"The Fisherman and his
Wife" in Household Stories from the Bros. Grimm,
translated by Lucy Crane.
European/Germany
5-6 minutes
The fisherman's wife always
wanting more from the enchanted prince
The fisherman, his wife, and
the enchanted prince/flounder
Poor husband and wife
struggling to survive
Husband fishing/Discovering
enchanted prince
Unsatisfied Wife/Wanting
more (cottage, castle, king, emperor, control the sun and moon)
Returning to lake
"And there they are
sitting to this very day."
Poor married couple
struggling to live. Husband decides to
go fishing to catch some food for them to eat. Catches a very large flounder
that speaks to him and tells him that he is an enchanted prince. The fisherman throws him back into the
water. When wife hears of this, she
begins ordering the fisherman to return to the lake and make wishes to the
enchanted prince for a better life. She
keeps wanting more and more until finally she wants to control the sun and the
moon each day and the fish takes everything away from them and restores their
original life.
"Oh man, oh man, if man
you be
Or flounder, flounder in the
sea.
Such a tiresome wife I have
got
For she wants what I do
not."
"And it is there they
are sitting to this very day."
Colors of lake on each
visit: clear, green and yellow, purple and dark
blue, dark grey, black,
dark/stormy with huge clouds and waves all about.
Repetition in story, magical
fish should be appealing to preschool
age. The ability to describe the lavish changes
to the wife's life should interest a young audience. Descriptive words and the
addition of a few sounds (i.e. fishing pole) bring a very playful quality to
the story. They might not understand
the ending, but will recognize it as a conclusion to everything that they have
just heard. When I told this
story to my college age
roommates, only two of them really understood the ending! So you never know
British Folktales, "The
fisherman and his wife," Katherine Briggs.
The Magic Gold Fish, Demi.
(Russia)
Briggs- The language was
slightly more difficult to discern, but it would still be a fine story to tell.
Demi- Russian skew on the
story. Contains wife wishing ultimately
to be a Czarina and rule the "golden fishes." Concept of the golden fish didn't appeal to
me.
Crane- A lot of room for elaboration with sounds and descriptions. Story was too long, but was easily cut without harming the structure of the story.