The Fisherman and His Wife
Encyclopedia
The Fisherman and His Wife is a German fairy tale
collected by the Brothers Grimm
, tale no. 19. It is Aarne-Thompson type 555, the fisherman and his wife. Its theme was used in The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish
, a 1835 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin
. Mrs Ramsey reads the story to James, her son in Virginia Woolf's
To the Lighthouse
. Gunther Grass's The Flounder is also loosely based on the story.
who claims to be an enchanted prince
. The fisherman kindly releases it. When his wife hears the story, she says he ought to have had the flounder grant him a wish. She tells him to go back and ask the flounder to grant her wish for a nice house instead of their hovel. He returns to the shore and is uneasy when he finds the sea seems to be turning dark when it was so clear before. He makes up a rhyme to summon the flounder, and it grants the wife's wish. However, the wife gets greedy and makes increasingly outrageous demands: a castle
, become queen
, become empress, and become pope
. The fisherman knows this is wrong but there is no reasoning with his wife. The flounder grants the wishes, but the sea grows increasingly stormy
every time the fisherman goes to summon it. Eventually the wife goes too far when she wishes to become equal to God
. The flounder revokes everything it granted, and the fisherman and his wife are back in their hovel.
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
collected by the Brothers Grimm
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
, tale no. 19. It is Aarne-Thompson type 555, the fisherman and his wife. Its theme was used in The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish
The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish
right|thumb|The fairy tale commemorated on a Soviet Union stampThe Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish is a fairy tale in verse by Alexander Pushkin. Pushkin wrote the tale in autumn 1833 and it was first published in the literary magazine Biblioteka dlya chteniya in May 1835...
, a 1835 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin
Aleksandr Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature....
. Mrs Ramsey reads the story to James, her son in Virginia Woolf's
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
To the Lighthouse
To the Lighthouse
To the Lighthouse is a novel by Virginia Woolf. A novel set on the Ramsays and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920, it skilfully manipulates temporal and psychological elements....
. Gunther Grass's The Flounder is also loosely based on the story.
Synopsis
The fisherman and his wife live in a hovel by the sea. One day the fisherman catches a golden flounderFlounder
The flounder is an ocean-dwelling flatfish species that is found in coastal lagoons and estuaries of the Northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.-Taxonomy:There are a number of geographical and taxonomical species to which flounder belong.*Western Atlantic...
who claims to be an enchanted prince
Prince
Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...
. The fisherman kindly releases it. When his wife hears the story, she says he ought to have had the flounder grant him a wish. She tells him to go back and ask the flounder to grant her wish for a nice house instead of their hovel. He returns to the shore and is uneasy when he finds the sea seems to be turning dark when it was so clear before. He makes up a rhyme to summon the flounder, and it grants the wife's wish. However, the wife gets greedy and makes increasingly outrageous demands: a castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
, become queen
Queen regnant
A queen regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right, in contrast to a queen consort, who is the wife of a reigning king. An empress regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right over an empire....
, become empress, and become pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
. The fisherman knows this is wrong but there is no reasoning with his wife. The flounder grants the wishes, but the sea grows increasingly stormy
Storm
A storm is any disturbed state of an astronomical body's atmosphere, especially affecting its surface, and strongly implying severe weather...
every time the fisherman goes to summon it. Eventually the wife goes too far when she wishes to become equal to God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. The flounder revokes everything it granted, and the fisherman and his wife are back in their hovel.