Page:Hansel and Gretel and other stories.djvu/61

THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE HERE 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 on a sudden his float was dragged away deep under the sea: and 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 57