So the lad wrapped the fish up in a clean white napkin and laid it in a wicker basket, and then off he marched to the king’s castle to try his luck there, as the stork had said.
Rap! tap! tap! he knocked at the door.
Well, and what did he want?
Oh, he had brought a fish that he had caught over at the river yonder, but he would show it to nobody but the king himself.
No, it did no good for them to ask and to question and to talk; what he had said he had said. So at last they had to take him up-stairs, and there was the king sitting upon a golden throne with a golden crown upon his head and a golden sceptre in his hand.
“Well, and why do you wish to see me?” That was what the king said.
It was no word that the lad spoke with his tongue, but he just unfolded the napkin, and showed the king what he had brought in the wicker basket.
When the king saw the gold and silver fish, he thought he had never seen anything so wonderful in all of his life before. Then it was just as the stork had said. He must and would have the fish, no matter what it cost; and what would the lad take for it?
Why, the body over at the river yonder, who had put the lad up to catching the fish, had told him that there was only one price to be asked for it. Now, if the king would let him have the princess for his wife, he might have the fish and welcome; for that was the price, and the long and the short of it.
Well, the king hemmed and hawed, but he did not speak the little word “no;” and after a while he said he would send for the princess, and see what she had to say about it. So the princess came, and she was a beauty I can tell you, for the very sight of her was enough to make one’s heart melt inside of one, like a lump of butter in the oven. And as for the wits of her, why, she was just as smart as she was pretty (which is saying much and a little over), and that is why the king had sent for her, for he wanted to get the gold and silver fish without paying the price for it.