When the man went home, his wife was no longer in the hovel, but
instead of it there stood a small cottage, and she was sitting on a
bench before the door. Then she took him by the hand and said to him,
“Just come inside, look, now isn’t this a great deal better?” So they
went in, and there was a small porch, and a pretty little parlor and
bedroom, and a kitchen and pantry, with the best of furniture, and
fitted up with the most beautiful things made of tin and brass,
whatsoever was wanted. And behind the cottage there was a small yard,
with hens and ducks, and a little garden with flowers and fruit.
“Look,” said the wife, “is not that nice!” “Yes,” said the husband,
“and so we must always think it,—now we will live quite contented.” “We
will think about that,” said the wife. With that they ate something and
went to bed.
Everything went well for a week or a fortnight, and then the woman
said, “Hark you, husband, this cottage is far too small for us, and the
garden and yard are little; the Flounder might just as well have given
us a larger house. I should like to live in a great stone castle; go to
the Flounder, and tell him to give us a castle.” “Ah, wife,” said the
man, “the cottage is quite good enough; why should we live in a
castle?” “What!” said the woman; “just go there, the Flounder can
always do that.” “No, wife,” said the man, “the Flounder has just given
us the cottage, I do not like to go back so soon, it might make him
angry.” “Go,” said the woman, “he can do it quite easily, and will be
glad to do it; just you go to him.”
The man’s heart grew heavy, and he would not go. He said to himself,
“It is not right,” and yet he went. And when he came to the sea the
water was quite purple and dark-blue, and grey and thick, and no longer
so green and yellow, but it was still quiet. And he stood there and
said—
“Flounder, flounder in the sea,
Come, I pray thee, here to me;
For my wife, good Ilsabil,
Wills not as I’d have her will.”
“Well, what does she want, then?” said the Flounder. “Alas,” said the
man, half scared, “she wants to live in a great stone castle.” “Go to
it, then, she is standing before the door,” said the Flounder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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