The Fisherman and His Wife

6-8 min read
16 pages

The fisherman and his wife, the Brothers Grimm tale to read aloud. The flounder grants what she asks for, and she keeps finding something else.

A fisherman and his wife lived in a hut by the sea, so close that the spray came in at the window in autumn, and he fished every day and they ate what he caught.

One morning his line went tight and he pulled up a flounder, and the flounder said, «Let me go. I am not a flounder. I am an enchanted prince.»

«A fish that talks isn't one I'd want for supper,» said the fisherman, and he put him back, and the water where he went down turned a long streak of red behind him.

At home he told his wife. She put down what she was holding. «And you asked for nothing? We live in a hut. Go back and ask for a cottage.»

He did not want to. He went. He stood at the edge of the water and said the words she had told him, and the flounder came up and said, «Go home. She is in it already.» And there was a cottage, with a parlour and a bedroom and hens in the yard.

It lasted a fortnight. «A cottage,» said his wife. «Go and ask for a stone castle.»

The sea was purple and dark grey when he went that time, and it was heaving, though there was no wind. The flounder came up. «Go home. She is standing in the door.» And she was, on the steps of a castle with servants behind her.

The next morning she woke him early. «I want to be king of this country.» «Wife,» he said, «the man is king. Be content.» «Go,» she said.

The sea was black and thick and boiling up from underneath. But the flounder came, and she was queen, with a throne of gold two yards high and a crown she could hardly hold her head up under.

By noon she wanted to be emperor, and by evening pope, and each time the fisherman went down to the water with his knees shaking, and each time the flounder said, «Go home. She is it already.»

That night she lay awake looking at the ceiling of the room, which was a cathedral. There was one thing left, and she could not stop thinking about it.

«Husband,» she said, when the first light came in. «Get up. I want to command the sun to rise.»

He begged her. He got down on the floor. She sent him out into the weather.

The sea was standing up in walls. There was no sky, only black cloud with the lightning inside it, and he could not hear his own voice saying the words, but the flounder heard them.

«Go home,» said the flounder. «She is back in the hut.»

And that is where she was, and where he found her, and where they are still. The window still lets the spray in. Neither of them has ever mentioned the flounder again.

…read the rest in the Marytale app.

Marytale is an app of illustrated bedtime stories to read to your child — a picture on every page, no ads and no internet needed. The bookmark stays where your child fell asleep.

Try it free

Scan with your phone to get Marytale

Text source: Plot by the Brothers Grimm (1812), public domain. The text was written anew for Marytale — it is not a reprint of anyone else's version.

Want to know where these stories come from? The articles are here

The Fisherman and His Wife

More stories to read