Read the fairy tale Elena loves
The Fisherman and His Wife
A magic fish, a wish that is granted — and granted again, and again — and the quiet lesson underneath it all about knowing when enough is enough.
There once lived a poor fisherman and his wife in a shack by the sea. One day, the fisherman caught a fish that spoke — it told him it was an enchanted prince, and begged to be thrown back. The fisherman, more startled than greedy, let it go without asking for anything at all.
That evening, when he told his wife, she was furious. “You caught a magic fish and asked for nothing? Go back and ask it for a proper cottage, at least — anything is better than this shack.”
The first wish
The fisherman returned to the shore and called out, and the fish appeared and granted the wish without complaint. The shack became a cottage, and for a little while, the wife was happy.
But only a little while. Soon she sent her husband back to ask for a castle instead of a cottage. Then, once she had the castle, to be made king. Then emperor. Each time the fisherman returned to the sea more reluctant than before, and each time, the sea itself seemed to grow more troubled — calm water turning to grey, then to storm, matching the growing size of the wish.
One wish too many
Finally, the wife wished to be equal to God, controlling the sun and moon themselves. This time, when the fisherman called out to the sea, it did not calm. The fish granted no wish at all — and when the fisherman walked home, he found the castle gone, the crown gone, and his wife back in the same broken-down shack where they had started, with nothing changed except how much they had each learned about wanting more.
Bavarian Lullaby
Play this softly while you read this tale aloud — a traditional handplayed lullaby from Bavaria, in southern Germany.
More stories, more lullabies
This is one tale in a growing collection of traditional stories from around the world — each one paired, where we can, with a real lullaby from the same culture.