder up and tell him we want a nice cottage, all clean and neat. Go on.’

The fisherman didn’t really feel like doing that, but on the other hand he knew what would happen if he didn’t do what his wife wanted, so back he went to the seashore. When he got there the water wasn’t clear any more, but dark green and murky yellow.

He stood on the shore and said:

The flounder came up and said, ‘Well, what does she want?’

‘Oh, there you are. Well, it’s not my idea, you understand, but what she says is I should have asked you to grant a wish. And she told me what to wish for. She says she’s tired of living in a shack like a pisspot, and she wants to live in a cottage.’

‘Go home,’ said the flounder. ‘She’s got her wish already.’

The fisherman went home, and there was his wife standing in front of a neat little cottage.

‘There!’ she said. ‘Isn’t that better?’

There was a little garden at the front, and a pretty little parlour, and a bedroom with a proper feather bed, and a kitchen, and a pantry. All the rooms were furnished beautifully and the tin bowls and the copper saucepans were polished so bright they sparkled. Outside at the back there was a little yard and a pond with chickens and ducks, and a garden with vegetables and fruit trees.

‘Well, what did I tell you?’ said the wife.

‘Oh, yes,’ said the fisherman. ‘This is very nice. We can live here all right.’

‘We’ll see,’ said his wife.

Then they had supper and went to bed.

Everything was fine for a week or two. Then the wife said, ‘Listen to me. This cottage is too small. I can barely turn around in the kitchen, and as for the garden, half a dozen steps and you’ve reached the other side. It’s not good enough. That flounder could have given us a bigger place if he’d wanted to, it’s all the same to him. I want to live in a palace all made of marble. Go back and ask him for a palace.’

‘Oh, wife,’ said the man, ‘this is good enough for us. We don’t want a palace. What would we do in a palace?’

‘Plenty of things,’ said his wife. ‘You’re a defeatist, that’s what you are. Go on, go and ask for a palace.’

‘Oh, dear, I don’t know… He’s just given us the cottage. I don’t want to bother him again. He might get angry with me.’

‘Don’t be so feeble. He can do it. He won’t mind a bit. Go on.’

The fisherman felt bad about it. He didn’t want to go at all. ‘It’s not right,’ he said to himself, but he went anyway.

When he got to the shore the water had changed colour again. Now it was dark blue and purple and grey. He stood at the water’s edge and said:

‘What does she want this time?’ said the flounder.

‘Well, you see, she says the cottage is a bit small. She’d like to live in a palace.’

‘Go home. She’s already standing in front of the door.’

The fisherman set off home, and when he arrived, there was no cottage any more but a great palace all made of marble. His wife was standing at the top of the steps, about to open the door.

‘Come on!’ she said. ‘Don’t drag your feet! Come and have a look!’

He went in with her. The first room was a great hall with a black-and-white stone floor. There were large doors in every wall, and beside each door was a servant who bowed and flung it open. They could see rooms in every direction, and all the walls were painted white and covered with beautiful tapestries. The chairs and tables in every room were made of pure gold, and a crystal chandelier hung from every ceiling with a thousand diamonds twinkling in each one. The carpets were so deep the fishermen and his wife found their feet sinking to the ankles, and in the dining room was spread a feast so enormous that the tables had had to be reinforced with oak struts to stop them collapsing. Outside the palace there was a large courtyard covered in pure white gravel, each stone individually polished, and there stood a row of scarlet carriages of every size with white horses to pull each one, and as the fisherman and his wife came out, all the horses bowed their heads and dropped a curtsey. Beyond the courtyard was a garden of indescribable loveliness, with flowers whose scent perfumed the air for miles around, and fruit trees laden with apples and pears and oranges and lemons, and beyond the garden was a park half a mile long at least, with elk and deer and hares and every kind of decorative wild beast.

‘Isn’t this nice?’ said the wife.

‘Oh, yes,’ said the fisherman. ‘This is plenty good enough for me. We can live here and want for nothing.’

‘We’ll see,’ said the wife. ‘Let’s sleep on it and see how we feel in the morning.’

Next morning the wife woke up first. The sun was just rising, and as she sat up in bed she could see the garden and the parkland and the mountains beyond. Her husband was snoring happily beside her, but she poked him in the ribs and said, ‘Husband! Get up. Come on, I want you to look out of the window.’

He yawned and stretched and dragged himself to the window. ‘What is it?’ he said.

‘Well, we have the garden. That’s all very well. And we have the parkland. That’s very fine and large. But look beyond! Mountains! I want to be king, so we can have the mountains as well.’

‘Oh, wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘I don’t want to be king. Why would we want to be king? We haven’t seen all the rooms of this palace yet.’

‘That’s your trouble,’ she told him, ‘no ambition. Even if you don’t want to be king, I want to be king.’

‘Oh, wife, I can’t ask him that. He’s been so generous already. I can’t tell him you want to be king.’

‘Yes, you can. Be off with you.’

‘ Ohhh ,’ sighed the fisherman. Off he went, heavy-hearted. The fish won’t like it, he thought, but he went anyway.