"Well, what does she want?"
"Ah!" answered the fisherman, "my wife says that when I had caught you, I ought to have asked you for something before I let you go again. She does not like living any longer in the ditch, and wants a 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 cottage.
"Come in, come in," said she. "Is not this much better than the ditch?"
There was a parlour, a bedchamber, and a kitchen; and behind the cottage there was a little garden with all sorts of flowers and fruits, and a courtyard full of ducks and chickens.
"Ah," said the fisherman, "how happily we shall live!"
"We will try to do so, at least," said his wife.
Everything went right for a week or two, and then Dame Alice said—
"Husband, there is not room enough in this cottage, the courtyard and garden are a great deal too small. I should like to have a large stone castle to live in, so go to the fish again and tell him to give us a castle."