There was once upon a time a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a piss pot near the sea. Every day the fisherman went out fishing, and he fished a long time. Once he was sitting there fishing and looking into the clear water when his hook went to the bottom, deep down, and when he pulled it out, he had caught a large flounder. Then the flounder said to him, "I beg you to let me live. I am not an ordinary flounder, but an enchanted prince. Put me back into the water, and let me swim."
"Well," said the man, "there's no need to say more. I can certainly let a fish swim away who knows how to talk." Then he put it back into the water, and the flounder quickly disappeared to the bottom, leaving a long trail of blood behind him.
The man then went home to his wife in the piss pot and told her that he had caught a flounder that had told him he was an enchanted prince, and that he had let it swim away. "Didn't you ask for anything first?" said the woman. "No," said the man. What should I have asked for?"
"Oh," said the woman. "It is terrible living in this piss pot. It is filled with stench and filth. Go back and ask for a little hut for us."
The man did not want to, but he went back to the sea, and when he arrived it was all yellow and green, and he stood next to the water and said:
Mandje! Mandje! Timpe Te!
Flounder, flounder, in the sea!
My wife, my wife Ilsebill,
Wants not, wants not, what I will
The flounder swam up and said, "What does she want then?"
"Oh," said the man, "I did catch you, and my wife says that I really should have asked for something. She doesn't want to live in a piss pot any longer. She would like to have a hut."
"Go home," said the flounder. "She already has it."
The man went home, and his wife was standing in the door of a hut, and she said to him, "Come in. See, now isn't this much better." And there was a parlor and a bedroom and a kitchen; and outside there was a little garden with all kinds of vegetables, and a yard with hens and ducks.
"Oh," said the man. "Now we can live well."
"Yes," said the woman, "we'll give it a try."
Everything went well for a week or two, and then the woman said, "Husband. This hut is too small. The yard and the garden are too little. I want to live in a large stone castle. Go back to the flounder and tell him to get a castle for us."
"Oh, wife," said the man. The flounder has just given us the hut. I don't want to go back so soon. It may make the flounder angry."
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