The Piscean Epilogue

You may know the old story of the fisherman and his wife, but do you know what happened afterward? Well, before I get ahead of myself, I’ll make sure you know the background. The Grimm brothers first told the story of The Fisherman and His Wife years ago, and this is more or less how it went.

There once was a fisherman.

He and his wife lived in a meager little hovel.

The fisherman had to fish so that they could eat, but he didn’t mind. He loved to fish. Early one morning, he was fishing in the ocean.

There was a tug at his line, and he reeled it in.

Much to his surprise, the fish spoke to him!

“Wait! Don’t eat me! I am an enchanted prince who was turned into a fish, and I can grant you a wish!”

The fisherman was startled, but he replied right away, “If you have been turned into a fish, then the best thing I can do is let you go back into the ocean and swim away.”

As the fisherman lowered the fish back into the water, the fish said to him, “I am grateful to you for letting me go. If you are ever in trouble or need anything, come to the ocean and call me.”

So the fisherman returned home and told his wife about what had occurred.

“What? You caught an enchanted fish and you let him go? He must have great powers, and surely he could do something for us. Here we live in this hovel, but he could give us a proper cottage. Now go right back and ask him to do that!”

The weary fisherman turned around and went back to the shore. He called out,

“Flounder, flounder in the sea

Hither swiftly swim to me

For my wife has a request of thee!”

After a moment, the fish swam up to the shallows and appeared. The fisherman told him his wife’s request, and the fish said, “It shall be done. Go home and there you will find your wife in front of your new cottage.”

The fisherman did so, and just as the fish had said, there was the new cottage with a pretty little garden. He and his wife slept very well in a soft bed in their new home, but the next morning, his wife awoke out of sorts and said to him, “Husband, I think we asked for the wrong thing. If the fish could give us this cottage so easily, then surely he could make us much richer! Go back and tell him I want a fine mansion and servants!”

So the fisherman did as his wife wished and went back to call the fish. The fish came just as before, heard the request, and told him it would be granted. But the fisherman’s wife was not satisfied for long. That evening, she said to her husband, “I don’t know why you didn’t ask that fish to make you king. Then we should never have another worry.”

“King!” exclaimed her husband. “I have no wish to be king.”

“Then I shall be king. Go tell the fish to make me king.”

“You be king? But that’s absurd!” said the fisherman.

“Just go! The fish can do it.”

And the fisherman went. He called out to the fish, and when the fish came through the dark waters, he told him that his wife wanted to be king. The fish said to him, “You freed me when you could have killed me and eaten me. The request is granted.”

The fisherman returned to find his wife seated on a golden throne surrounded by servant girls and page boys awaiting her orders. He thought that at last she would be happy.

But it was not to be. Soon she called the fisherman over and said to him, “I have looked out over my kingdom, and I see that the sun and moon alone do not obey my commands. Go tell the fish I want to rule over the heavens and the earth. I want to be God.”

The fisherman was appalled, but he was afraid not to go. His reluctant feet took him to the shore, and he told the fish what his wife had requested.

“Go home,” said the fish. “You will find her sitting in her miserable little hovel.”

And so he did, and there they lived.

Now, that is where the often told story stops. But that is not the end. I am going to tell you what happened next.

The servant girls had seen what happened. Two of them, Orma and Inba, had overheard the wife speak to the fisherman about an enchanted fish that granted requests, and they had an idea.

They called the other servant girl, Alta, to meet them at the beach at dawn to talk about what might be done.

“We ought to get something nice for ourselves, after the hard lives we’ve been living,” said Orma.

“But didn’t you see what happened to the fisherman and his wife? They lost everything and were sent back to live in their hovel!” cried Alta.

“They just asked too many times,” replied Orma. “I will make only one request, and I know exactly what it will be.” And so Orma resolved to catch the enchanted fish.

When she finally did catch it, she could barely make herself touch its scaly body. She resolved to hold onto it, though, until it granted her wish.

“Flounder, I want to be rich!”

The flounder granted her request, and she went to dress herself in finery and enjoy her luxurious new life.

Later that same day, she was visited by the new king’s tax collectors. They saw her riches, checked their records, and found that she had never paid taxes before. At once they threw her in prison.

Inba and Alta heard about this. Alta suggested that they abandon their quest for the fish, but Inba shrugged it off. “I know what the key is now,” said Inba. “The secret is to ask for something for someone else!” She smiled a clever smile and went to catch the fish.

It took some time, but she finally reeled it in. As water droplets fell from the enchanted fish’s fins, he heard her request. “Flounder, my mother and my father work hard. I want them to live a life of ease in a fine house, full of beautiful things.” Her lip curled proudly as she congratulated herself on finding a loophole that would benefit herself.

“Your request is granted,” said the fish, and he leapt back into the waves.

Inba went home to find her surprised parents living in an enormous mansion, filled with hanging tapestries and gleaming silver candelabras. The very things that she had wanted turned out to be her undoing, however. The next day, a terrible fire broke out as the candles caught the tapestries ablaze, and the flames spread rapidly throughout the mansion. Inba and her parents had to run for their lives.

Alta walked along the beach the next day, thinking about all that had happened. She was hesitant to ask the fish for anything, but there was one thing that she couldn’t get out of her mind. And so, rejecting the idea of using a link and a sharp hook, she called to the fish.

Right away, the fish leapt from the waves in front of her. She bent down and shared her request with him.

“Flounder, every day as I walk to work I pass a cottage where an elderly woman lives alone. She works in her garden and she keeps her home as neat as a pin.

She even offers the little beggar children food to eat. But I can tell that she is sad. Flounder, I wish that she didn’t have to be lonely.”

“Go and see that your wish is granted,” said the fish, disappearing in a flash of its fins.

Alta hurried to the cottage to see a man running up to the door. The elderly woman rushed out to catch her son in an ecstatic embrace.

You see, it had been years since she had seen her son. He had been turned into a fish several years ago by a jealous enemy, and Alta’s selfless wish had broken the enchantment. Now he had returned to his mother, and he was free to take the throne of the land once more. He was the prince! He did not want to rule alone, and he had seen the beauty of Alta’s heart when she innocently made the wish that set him free.

The prince and Alta were married and went to live in the castle. His kind mother went along too, and she took the orphaned children to live there as well. None of them would ever be lonely again.

To this day, hopeful people fish those waters, searching for an enchanted fish. Little do they know that they might be better off without it, depending on what they would wish!

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