you ask it for anything?" said the wife. "No," said the man; "what should I ask for?" "Ah!" said the wife, "we live very wretchedly here, in this nasty dirty pigstye; do go back and tell the fish we want a snug little cottage."
The fisherman did not much like the business: however, he went to the sea-shore; and when he came back there the water looked all yellow and green. And he stood at the water's edge, and said,—
"O man of the sea!
Hearken to me!
My Wife Ilsabill
Will have her own will,
And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!"
Then the fish came swimming to him, and said, "Well, what is her will? what does your wife want?" "Ah!" said the fisherman, "she says that when I had caught you, I ought to have asked you for something before I let you go; she does not like living any longer in the pigstye, and wants a snug little cottage." "Go home, then," said the fish; "she is in the cottage already!" So the man went home, and saw his wife standing at the door of a nice trim little cottage. "Come in, come in!" said she; "is not this much better than the filthy pigstye we had?" And there was a parlour, and a bedchamber, and a kitchen; and behind the cottage there was a little garden, planted with all sorts of flowers and fruits; and there was a courtyard behind, full of ducks and chickens. "Ah!" said the fisherman, "how happily we shall live now!" "We will try to do so, at least," said his wife.
Everything went right for a week or two, and then
