"The Fisherman and his Wife.” The Juniper Tree, and other Tales from Grimm, Brothers Grimm, translated by Lore Segal, Randall Jarrell, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973, pp. 94-112.

Tale Summary

Once upon a time there was a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pot. While he was out fishing one day, he caught a big flounder who begged for his life, explaining that he was an enchanted prince, and the fisherman let him back into the water. When the man explained to his wife what had happened she was upset that he didn’t wish for anything, and demanded that he find the flounder again and ask that he transform their little pot into a cottage. When the man went back, the water was no longer clear and instead green and yellow. The fish granted him his wife’s wish, and when he returned home they had a very fine cottage. For a week or two they lived there, until his wife complained that the cottage was too small and that she would rather have a castle, and so the fisherman reluctantly returned to the water, which was violet, dark blue, and gray. The flounder granted this wish too, and when he returned home the cottage had been changed into a great castle, but the wife was only content for one night. The next morning she made him go back to the water, which had turned blackish and gray, to ask the flounder to make her King. This also came true, and she was living in an even larger, more splendid castle surrounded by people of the court, but immediately she decided that she was not satisfied and needed to be Emperor. When he reluctantly agreed and went back to the water, it was black and bubbling. The fish agreed to his request, and when he returned he found his wife living incredibly lavishly on a golden throne two miles high, but she said she was unhappy because she was not Pope, and that as his subject he must do as she demanded. The water was surging and roaring when he arrived, and the flounder again granted his request. The man came home to an even more incredible sight, and found his wife in a giant church surrounded by palaces, and had to push through throngs of people to get to her. That night, the fisherman slept soundly while his wife stayed up the entire night upset because she wanted to be more but could not think of what else she could ask for. When the morning came, she saw the sun come up, and wished that she could control that, too. She woke up her husband and demanded that the flounder make her the good Lord. He made his way to the water, but all around was a horrible storm that made the earth shake. The sky and the sea were black, and there were huge waves the size of mountains, which crashed so loudly that the man could not hear his own words when he told the flounder of his wife’s request. When he returned home, she was sitting in the pot again.