‘Ho! ho!’ said the Fisherman, ‘you need not make so many words about it. I am quite ready to put back a Flounder that can talk.’ And so saying, he put back the Flounder into the shining water, and it sank down to the bottom, leaving a streak of blood behind it.
Then the Fisherman got up and went back to his Wife in the hovel. ‘Husband,’ she said, ‘hast thou caught nothing to-day?’
‘No,’ said the Man; ‘all I caught was one Flounder, and he said he was an enchanted prince, so I let him go swim again.’
‘Didst thou not wish for anything then?’ asked the Good-wife.
‘No,’ said the Man; ‘what was there to wish for?’
‘Alas!’ said his Wife, ‘isn’t it bad enough always to live in this wretched hovel! Thou mightst at least have wished for a nice clean cottage. Go back and call him, tell him I want a pretty cottage: he will surely give us that.’
‘Alas!’ said the Man, ‘what am I to go back there for?’
‘Well,’ said the Woman, ‘it was thou who didst catch him and let him go again; for certain he will do that for thee. Be off now!’
The Man was still not very willing to go, but he did not want to vex his Wife, and at last he went back to the sea.
He found the sea no longer bright and shining, but dull and green. He stood by it and said—
Prythee, hearken unto me:
My Wife, Ilsebil, must have her own will,
And sends me to beg a boon of thee.’
The Flounder came swimming up, and said, ‘Well, what do you want?’
‘Alas,’ said the Man, ‘I had to call you, for my Wife said I ought to have wished for something as I caught you. She
