Origins and setting
“The Fisherman and His Wife” is a German wonder tale from the north coast, told in the rolling cadences of Low German and preserved in English as a parable of insatiable wishing. Its dramatis personae are few and sharp: a poor fisherman, his ambitious wife Ilsebill, and a talking flounder—an enchanted prince—who grants wishes from the heaving sea. The tale is built on repetition: each wish, each summons to the fish, each return to a sea that grows darker and more ill-tempered, until the last demand snaps the line and the world returns to its humble beginning.
The tale
There once lived a fisherman and his wife in a hovel of turf and boards near the dunes. Each day the man went out with his line and the wife kept a pot that never quite boiled over, for there was little to put into it but sea-wind and patience.
One morning the fisherman hooked a flounder, a flat, silvery fish that flashed and twisted until—most marvellously—it spoke.
“Fisherman, spare me! I am no common fish. I am an enchanted prince. Throw me back into the sea.”
The fisherman, startled but gentle-hearted, slid the flounder from the hook and set it free. It flicked its tail and vanished in a swirl of green.
When he told Ilsebill what had happened, she stared at him as if he had come home with empty hands and an empty head. “You caught a prince and let him go, and you asked for nothing?” she cried. “We live in a pigsty that leaks in fair weather and sinks in foul. Go back and call the fish. Tell him I would have a cottage—just a snug, proper cottage.”
The fisherman scratched his neck but took his cap and went down to the sea. The water lay clear and green, ruffled by a friendly breeze. He stood where the tide lipped his boots and called:
“Man of the Sea, come up to me—
for my wife, Dame Ilsebill;
has something she would will.”
The water burred and boiled a little, and the flounder’s head rose like a pale moon.
“What does she want?” asked the fish.
“Only a cottage,” said the fisherman. “We live in a hovel.”
“Go home; she has it already.”
He went, and there stood a white-washed cottage with shutters blue as kingfishers, a little garden paled in, a hearth that drew, and a pot that simmered with something better than wind. Ilsebill stood in the doorway, hands on hips, well pleased.
For a day and a night she was content. On the next morning her eyes went over the hedges and beyond the dunes.
“This cottage is all very well,” she said, “but I think a cottage too small for folk of spirit. Go to the fish. Say I would have a fine house—a proper stone house with rooms upon rooms.”
“Wife,” said the fisherman, “the fish has just given us a lovely place. It may be a sin to ask for more.”
“Nonsense,” said Ilsebill. “Go.”
So he went. The sea was now green and yellow, flecked like an old bruise.
“Man of the Sea, come up to me—
for my wife, Dame Ilsebill;
has something she would will.”
Up came the flounder. “What now?”
“She would have a stone house,” said the fisherman, and felt the words heavy in his mouth.
“Go home; she has it already.”
Home he went—and there, where the cottage had been, rose a great house with mullioned windows, a hall hung with tapestries, a buttery, a dairy, and hens so tidy they laid eggs by the dozen and bowed about it. Ilsebill, in a stiff gown, walked the chambers like a lady who had been one all her days.
For a week she ordered footmen and fattened capons. Then she stood at an upper window, measuring the horizon.
“Husband,” she said, “the house is handsome, but why should I stop at house? Go to the fish and say I would be a lady of rank—no, a queen.”
The fisherman’s heart sank. “Queen? Wife, the fish may be angered.”
“Go,” said Ilsebill, “and do not stand jawing like a cod on a plate.”
He went; the sea was grey and sullen, heaving in long, tired ridges.
“Man of the Sea, come up to me—
for my wife, Dame Ilsebill;
has something she would will.”
The flounder’s eyes were colder. “What does she want?”
“She would be queen.”
“Go home; she is so already.”
And it was true. The house had grown to a palace with guards on the steps and a crown on the cushion. Ilsebill sat upon a throne of gold, jewels at her throat, courtiers bent like reeds about her. She lifted a hand, and a hundred obeyed.
“Well, husband,” she said, “you see what a little asking can do.”
“Then rest,” he begged. “Be content, my queen.”
But content is a bird that does not nest indoors. After a few days Ilsebill’s fingers drummed on the arm of the throne.
“Queen is not enough,” she said. “Go to the fish. Say I would be empress—the greatest in all the wide world.”
“Wife,” said the fisherman, “the sea looks ugly; I think it might be ill with us to push on.”
“Go,” said Ilsebill, “or never come back.”
He went. The sea was dark as slate, swollen, and stinking, with small waves that bit at the shore.
“Man of the Sea, come up to me—
for my wife, Dame Ilsebill;
has something she would will.”
“What now?” said the fish.
“She would be empress.”
“Go home; she is so already.”
Home he went. The palace had become an empire: drums on the wind, banners like storms, cities leaning their roofs toward her name. Ilsebill sat on a throne higher than all, the crowns of kings nailed to its foot.
“Now,” said the fisherman, “be easy. There is nothing more to ask.”
Ilsebill’s eyes narrowed, working at the next rung of the ladder. That very night she woke and shook him.
“Husband!” she cried. “Empress—pah! I will be Pope.”
He stared. “Wife, it is not meet. Pope is God’s steward on earth.”
“Go,” she said. “Say I will be Pope.”
He went. The sea was black and thick, boiling from below; the wind had teeth.
“Man of the Sea, come up to me—
for my wife, Dame Ilsebill;
has something she would will.”
“What now?” The fish scarcely broke the water.
“She would be Pope.”
“Go home; she is so already.”
He went, stumbling. The palace was a basilica vast as winter; Ilsebill sat upon the pontifical throne, triple crown upon her head, candles wavering like stars at her feet. Priests chanted; cardinals bowed till their foreheads touched marble.
“Are you content now?” whispered the fisherman, cold to his bones.
Ilsebill looked down all the aisles of the world and saw, beyond them all, one thing more.
“No,” she said softly. “No. I will be like the Dear God Himself. Go to the fish.”
The fisherman’s knees gave way. “Wife,” he said, “for the love of heaven, leave off. God we cannot be.”
“Go,” said Ilsebill. “I will be God.”
He went because there was nothing else left in him but going. The sky pressed down; the dunes crouched. The sea was roaring, towering, green-black, flinging dead foam high as the dunes, and the sand ran from under his feet.
His voice shook in the gale:
“Man of the Sea, come up to me—
for my wife, Dame Ilsebill;
has something she would will.”
The flounder rose once more, a pale, pitiless glimmer.
“Well?”
The words crept out of the fisherman like eels from a net. “She would be—God.”
There was no pause, no counsel, no sigh.
“Go home,” said the fish. “She sits again in her old hovel.”
The sea fell flat as if a fist had pressed it. The wind dropped. The fisherman turned and ran.
There stood their turf hut, as lean and leaky as before, the little pot sulking on the fire. Ilsebill sat on a three-legged stool, apron over her knees, staring at nothing as if she had seen the end of the world and found it small.
They lived thereafter as well as any two can in a poor place with a lesson in it. The fisherman went out each day and brought home what God sent; Ilsebill, when she looked over the dunes, kept her tongue behind her teeth. And if the sea glittered sometimes as if a prince turned in it, neither called him.
So ends “The Fisherman and His Wife”: a tale that grows like a storm, teaching in the voice of surf that enough is a word worth learning before the sea says it for you.
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