There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a ditch close by
the seaside. The fisherman used to go out all day long a-fishing, and
one day as he sat on the shore with his rod, looking at the shining
water and watching his line, all of sudden his float was dragged away
deep under the sea. In drawing it up he pulled a great fish out of the
water. The fish said to him--
"Pray let me live. I am not a real fish. I am an enchanted prince. Put
me in the water again and let me go."
"Oh!" said the man, "you need not make so many words about the matter.
I wish to have nothing to do with a fish that can talk, so swim away
as soon as you please."
Then he put him back into the water, and the fish darted straight down
to the bottom, and left a long streak of blood behind him.
When the fisherman went home to his wife in the ditch, he told her how
he had caught a great fish, and how it had told him it was an
enchanted prince, and that on hearing it speak he had let it go
again.
"Did you not ask it for anything?" said the wife.
"No," said the man; "what should I ask it for?"
"Ah!" said the wife, "we live very wretchedly here in this nasty
miserable ditch, do go back and tell the fish we want a little
cottage."
The fisherman did not much like the business; however, he went to the
sea, and when he came there the water looked all yellow and green. He
sat at the water's edge and said--
"O man of the sea,
Come listen to me,
For Alice my wife,
The plague of my life,
Hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!"