The Fisherman and His Wife- Bedtime Stories for Kids

“The Fisherman and His Wife” is another well-known fairy tale in the tale collection of Brothers Grimm. It was published in 1812 with the main message of dissatisfaction and greed. “The Fisherman and His Wife” is classified as an anti-fairy tale which means having a tragic rather than a happy ending with the protagonists losing at the end of the story. The anti-tales usually combine horror, black comedy, mean-spirited practical jokes on seemingly innocent characters, sudden brutal twists and biting satire. In this sense, “The fisherman and his wife” is very typical for this type of tale.

Brothers Grimm obtained the manuscript of “The fisherman and his wife” from a German painter- Philipp Otto Runge in 1809, then they published this tale in their first edition of Kinder-und Hausmarchen in 1812 as tale no. 19.

“The Fisherman and His Wife” is similar to a Russian tale named “The Old Man, His Wife, and the Fish”, the Japanese named “The Stonecutter”, and the Indian “The Bullock’s Balls”.

Since the tale conveys a deep message about human nature, “The fisherman and his wife” has been adapted to many forms of entertainment. The famous Russian poet- Aleksandr Pushkin wrote a poem named “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish” in 1833. The tale was also mentioned in a novel by Virginia Woolf called “To the Lighthouse”. A short cartoon based on this story was part of the American animated television series, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. In 1997, the story was given a Spanish-flavored adaptation on the animated TV series. An episode of the Disney TV cartoon Timon and Pumbaa titled "Be More Pacific" is based on this story.

So, ‘’The Fisherman and his wife” brings us to the seaside, where a poor fisherman and his wife live in a hovel. One day, the husband catches a fish which is abnormal from other fish. This fish can speak human voice. The fish begs him to set him free, and he will be granted wishes in return. With born kindness, the fisherman immediately releases the fish without making a wish himself. However, when he comes back home and tells his wife the story, she insists that he needs to go back and ask the flounder to grant her wish for a nice house. Of all reluctance, the fisherman returns to the shore. He summons the fish by a rhythm, and it grants the wife’s wish. The sea seems to become turbid though it is clear before. The fisherman is satisfied but his wife is not. She needs more and requests her husband to go back and tells the fish to make him a king. He does not want but cannot refuse his wife. The flounder fulfills his wish, but his wife cannot stop. She sends him back to ask for more and more. The sea becomes rougher and rougher after each time he makes a wish.
Eventually, the wife wishes to command the sun, moon, and heavens. She forces her husband to tell the flounder her wish: she wants to become equal to God. This time, instead of satisfying the husband, the fish tells him to go home and says that his wife is sitting in their old hovel again. The sea now becomes calm again. The fisherman and his wife are once more living in nothing but their old and dirty hovel.

The moral of “The fisherman and his wife” is greediness will eventually get you nothing if you cannot figure out the limit of your greed. Or real happiness is when you can find yourself happy with what you are having.